Making a Raggedy Tranndy of Myself
2023. Felt, wool roving, fabric, hook and loop fasteners, polyester fiberfill, plastic mesh, embroidery floss, thread, yarn. Doll dimensions: 6’ x 35” x 10”.
“Making a Raggedy Tranndy of Myself” explores the construction of nontraditional gender presentation through body modification, in this case through tattoos. Raggedy Ann and Andy are examined as cultural symbols representative of societally enforced gender norms. However, the dolls are gendered not by their bodies, which are almost identical, but by the external elements applied to the body (gendered signifiers in hair and clothing.) Coerr recreates this relationship between the ungendered doll body and externally applied signifiers, but he queers the narrative by drastically increasing the scale of the doll, and applying needle felted recreations of his own tattoos as velcro patches. The act of applying these patches examines the great immediate agency over one’s body that tattoos provide to their wearers, specifically among queer and trans people. The removable and re-placeable nature of the patches alludes to the permanence of tattoos, and grounds the object’s interactivity in the realm of play.
In this piece, Coerr also pays homage to his father, Stan, who once shared a childhood memory of wanting a Raggedy Ann after his older sister received one. Stan was not allowed to have a Raggedy Ann, undoubtedly due to the stigma surrounding little boys playing with dolls, and instead was given a Raggedy Andy. This story struck the artist as a reminder that all children are drawn to things outside what is considered “acceptable” in relation to their assigned gender, but their tastes are policed by the people around them to further enforce the hegemonic ideals associated with the child's gender-assigned-at-birth. It also illustrated to Coerr how delicate the conventions of normalcy around gender are, as ultimately the difference in playing with a Raggedy Andy versus a Raggedy Ann is minimal.
The content on the monitor is from this work’s companion piece, “Transfixion”. These documentation photos were taken from video footage shot by Mikey Mosher at SAIC Galleries in April 2023.
