"The Fat Lady"
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Unfortunately, I don't know all that much about Baby Thelma's biography. In fact, the only thing I
really know is that she weighed 655 lbs in her prime. The main reason that I've included Thelma
as my fat lady is because of my mom. When my mom was a young child in the 1950s, she went to a friend's house to spend the night. The family decided to go to the carnival and took my mother along. When they entered the Freak Show, my mom became very distressed—crying and wailing, etc. Finally, they got around to the fat lady, Baby Thelma. She comforted my mom, took her on her lap and gave her an autographed picture (no, she doesn't still have it, darn it!). So, for my mom who loved the kindness of the fat lady, this one's for you! |
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Baby Thelma is the first of my leather figures that I've made smiling and showing her teeth. I used pearly seed beads for the teeth and really like the effect. The stand was created with many butterflies decorating it for three reasons. The most important is that butterflies are a symbol of the soul, and Thelma obviously had a lot of soul. Her kindness to a crying child (which she probably saw tons of every day) proves that she was a beautiful person. So, for me, the butterflies symbolize this inner beauty. Second, some dear friends of mine, Rhett and Kelly Johnson, gave me a box full of little metal trinkets for use in my work. I was sifting through this box and discovered lots of butterflies—enough to use in all the places I wanted to on the stand (I just painted them with model paints to make them match). Finally, when I made Thelma's chair (out of brass wire, soldered and bent), it reminded me of a butterfly's wings spreading out behind her. So, the butterflies on the stand also reinforced this. |
