Dear Torso,
We just met each other not even a month ago and I feel as though we have known each other forever. I come and visit you week after week and our relationship only gets stronger. I mean, I learn something new about you every single time we hang out. And the funny thing is you do not ever have to speak a word to me. Almost everything I feel that I need to know about you is written all over your face. Well not literally, since you no longer have a face… or did you ever? Well, in any case, I will address that face matter later on in this letter.
First, I feel that I need to tell you that you are not a real person. I know you feel this way since you are among the most realistic sculptures depicting human forms in this beautiful sculpture garden, but this is not the case. You are not a real person at all. You have been casted into bronze, which is nothing more than a mixture of copper and tin. Furthermore, you have no limbs. Granted there are people in this world who in fact have no arms or legs, so allow me to include the fact that you are headless as well. People have heads. You are nothing more than William Zorach’s interpretation of the torso of the female body. I am not saying this to hurt you in any way; I just need you to understand this. He did not even have the decency to interpret you as a real, full- and able-bodied woman. He stripped you of your arms and your legs and your head to make you spectacle to other people. Luckily, this torso of yours in itself is able to express to us that you are supposed to be a woman. Otherwise, we never would have known. You have no other identity. No fingerprints or footprints to distinguish yourself from the next criminal, no face to be remembered by, no hair to play with… and thinking of all of these things you have been deprived of, that I am sure most of us take for granted each day, I cannot help but feel sorry for you. Where is the individuality? All women have hips and breasts and stomachs, but it is the differences in the contours of our faces – the ways in which we smile, the texture and “flowy-ness” of our hair, the wrinkles that form around our eyes when we are happy, sad or angry – that distinguish us one from another. But… I must ask myself – how many women do I know that are built to have only torsos? Absolutely none thank goodness. (No offense!) So perhaps the fact that you have none of those distinguishing features is actually what works in your case to distinguish you, Torso, from the rest of us. This major difference, these major absences, force us to focus on an area of the body that we probably would not otherwise focus on when trying to find meaning behind a work of art.
Honing in on this, the only part of your body that was left after Zorach’s mutilation (if it is even a mutilation), I was able to decipher for myself your entire childhood, adolescence, and future. As for your childhood, you grew up with only one parent, one creator. This person is William Zorach. He formed you initially from the rougher Labrador Granite, then later made the decision to cast your form into the more sophisticated and durable material of bronze, leading you into your teenage years. This is around the time when onlookers began to notice the uniqueness that is your body shape. This is the uniqueness that I have come across well into your “adulthood” as a sculpture, but I say it is better that I noticed late than never. The top half of your body is much smaller in proportion to the bottom half of it. Your waist is super small and your measurements are not realistic at all – at least in accordance with my body. Why is that? Well I know you are not able to answer, so I will give you an answer and you can just let me know if I am right or not. Again, William Zorach is manipulating the female body. He is the creator, so he has exploited it to his preferences and his perceptions. This man has literally constructed a woman to his liking, and you are her. As for your future, you will continue to be put on display, aging gracefully and being observed and picked apart by many students and other spectators. According to my research, I’ve discovered that bronze, when exposed to moisture over long periods of time, needs to be maintained by cleaning and waxing regularly to ward off any damaging moisture. So you will be able to undergo this primping and pampering for the rest of your existence here at the Sheldon Sculpture Garden. Ironic, is it not? After initially being manipulated and exploited as a woman by your creator in the past, your future will consist of being prudently cared for and appreciated. Every woman’s dream…
Well, Torso, thank you so much for becoming a part of the Sheldon Sculpture Garden here at the University. I knew I wanted to write about and get to know you as a sculpture as soon as I saw your gleaming “bronze-ness” on that bright and sunny spring day. Hopefully you will be able to help me answer some of the questions I have comprised for you in this letter, and hopefully you appreciate some of the observations and emotions I have expressed for you – not only as a sculpture, but as a representation of the female body. I am very pleased that this representation is a respectable one, in that it is not risqué in any manner. However, as I have mentioned previously, I am bothered that you have been manipulated in this way, but this manipulation is what has made you what you are – and differentiated you from the other sculptures in this garden and in history.
Thank you so much for your time, Torso!
Talk to you later,
Nina
