obsession with guilt as opposed to absolution

I made an installation from a dream.  New knowledge obtained between.

Death is a central theme in this piece.  Four figurative central characters fill the space.  The white fluffy shape in the center represents the image from my dream.  I had dreamt that I had been at an art opening, and I was in a room with large stuffed animals made from felt situated on the floor.  There was one stuffed animal that stood out which had a u-shape extending from its head.  It was the softness of this large body, and in particular, the u-shape on the top of its head that I was interested in.  This u-shape, I realize was pointing towards a corner of the room, and was offset from a cylindrically shaped object, which was the right shape to nest inside of the u-shaped head of the stuffed animal.

I realized when I awoke from that dream, that this stuffed animal illustrated the body of my mother’s dog laying on the floor in the back room of the vet’s office, fighting sedation, and awaiting his unnatural death.

The experience in the vet office had been a perilous one.  First, I had arrived at my Mother’s house, after refusing (earlier that day) to assist in putting this dog to sleep.  I walked in the door expecting to see Max sitting at the door anxious to greet me, or awakening from a nap on his chair.  I was frantic – when I noticed him missing and ran into the garage to see if my mother or brother had already left.  They were almost settled into the car, my brother in the driver seat, Max behind my brother, and my mother sitting next to Max.  I slid into the passenger door, to my family’s chagrin.  Max licked me on the face.

I was nervous the entire short ride to the vet, praising Max every time I noticed that he was sitting on his seat with good ears.  My brother was mad at me, and the air was tense.

We arrived at the vet’s office, with my hands tightly on Max’s leash, while he flailed me around the waiting rooms, happily sniffing everything in site.  My mother announced our arrival to the receptionist, who was soon joined by about 15 other girls dressed in scrubs that were all peering at Max.  One girl said, “That is so sad.”

My reaction to that comment was a desire to disassociate myself from my family and the situation.  I secretly hoped that none there was a member of my dog rescue group, or that any of them had seen me at the dog walk fundraiser I had volunteered at.

We were taken back to an examination room.

All along, I had hoped that the result of this visit would be the vet telling us that Max was okay, and that he (Dr. Mueller) had just the drug to cure Max.

I clinched Max’s leash, afraid that he would attack someone as we went through the procedures of signing Max’s life away.  I wondered what the legal implications were if Max attacked the vet.

Just like that, Dr. Mueller slipped a lead over Max’s head and removed his collar.  It was upsetting to see the imprint in his fur that the collar had left.   What if his attacks had been because of the pain from this collar that we had never bothered to take off (never dared to take off)?

Dr. Mueller opened the door to the back and was yanked down the hall.  We heard a struggle, the slamming of metal, and then he was back.

In his super fast tongue, he told us that it was taken care of, and we could go pay up font.  We would receive the remains in about a week.  My jaw dropped, and my mother said, "It’s over?! We had wanted to be with him.”

  Dr. Mueller said, "Ok you can come back and be with him.  I guess that’s okay.”

I had always wondered what it was like in the back of the vet’s office.  We were lead to a smallish room with a wall full of cages, and Max was in one on the bottom.  I looked up to a cage that held a cat that looked dazed.  I thought of my cat who had just died, and this cat looked just as skinny and resigned.

I knelt down and reached through the door to pet Max.  Dr. Mueller explained that he had given him a sedative to calm him down, and that he would wait until he was asleep to euthanize him.  He explained that animals reacted differently to the process, and they sometimes fought death.

Dr. Mueller let Max out of his cage, and Max stumbled out, eyes droopy.  The vet asked us to help Max lay down, and we did.  I felt safe with Max now, and I petted him.  My Mom and my brother did also.  We were all on the ground with Max.  A couple of times, Max tried to stand up.

The vet said he was ready when Max’s eyes closed.  I stroked Max’s head kissing him telling him I was sorry.  My words were worthless.  How could I truly mean that, when I was not willing to save or whisk him away to my house where I would reform him and he’d live happily ever…

My family stood up, and I remained, I felt helpless.  Wanting to rescue Max, block the injection, wanting to but knew I couldn’t.

The vet made us leave.   I left, hoping that one of the people there would take him home.  Hoping that one of those workers was more dominate, and would save him. Hoping that they made us leave because they weren’t really going to destroy him.

bondage

This installation looks at the implications of slavery on animals (pets), and how we humans are animals.  This installation compares humans to animal slaves, and how our social structure treats humans like they are animals.  I look at euthanasia and how we will put our animals to sleep when death is imminent, but we prefer humans to suffer quietly until their natural death.  I wrestle with the notion of natural death versus euthanasia, and euthanasia as a form of the death penalty.  The spinning pink “house vent’ in the corner represents my personal fear of breast cancer or any life threatening illness.  Being one of the millions in America who does not have health insurance, and not having adequate preventative health care to prevent major illness or to catch them in the beginning.  Many pet owners choose to euthanize their pets when faced with the cost of the cure that would extend their pet’s life.  I ask, why can’t we euthanize humans that pose a financial hardship for that ill person’s family?  And, why is it okay to put any being to death because they no longer suite suit the needs of society?

The fluffy white form in the corner that represents Max is soft and looks almost like one of my dead guinea pigs that had died in the room that this installation is contained in.  If you have ever held a guinea pig as it died, and felt the life pass from it, you would understand the soft lightness that happens to life forms before the rigor mortis sets in, which is what I was going for with this representation.

My dream had suggested a stuffed animal made out of felt, but I made Max out of fabric softener sheets.  I used the large sewed together fabric softener sheet that I had made for my untitled installation at Eyedrum in 1998.  This sheet was unfortunately comprised of unused fabric softener sheets, and I was obsessed with the artificial perfume smell and beauty of the sheets.  When I had sewn together those sheets, I had made a video of the rituals of purity and social necessity.  I recycle this metaphor, and reinterpret it depending on the context with each installation.  In this particular installation, I am representing Max lying in wait of death as a being wholly comprised of the social fabric and all its harmful chemicals and simultaneous pure beauty.

- Allison Rentz 2003