Mannequin One
I shared a studio with a friend of mine on the corner of St Laurent Boulevard and Duluth Street. Through his many meanderings through pawn shops, garage sales and government auctions he had acquired a late 60’s store mannequin. An armless torso and head. It was reminiscent of the ones that could be found in my grandmothers store – “Chez Rose Marie” – a “woman’s undergarment and lingerie store” on Park Avenue. I used to joke that I had spent more time in a “woman’s undergarment” store than most women! My grandfather was the bookkeeper for the store and I would often drop by for a coffee. I recall the glances I would get from the customers as I walked in and made my way through the narrow store, past the dressing rooms and into the back office. The clientele ranged from Jewish Orthodox to ultraconservative Greek to staunchly religious Catholic clientele – all of whom raised an eyebrow to any male prescence. I occasionally helped with moving and changing some of the mannequins that sat atop the 8 foot high shelves lining the store with hundreds of bra and girdle boxes. On one occasion I was at the top of a ladder passing a bra that I had just expertly removed from a mannequin. At just that instance the door opened and a Hasidic man walked in closely flanked by his wife. Both were completely unprepared for the sight of me passing a red bra down to my grandfather. The woman let out a gasp of disbelief and both looked wide-eyed at us in shock. Then, without a word and in perfect mechanical percussion, they both quickly turned in unison and scurried out of the store!! My grandmother having heard the bell triggered by the opening door, came out from the back office and saw me on the ladder holding one bra strap while my grandfather grasped the other as the couple raced out of the store. “I think they thought we were going to serve his wife.” my grandfather said as my grandmother burst into laughter.
The image was created from over 100 different images taken with a Canon 20D and 100mm macro lens, and then “montaged” together in Photoshop. The print image size is 40X70 inches
I was trying to give the mannequin a somewhat nostalgic look and feel, reminiscent of the memories of my grandmothers store through the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s. The piece was one of the earlier images. As an experiment, I later took the same images, shuffled them, and started from scratch. I reprocessed the original images and created a second version with the first out-of-sight.
Les Incon•nus Series
Cubist Montage Gallery
