Bambi Obsession

I am totally into Bambi these days. Maybe it started when that snarky Maureen Dowd began to refer to Obama as Obambi: I needed to know again just who Bambi was. Then I became obsessed with Hillary, seeing her as a mother and mentor to Obama, even as he took his distance from her. So clearly this is a bildungsroman, the story of a young (boy's/fawn's) maturation, and of his relationship to his mother. Not an Oedipal drama, but a Bambi one, about the Death of the Mother. Interesting.

Then I was at the "junk in your trunk" flea market, prompted by my DIY friend Nicole. I went there to buy some of her jewelry, and on route to her booth I met a woman who is a semi-retired therapist (I could just tell). She sold me, for a song, many valuable things. Among them, a 1931 edition of Bambi, by Felix Salten, with gorgeous illustrations by Kurt Weise (50¢). It was very musty, and needed to sit in the sun for a few days. Never underestimate the value of the random possession, or of the (not-so-random) obsession. Possession/obsession: perhaps the same thing?

Where do obsessions come from? I often wonder, as I experience them so frequently. If I was a curator now, I would be planning Walker Art Center 'Bambi' installations. If I was a full-time artist, with feverish days to spend in a studio, it would be Bambi all the way. Especially because the Weise illustrations are a beautiful burnt-orange burnished color. And the language in the book – well, we will return to that topic another time.

So, to satisfy my new obsession, I am beginning a Bambi mod-podge. (If all else fails, artistic friends, remember that you can still come down to Mod-Podge!) Pictured here is the beginning of a Bambi glass container. That's Bambi on the bottom and his mother on the side panel. (And Neil Young on the newspaper beneath them.)

Bear with me as I ride out my Bambi wave. You can follow this story with the Bambi tags. For another take on Felix Salten's Bambi, click on the Disney image on the left.