A Softer You

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Artist: Victoria Smits

Title: A Softer You

Attribution: A Softer You, 2024, Victoria Smits

Year: 2024

Materials: Hand-stitched diminutive outlines of artist’s father’s tools made from avocado-dyed cheesecloth, cotton thread, used dryer-sheets (includes needle-nose pliers, c-clamp, adjustable pliers, hammer, needle-nose pliers with wire cutter, wrench, Phillips screwdriver, putty knife)

Dimensions: various sizes

Image Statement: A Softer You is a collection of eight hand-stitched contours of my father's tools and is part of a larger body of work exploring the impacts of insecure attachment. The tools function as reinvented iconic symbols marking the initial imprint of insecure attachment and how understanding creates opportunities for transformation. While it is impossible to dissect the intricacies of my or anyone's attachment experience in a short explanation, my father's tools throughout childhood were a symbol of his attachment style: they were ordered in neat, classified rows on a pegboard in his workroom and when one disappeared or was out-of-place, he verbally and emotionally ruptured and created fear. These diminutive versions of my father's tools offer regeneration: what if these tools, symbolic of fear, were accessible? What if their identity were reinvented toward engagement and warmth?