A New Balance

Christiane Blattmann

Info: As a child, I was once instructed to draw a body without a skeleton. I proceeded to sketch out the girl’s figure in profile: she was in a state of toppling, legs having given way, her arms not bent but folded underneath her chest to cushion the blow from the fall. I must have imagined the bones having been sucked out of her feet, the process of collapse starting in the lower limbs, now pictured just moments before its completion. I conjured my own physics for this fantasy, of course. In any case, the basic structure of her body remained indelible to me, not least because it was wrapped in the denim jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts I happened to wear on weekends. For my attachment to this certain body’s structural integrity, however, I was penalised. The teacher took my drawing as an exemplary failure and showed it to the rest of the class. Without a skeleton, she said, You, yes you, would be little more than a heap of flesh. (…)