I love stories within stories. I am fascinated by layered things, exploring to the core and delving inwards. I love how little hollow Russian dolls fit into each other, to be unscrewed and born out of each other, pulled from their multi-layered wooden womb – many dolls each diminishing in size and housing each other.
I remember as a child, thinking of myself as being the last and littlest doll and feeling both safe and precious, but also slightly claustrophobic.
I love how Russian dolls look and feel, all rounded, smooth and glossy. They are all integral parts of a whole, yet perfectly complete in themselves. They hold a mystery for me … this “layered-ness” and these delicate wooden dolls fitting perfectly snugly into each other, evoking for me, generations and representing a hierarchy, a family.
Dolls within dolls … symbolising a genesis, our beginnings and our origins. Exploring our differing levels of consciousness might be instrumental in furthering our creativity and individuality. Our cumulative experiences housed within us are there, to be rummaged through and delved into and unearthed, explored, embellished, or discarded.
Plato said: “The life which is unexamined is not worth living.”