By Emilie Bobek (2018)

Thesis PREFACE

I’m holding it in my hand. I press it in between the tip of my two fingers, and slightly let it rest against the inside of my palm. I turn it around with my thumb. I feel the edges of the small wooden fibers of its solid, but fragile shape. Then I place it in between the inside of my middle and index finger and easily flip it up and down between the finger pair to the next. Making it dance acrobatically, like my hand is attached to gymnastic beams.

After flipping it a couple of times I place it in the air vertically, now only with two fingers touching it on each end. The pressure from the tip makes my skin go inwards like a big crater left from an asteroid. From the bottom of the crated finger rises a long wooden square, solid and with a thickness in the top similar to the one in the bottom. In the very top where the piece meets my hand again, it has a rounded ending, similar to the round shape of a balloon floating towards the sky.

It is imperfect in its shape, left with the traces from the machines it was made from. Small cuts and broken edges show that it was made quickly and with no extra caution. The wood itself is soft and easily marked when scratched with a nail. The object measures the width of four fingers, so it’s rather small compared to the rest of the items in the room surrounding me.

At the very top of the wooden tower there is a brown sandpaper-looking surface, almost like the color of a mushroom, growing from the mulch. The head is raw and matte and with a perfect line the two parts unite; from a long wooden tower to a mushroom brown balloon.

The brown balloon makes me think of the dot I make after every sentence. The shape makes me think of the small head on some- one’s body I passed the other day. It makes me think of the tip of a shoe and a tick filled with nutritious blood. The wooden tower makes me think of a timeline with a beginning and an end. It makes me think of a nail holding the mirror from falling of the wall. It makes me think of a pair of skinny legs and a fairy tail about a little poor girl from H.C Andersen. It makes me think of the power poles that give us electricity every day and the fences around my family’s summer house in the countryside.

I take the small wooden stick between my thumb and my index finger with the head of the stick in front of my hand. I place it on the area of the side of the box I took it from. The one with the heroic Tordenskjold at the top cover. With the small stick in one hand and the Tordenskjold box in the other hand, I now press the head towards the side of the box and push it forward in one quick move. The flame appears together with a crispy sound and a silent smell of Sulphur.

The head of the stick is burning, the flame moves slowly and the wood inside turns black and thin. The flame continues in the only direction possible and leaves behind a thin tan twisted stick of coal. In return I get a nice thick yellow flame. The flame suddenly gets very small and before it reaches my hand the flame is out. The fire is gone and I’m now left with a stick half burned half intact. Its now crooked body makes me think of a straw of grass playing in the wind. It makes me think of Karl Blossfeldt photographs of plants and flowers in nature. It makes me think of the beauty of a withering flower. It makes me think of CO2 and global warming and burning forests in Canada, far away from my own small life.