Worn with Love: Coffee Dyed Rabbit

I have ventured to different charity shops looking for older, vintage looking things can manipulate and use in my work

The reason I wanted to use a teddy of some sort was to represent comfort, innocence and emotional security. By staining it with coffee and rubbing it into dirty sources, my aim was to create a worn, loved and marked by time feel.

The teddy acts as a physical memory, something that was held onto long after the person connected to it had gone. It reflects the emotional residue people leave behind. Prior to the person leaving it, I wanted to suggest the love, and the strong attachment the individual had to it that ultimately led to such a dirty and used teddy.

Linking to my original theme of letters, it symbolises childhood memories that can’t be revisited, or affection that wasn’t properly expressed. The aged look it has expressed an emotional history that is carried with the teddy.