| MATERIALS:
Size 11 Czech seed beads: inside lined pink AB, white, cream AB, red
AB, pink pearl, transparent purple. Pretty, pretty, pretty!
Size 11 Japanese seed beads: transparent orchic, frosted white, transparent
red, gild lined lilac opal, transparent pink. How can the poor girl have
such an ugly face when she is made with such care, insuch beautiful colors?
Japanese Delica beads: white pearl. Exquisite, especially with those
black plastic cubes!
Japanese 4mm cube beads: frosted white and just one frosted black AB
hiding from the dentist
Wooden 3mm rounds, pink and purple (so no surprising color choices there
then).
Etched metal 18mm washers with the words 'happiness' and 'delight'; this
is what she is constantly looking for, but with a face like that...
Two beautiful blue Indian glass round beads; all little girls want to
have blue eyes.
Plasticized metal 16mm heart bead, used as a nose. No matter what she
does, her nose is always shiny.
Nylon beading thread on which it all tenuously hangs together.
Black craft wire making her eyelashes -- she tried mascara to make
herself beautiful but she's not very skilled at applying it and it only
makes things worse. The same thing happened to the artist, many times.
Plastic alphabet beads: orange, pink, purple, white, blue, yellow. Pretty
colors if you're about six years old. Spell out 'Sugar...Ah Honey Honey...U
R my Candy Girl...' as in THAT song. She is saying AH for the dentist
and hoping he won't notice her blackened tooth and the green bit stuck
in her other teeth.
Plastic pony beads: black, white, pink, orange. She clings to childhood
but longs to grow up.
Clay washer beads recycled froma child's old necklace: bright pink.
Transparent plastic beads: more pink and the occasional purple.
Plastic round bead: black. Blackheads, perhaps. Another teenage nightmare.
Plastic heart bead: bright yellow. The likely color of the insides of
her arteries after eating all that fat and sugar.
Recycled and found buttons: assorted colors and sizes. The ones at the
back have been moved progressively further and further along the band
to lengthen it -- we've all done this with skirts and trousers too...some
have cracked under the strain.
A pale blue candy bead picked up off the street. She has to have food
with her at all times in case she gets hungry.
Two foam washers from packs of CD-ROMs, making two wide staring eyes
trying to make sense of a confusing world.
Yellow plastic 'OK' seal from top of drink carton, also picked up off
the street -- the drink was likely loaded with sugar and so, like Candy
Girl, is not OK at all.
Cancer Research UK's iconic pink fundraiser ribbon, a grim reminder of
every woman's worst fear. This diet can't be helping, either.
Aluminum tag from can of delicious, sugary, tooth-rotting carbonated
drink.
Bit of green plastic that's got stuck between her teeth -- like spinach
always does.
Beachcombed shell with lots of worm tubes and holes, another grim reminder
of how we'll all end up.
Pretty hair ornament found discarded on sidewalk. Beauty doesn't last.
Clothing hanger size labels, increasing inexorably from M to XL...
...with two broken zippers fallen by the wayside.
And finally, a series of recycled 'charms' trapped between two layers
of self-adhesive clear plastic sandwiched together with pink foam packaging
and variously glued, beaded and stitched because the artist didn't have
a laminator:
Assorted food words: 'Biscuits', '...sin and Chocolate' [was 'Raisin
and Chocolate'; and it has a sort of little girly pink tail, maybe from
a little girly pink she-devil], 'Sugary tRiP' {anagram of 'Party Rings',
which are very sweet iced cookies, and a good description of Candy Girl's
usual nutritional status], 'Flavours'.
On the reverse of the food words: net weights, and bits of nutritional
information, off various packages of unhealthy sweet stuff. Like all failed
dieters she is obsessed with the numbers.
Picture of a pink and yellow Party Ring [see above].
Pretty pictures of Barbie dressed as a fairy, the impossible ideal of
girly prettiness that Candy Girl is trying -- and failing -- to achieve.
Clothing size labels tastefully trimmed with lace from a pair of panties:
size matters, however much we would like to pretend otherwise!
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