Monday, June 25, 2018

Strange Magic - Embroidered Flesh

Magical tattoos are a fairly common type of magical enhancement. Various systems handle them in a wide variety of ways, but one of the more common ones is for the tattoo to be a temporary thing. Once its power is used, the tattoo goes away, or at least the enchantment does. 

A little while ago I was shown this website by Eliza Bennett called "A woman’s work is never done" where the artist says:

Using my own hand as a base material, I considered it a canvas upon which I stitched into the top layer of skin using thread to create the appearance of an incredibly work worn hand. By using the technique of embroidery, traditionally employed to represent femininity and applying it to the expression of it’s opposite, I hope to challenge the pre-conceived notion that ‘women’s work’ is light and easy. Aiming to represent the effects of hard work arising from employment in low paid ancillary jobs such as cleaning, caring, and catering, all traditionally considered to be ‘women’s work’.

Not only is this a fascinating project, it's also amazingly inspirational, or at least it was to me. I can easily imagine something like this being enchanted, and then being destroyed when the magic was used up.

I imagine the process both of embroidering the magical thread, and using it up would be... potentially painful?

2 comments:

  1. I can see your line of reasoning. But, this woman is clearly a stitch short of a full line. IMHO.

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    Replies
    1. Is it any crazier than people who are covered in tattoos or piercings? Besides, the top layer of skin is dead anyway! So this isn't even painful, just... odd looking.

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