the doomed furby lovers
i started making weird furbies during the pandemic, but this hobby became dormant for a while (besides just having the freaks around) until i moved to madison and found out about the friday the furbteenth exhibit. i went last year and knew i had to submit something when i saw this year's march madness/ides of march theme
originally the piece was imagined as a triptych of doomed lovers in the roman empire, except they're all girls, titled doomed furbyuri. unfortunately the third piece - tiberius and vipsania - escaped me once we got to the building phase and we scaled down to more of a doomed furbyuri/doomed furbyaoi diptych.
my wife is a big history nerd, especially byzantine/greco-roman stuff, so she was my inspiration. she also had the idea to have the furby lovers be one, dual-headed long furby
it is constructed of hot glue and paper mache and found materials and a little bit of blood and hair naturally shed throughout the process. and also hair from the paint brush i made from my wife's hair
BIG thanks to the Dane County Humane Society Thrift store - which is where we got most of the materials! Also our friend Claire who took me thrifting in New Orleans, and our friend Alexis, who 3d printed the faces for us.
the execution of a vestal furbgin and her lover
so vestal virgins were priestesses in rome, selected from a young age to serve the goddess of Rome's sacred hearth. the biggest rule of all in the name - you must remain a virgin. all things considered it wasn't that bad of a gig. you had social independence as a woman and after thirty years of service, you could retire and get married and would be a very desirable marriage candidate. the big downside was your chastity and your body were viewed as matters of national import.
a vestal virgin found to have had an affair would be led to a tomb and sealed in it. her lover would be beat to death. this is what i what depicted. they were once one dual headed long furby and have been violently torn apart
the virgin waits for death in her luxurious tomb, untouched but broken. her lover's shorn hair and viscera (stuffing) mix with the bounty of rome (grapes), as their executioners watch. behind them all, the hearth of vesta sits unlit. i think that's how they got caught. framing them are yonic orchids blooming from the virgin's deflowering, upon which a pair of birds sits
the separation of jesus and judas
i know it's blasphemous to say, but isn't judas hanging himself after giving jesus the kiss of death kind of romantic? jesus forgives judas and accepts his fate - judas damns himself, refusing to turn his regret into redemption.
this piece is each of them hanging from their respective graves, forever frozen in the cosmic loop of betrayal and forgiveness. if (in christian lore) aphiemi is only possible because of jesus' sacrifice, then aren't judas' actions just as inevitable, and important, and holy?
compared to the virgin and her lover, this is a chaste depiction. jesus and judas gaze at each other, paws and beaks close but not touching. the fatal kiss was theirs, not ours to witness. jesus is hooked on the cross while judas is dragged by his noose, which is looped to a tree of pomegranates (famously chthonic) and hyacinths (famously homosexual). behind them, mirrors make up the horizon, moon and sun, reflecting us, the viewer, into their scenery.
the sun rises, roses bloom, birds chirp, and pomegranates symbolize rebirth, too.
i made myself kind of sad as i made these tbh. like i made these beasts just to lock them in a moment of tragedy. i think it's a part of why we're not selling them (also because they're strange and fragile and amateurish) -- after this is over i'm going to dismantle the pieces and reunite the lovers and put them in my house somewhere.
originally these pieces were just what came to mind in reaction to the prompt. but it's a little hard, actually, to put a lot of hours and sweat into art and not start thinking about what it means to depict lovers torn apart by the violence of the empire in these deeply evil times. we're punished for agency, nonconformity, resistance, belief, love. granted, what this piece is missing from an anti-imperial art standpoint is that it only depicts the violence of the interior, against citizens.
that's what i think about constantly as things escalate around us: for many people this has already been happening for a long time
kind of a serious/bummer note for a furby project, but if you're reading this, you've probably been thinking about it to, at least a little bit.
i think the note/image i want to end on is a point my wife made. they lovers, frozen in this moment of tragedy, still gaze at each other; they still see each other; the can still feel the love between them. i don't think either of them would have done anything different.
notes from my wife and co creator
Hi this is the wife!
Tiberius was the second emperor of Rome and the stepson of August, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was a middling politician who was happily married to Vipsania, the daughter to Marcus, the heir to Rome. Marcus dies. Augustus forces Tiberius to divorce Vipsania and marry Marcus's widow, Julia the Elder. Vipsania was pregnant with Tiberius's son.
The story goes that one day, Tiberius came across Vipsania in the marketplace. He embarrassed himself - crying, clutching at her skirt, pleading and begging. He was dragged away and efforts were made to separate the two. As far as I'm aware, there's no indication what Vipsania felt.
Tiberius-Vipsania fell through because of scope creep and, frankly speaking, it was an ambitious+technically difficult idea. While my wife had the idea to depict them because of my love for the story, I'm glad we didn't.
For the Vestal virgin+her lover, their love dooms them both to agonizing deaths but I like to think that the fires of Rome happen shortly after because Vesta turned the fire out to push the lovers together for warmth. That the sin wasn't the fire going out but the politicians separating a family (goddess of hearth, home and family!). Besides that - I take comfort that their tragedy is WHY we remember them and it wasn't in vain.
For Jesus and Judas, it's Jesus's love for all of mankind that redeems not just us but Judas. Judas didn't betray Jesus for money, he betrayed Jesus to buy better food, better hotels, better sandals. Maybe to have money so Jesus never needed to break bread and fish into a million pieces.
Tiberius never does anything notable except die after his tragedy. For the Vestal Virgin, her lover, for Jesus and Judas - the scene we depict isn't their greatest accomplishment. For Tiberius, the story of Vipsania in the Marketplace is the only thing I care to remember him for. He was probably an inadequate, un-prepared Emperor who let people walk over him. There was another emperor who was separated from the woman he loved. Justinian's uncle, Emperor Justin, forbade him to marry his long-time mistress Theodora. Justinian capitulated and took the throne and when Justin died, he passed a law allowing him to marry Theodora. His love for Theodora allowed not just HIM but countless others to break socioeconomic barriers.
I can't imagine myself in Tiberius's shoes and not doing the same. At least make the divorce worth it, man.