- using pencils to create realism

- adding clown imagery on top to add concept

- putting the fat lady in the skeleton man’s clothes

- old fashioned circus imagery mixed with modern urban scene

- using photoshop to edit the image, build up layers

Hausa Supestitions and Customs by A.J.N Tremearne

The Image of the Giantess seems to have appeared all over the world including in the folk stories of the Hausa People of Africa. One tale tells the story of ‘The Boy And The One-Sided Giantess’. This is the story of the King’s Son who has decided to go out and see the world. He comes to a big lake where he meets a Giantess. This Giantess has ‘one arm, one leg, and one eye’. She drinks the water from the lake and begins to cry ‘saying that her thirst was not quenched’. She then goes on to make porridge and soup made of 2 big bulls. She eats the food and begins to cry again as the food has not filled her. After seeing this the boy runs home saying ‘O my Father, I have seen what is in the world’.

It’s interesting that again in this story the Giantess, like Mrs Yoop, is linked to the consumption of food and unhappiness, themes that are easily linked to the modern concepts associated with large women, compulsive eating and comfort eating. In both stories the women are terrifying figures who need to be escaped from. The boy has seen what is out in the world and does not want to travel into the outside world again. However thinking about this story and african poverty, the story might be linked to the fear of lack of water and food outside of the King’s land. 

The Tin Woodman Of Oz by Layman Frank Baum

Today I came across a chapter in Baum’s book called ‘Mrs Yoop, the Giantess’.

 In this chapter a group of adventurers are looking for somewhere to sleep when they see ‘an enormous castle, built of purple stone’ which they discus as ‘really too big for any use’. Upon entering the castle they are met by Mrs Yoop the Giantess. Mrs Yoop is  described as ‘clad in silver robes embroidered with gay floral designs, and wore over this splendid raiment a short apron of elaborate lace work’. Throughout the chapter she never stops eating, even when talking about her husband who has been captured and put in a cage. The husband she describes seems to have abused her ‘Often he kicked me on the shins’. 

 She seems to be a mixture of good and evil. ‘Good natured (but).. more terrible than they had imagined’. She is terribly lonely and has a magic power that allows her to transform things into anything she wants. She tells the adventurers that she will transform them so they never leave her. What struck me about Mrs Yoop was her obsession with food. Every other sentence was about her biscuits or her hunger. My interpretation of her was a lonely woman who eats to try and fill the void that her loneliness has created. 

The Secrets of Side Shows by Joe Nickell

After learning about Anna I’ve begun to look further into ‘Freaks’ by reading a chapter by Joe Nickell called ‘Human Oddities, Large and Small’.  He describes a freak as someone who ‘stirs up both supernatural terror and natural sympathy... one of us, the human child of human parents, however altered by forces we do not quite understand into something mythical and mysterious’. I guess this is what has drawn me to the subject. All my past work has reflected ‘Otherness’, things that don’t quite fit the ‘norm’. (e.g. Hysterics, anorexics, giants, mythical/magical beings, monsters, ghosts)

Nickell tells us that these giants arise because of a very rare illness called Gigantism where the child’s bones over grow. Historically Gigantism suffers were used as soldiers or royal guards. When the supply of giants became low Fredrick the 1st of Prussia allegedly would kidnap women of appropriate size to reproduce with his giants and produce a second generation. It wasn’t until the 17th C that giants began to be exhibited in side shows. 

The sideshows would often exaggerate the size of the Giantess by proclaiming her as ‘The Tallest Woman In The World’ and even adding a few extra inches to her height. Nickell tells us of a variety of techniques the circus used to make the Giantess even bigger. 

cutting their shirts to make them appear wider

making cuffs to short

wearing headdresses or piling their hair on top of their heads

shooting them from a low angle in photographs

standing them next to midgets

This reminds me of the plus sized models I spoke about before. It’s as if Dakin is a modern day circus master, padding his girls hips and stuffing their bras.

Nickell also tells us that ‘While midgets are traditionally pugnacious, giants are usually gentle with a tendency for melancholy. In side shows a giant and a midget will often become inseparable friends, complementing each other in character traits’.

