Things with Faces

You lookin' at me? By "you" I mean of course an inanimate object that purposefully or not is sporting a face. The answer to the question, then, is always "yes," as in: yes, I am indeed lookin' at you.

Maybe I was left alone too much as a child, or maybe I'm congenitally immature, but I feel the need to surround myself with things with faces. I want the Philippe Starck gnome stools, with their sleepy eyes. I want Salvor pillows lush in their animalia. I even have Koziol stirring spoons that grin as they lap my homemade marinara.

In college (cue eyeliner) I took a series of photographs of things with faces out in the world. Marching my battalions of plastic wind-ups about, I staged the emotional response of pulseless beasts. I called the whole project "Please Don't Lick the Walls," partially in honor of the beloved James Marshall children's books entitled "The Stupids," and because I wanted my transcript to read "Please Don't Lick the Walls." Which, by the way, it does.

As the emotional branding of products becomes all the more transparent in the early oughts of this century, I find myself more at home in the world. I have always wanted a huggable world, a love-filled and punch-drunk comedy populated with exquisite bodies. I walk into the world and meet the gaze of a stool, a pillow, a spoon. Believe me, I look.