I do like to get along to the annual Open Exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland each year, if I can. Sometimes I just can't help myself and have to add to my personal collection. This one was (if memory serves) from the 2014 exhibition. It was one of a series of six different depictions of "Nellie Through Life", this one being #3 - if I tell you that #1 showed Nellie in pristine condition, but that #6 had rather a lot of red splashed around, you'll get the idea. I don't recall finding any further detail, but I take the view that this may have been the artist's own childhood friend. I had a bear who did reach the point of being beyond repair. There was no blood, unless you count that which was rushing in my heart when I decided Bonzo ought to be cremated in the garden brazier. Oh, the angst... on discovering that my 1959, wood-shaving stuffed teddy was totally fire resistant and refused to do more than singe and smoke! Thus, it was that he got buried under the Monstera plant in the corner of the garden...
That's a sad and funny story about your bear! I think I have a great deal more attachment to a number of my kids bears, hipos, unicorns and mice than they do! It really is my hanging on to them.
ReplyDeleteCheers - Stewart M - Melbourne
PS: I like the lifting foot elephant picture too.
How close a toy can be to one!
ReplyDeletePoor Nellie looks as though he’s had hard life - might even have spent some of it in the coal shed!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if she ever thought of ‘trundling back to the jungle’ like the one who ‘packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus’…… in the song going round and round in my mind now😊
Childhood friends are forever
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of my childhood stuffies...I wonder what our sons will do with them in the years to come... That is a cute image of Nellie!
ReplyDeleteThere's no parting with my bear - he'll have to be buried with me.
ReplyDeleteThere is something quite terrible about the bear resisting cremation. I am glad that he is out of sight now.
ReplyDeleteWhat a cute artwork! Our childhood stuffed furfriends are friends forever♥
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteMy mother told me I carried around a stuffed horse, I do not remember the horse.
I now see my grandson Mason has a stuffed Llama he loves to carry around.
I love the elephant picture.
Take care, have a great day and happy week ahead.
One of my childhood toys was a small wooden elephant, which I still have with me!
ReplyDeleteWhat a loved elephant .... well, at this point in its life ;-)
ReplyDeleteI like this one a lot and now I know I must have a little more talent than I think. this is encouraging to me to keep trying. I just walked my my COO in the kitchen and stopped and smiled at it.
ReplyDeletemy son Dan was attached to his pacifier until he was past 2 and never carried anything and I did not either. But other Son David carried a blankie until he started school and then slept with it into his teens. but no one new but he and I... Ellie is precious
Hello to Nellie a well loved and cherished friend
ReplyDeleteHugs Cecilia
What a cute drawing. I love the history about your beloved toy too.
ReplyDeleteLovely art work, Glad to read your post.
ReplyDelete