Nickell goes on to write about a different kind of ‘giant’, fat people. There were many fat ladies in the circus often weighing over 800 pounds such as Pearl Washington, Ida Maitland and the Carlon sisters. However they were often not known by these names but rather names like Jolly Irene, Happy Jenny or Jolly Dolly. Johnny Meah, who has written about the genre of fat people ‘suspects that whoever first yoked together the words jolly and fat had probably never spent much time around fat people’. Although a harsh remark, i would have to agree that in today’s society being fat certainly doesn’t seem to make people very happy. Meah, seems to be very critical of ‘fat people’ as an attraction, suggesting that they are self made freaks ‘who have literally eaten their way into the spotlight’.  This reflects the way fat people in today’s society are considered lazy and told their weight is their own fault.  The fat ladies would often dress in girlie, dainty outfits to make them more humorous.  One lady, Sweet Marie, would pose in a bikini with a banner stating ‘Oh My! But She Is Fat’ suggesting the point of these fat ladies was amusements to make fun of. Another banner reads 

‘She’s so big and so fat it takes four men to hug her and a boxcar to lug her. And when she starts to dance, she quivers like a bowl of grandmother’s jelly on a cold frosty morn. Hell, it must be jelly ‘cause jam don’t shake like that. That’s right, 532 pounds of female pulchritude. Mmmm boy! she’s a big one”

One image in the text particularly stood out to me, the picture card of Miss Peggy which portrays her as a pig. It makes me wonder what was going through the minds of these fat ladies. Were they happy or were they embarrassed and upset by the horrible insults they received. When asked if she was happy one fat lady replied ‘oh, sure... I guess you get a kick out of doing anything you do real well, I’m a real good freak and I know every night there’s hundreds of people willing to pay money to see me’. This suggests it is success that makes her happy. This might explain why body fat today creates such unhappiness, we are constantly told by the media that thinness equals success. A successful woman is not a fat woman. 

Nickell also goes on to talk about a different freak, The Human Skeleton. These freaks would often weigh as little as 45 pounds! These freaks however were not anorexic, but often had a condition called ‘acute muscular atrophy’ which would cause muscle wastage. Many of these Skeletons would wear a costume of black tights, top hat and white tie.

Strangely a lot of Fat Ladies would often marry human skeletons which is reflected in this well known ryhme

Jack Sprat

Could eat no fat

His wife could eat no lean

And so betwixt them both

They lick’d the platter clean.

This has got me thinking about the dark and twisted nature of children’s ryhmes and fairytales. I want the images I create to have a strange mixture of humor and fear. 

Anna Swan continued

After breifly reading about Anna Swan I was inspired to research her further. 

Anna had had many marriage proposals before Martin but always feared men were after the money she had earned in the circus. The couple married in London at St Martin’s Church, Trafalgar Square and continued to live in London for some time at 45 Craven Street, Charing Cross. Queen Victoria was present at the wedding and even gave Anna her wedding dress and a diamond ring. The wedding was a huge affair with many guests and newspapers present.  

Anna faced many tragedies throughout her life. In 1865 she was caught in a fire at the circus museum. She was too big to get out of the doors so was allegedly carried out with a rope through a broken wall. She also suffered great unhappiness with child birth. She gave birth to 2 giant children who did not live past 24 hours. 

Anna was fond of animals and in their giant home she had a monkey named buttons who enjoyed himself by throwing rocks at the staff and a parrot that Martin had trained to shout ‘get off my property’ at unwanted visitors!

When Anna died, possibly of consumption, Martin was distraught but later remarried. However upon his death he asked to be buried with Anna, the love of his life.

I’m really drawn to the story of Anna. Her tale is strange mixture of great joy and sadness that could bring an interesting quality to my work. Im completely obsessed with the photos I have found of her. The washed out and slightly eery quality creates an uneasy atmosphere which I definitely want to try and achieve in my drawings. Im particularly drawn to the image of her in a wedding dress which evokes a feeling of the lonely Mrs Havisham. 

Sketch Book