Leafing

Leafing

2011

Ronit Joselevitz (b. 1993)

Leaves on paper. Tempra on canvas.

Inspired by Tomas Tranströmer’s poem, “The Clearing”, the dress focuses on the idea of forgotten stories, histories, and memories. The dress is made using completely dried leaves and tempra paint representing green shrubberies. The bottom of the dress starts at a dark shade of green and slowly begins to fade into nothing and eventually reaches the brown leaves, suggesting the idea of “Writ[ing] down and forget[ing],” as Tranströmer says in his poem—the green representing oral traditions and stories that once seemed alive and always exchanged, and the brown illustrating the written and forgotten histories and stories that have been stored. While a green leaf on a tree is alive and colorful, once it falls off a tree, its color begins to fade and it begins to decompose and disintegrate into the earth, where it is forever forgotten. People step on dead leaves as they pass through streets, neglecting that they were once beautiful. Leaves were used to show this because of Tranströmer’s repeated use of tree imagery in his poems.

Original design by Ronit Joselevitz. Made without a sewing machine too..

xox,

RoJo