A love letter to a pillow

The following is an informal response to the First Friday opening reception of Recreationical

Serentorium, a collaborative installation by Monica Dixon and Annie Woodfill on view at

Vulpes Bastille through the end of June 2018.

Inside the gallery some people were holding chiffon bean bags and I felt a sense of anxiety.

A worry that I needed something to occupy my hands. White panels of fabric hanging from

the ceiling kept me calm and secluded in my corner. Annie entered the room and handed me

a bean bag, like the kind you would use to play corn hole. I could stop, ponder, and make

sounds with this bean bag. It took up the space in my hands normally occupied by my phone.

There were several of these bean bags on a pedestal, each slightly imperfect; not quite

square, not quite round. I set down this bag and picked up another, the next one was

heavier. It had more beans and oblong corners; as the beans moved from side to side it felt

like an oversized worm.

Across the gallery was another pile of bean bags, one made of gold lame. The texture made

me feel like sweating, the kind of sweating one does when dancing in the middle of summer.

No relief, no tactile satisfaction, just dewy discomfort. As far away from comfortable as you’d

want to get. My fingers stuck to the attractive metallic synthetic of the fabric. The rhythm with

this object was off and it didn’t feel right, I was not in the mood to settle for subpar tactility. I

picked up another oblong chiffon bean bag and kept walking.

A third pile of bean bags was near the door. I approached the pile, where on top sat a small

pillow, slightly larger than the bean bags, made of well-worn terrycloth. The worn out fabric

made me consider its age and the possible damage inflicted upon it, its traumas, its scars.

And yet it was still so soft. I picked up this pillow, slightly smaller than something I could lay

my head on. It was lighter and sweeter than I imagined. Its stuffing inside made me grit my

teeth, in the same way one might when the conscious intellectual self is questioning the

desires of an inner hopeless romantic. The pillow was wedged between my fingers, and floss

of the foam layers were rubbing against one another. A tactile reminder of my cheap

polyester mattress cover, a rustling of familiar texture. I couldn’t hold this pillow gently any

longer. This object wanted to be squeezed, calling for contact beyond sweetness. This pillow

made me suddenly aware of my sublimation of the romantic need for touch. A longing for

exchange in power that might leave a mark. The pillow activated my own need to be handled

in a caring way, like a delicate blouse: “wash on warm with two scoops of Oxyclean.”

With the bean bags, my desire was to support their weight and keep the object balanced and

moving. However, the well-worn terry cloth pillow made for an intimate and haptic

connection. Not in the Silicon-Valley-haptic way of your phone vibrating in your pocket with a

notification, but in the way you would squeeze a lover upon waking in the same bed. The

way you might embrace their pillow in their absence, or how you might hold close their twiceused

bath towel. Each of these scenarios could play out in my mind along the pure white

panels in the room, like blank screens at the drive-in theater. This called to the harmony of

these tactile objects relationship to the minimalist potential of the rest of the work in the

space.

This pillow forced me to consider all the strange actions we take when falling in love, when

we find that one object of our desire, complete with flaws, insecurities, fear, shame, guilt, yet

all of those negative things are diluted by our desire to touch. That moment of obsession you

realize that loving is now your willing burden to bear. That person who dilutes your attention

to any others and makes ever more beautiful your subtle awareness of the world.

I put the pillow down on a pedestal and allowed myself to let it go. Only to return home with

this need to write it a letter.

East/South installation image from Recreationical Serentorium by Monica Dixon and Annie Woodfill.

Image courtesy of the artists.

Station Detail by Monica Dixon and Annie Woodfill. Image courtesy of the artists.