I joyfully make porcelain dioramas that feature farmed and wild animals as petite characters within idyllic, natural settings. The scenes appear whimsical at first, with the additions of gold detailed fairy wings, teeny cakes with teenier strawberries on top and glittering twinkling stars. Yet really they are very simple. Just nature and animals. The animals in a state of simply ‘being’. Perhaps gifting, or waiting or peacefully watching.
There is a reverence felt – particularly for the Mother Cow. She is often adorned with jewellery, given gifts by the other animals and the land. Sometimes with her Calf by her side, she is the symbol of Mother Earth. She is life giving, her body capable of performing miracles. In these scenes this phenomenon is presented as wondrous instead of an opportunity to exploit and take from her. The latter being societies view – for the most part.
So maybe you see beyond the attention to detail, the beautiful pieces and you might feel an uncomfortable melancholy. The scenes are idyllic – yet do you feel something else? Something less than joy? I make these scenes with half my energy coming from a love of animals and nature, and the other half comes from sadness for our collective treatment of both, all. It is true that more than one feeling can exist within you at any moment and so it is the case with these scenes. They simultaneously hold joy, wonder, magic, sadness and cruelty.
We are invited to explore this multitude of feelings. It is not often difficult to tolerate a feeling of joy, but can you hold that deeper sadness lurking in there? Or does your mind dumb it down, soothe it away, tell you you’re not capable of handling that emotion?
I wonder if what partly prevents many people from making compassionate choices about the destiny of animals isn’t that they don’t care, but that they cannot tolerate the emotions that come up when they deeply do. Because when you do care about animals enough to make the choice to not partake in their exploitation, you have also become aware of what is done to them. And that level of cruelty feels like too much for the human heart to bear.
Mine has without a doubt been broke several times but I also know that I can let those feelings be there, feel shattered by them, yet still step forwards. Because it’s not really sadness you’re feeling – it’s love and compassion. And there is infinite space in your heart for that.
Thanks for reading,
Marie
x