Dr Simon Crosbie
@simon-books-art.bsky.social
PhD: 'Trauma, dissociation and the boarding school experience'. Interested in art and psychoanalysis, trauma studies, art history, and cemeteries. Survivor of institutional abuse. No DMs. Opinions are my own.
Website: http://simon-crosbie.squarespace.com
Website: http://simon-crosbie.squarespace.com
As AI women get older the hands grow larger:
March 4, 2025 at 12:56 PM
As AI women get older the hands grow larger:
The AI old is young look works better that most moisturisers.
March 4, 2025 at 12:52 PM
The AI old is young look works better that most moisturisers.
AI old people and leather. Skin generated by semi-conductors, buffed, oiled and grissailled, and the life well lived reflected in sweat shop bags. It's time for a well-earned rest and a reshaping of the sublime.
March 4, 2025 at 12:48 PM
AI old people and leather. Skin generated by semi-conductors, buffed, oiled and grissailled, and the life well lived reflected in sweat shop bags. It's time for a well-earned rest and a reshaping of the sublime.
19th Century Blindness: Fanny Crosby hymn writer. "If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me."
February 27, 2025 at 11:26 PM
19th Century Blindness: Fanny Crosby hymn writer. "If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me."
"Catholics believe that, at the moment of ordination, an ontological change occurs to the priest through which he becomes an “alter Christus” (other Christ). They also believe that every priest is ordained by bishops who are direct successors of the Apostles. Priests, therefore, are—or at least were
February 19, 2025 at 11:36 AM
"Catholics believe that, at the moment of ordination, an ontological change occurs to the priest through which he becomes an “alter Christus” (other Christ). They also believe that every priest is ordained by bishops who are direct successors of the Apostles. Priests, therefore, are—or at least were
Edouard Manet's pastel sketch of the barmaid for his A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) presents an equally sombre depiction of the model. By turns, they speak to a sad, habituated routine marked by the transition from the apparel of daily life to the embellishments required for bar work in Paris.
February 16, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Edouard Manet's pastel sketch of the barmaid for his A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) presents an equally sombre depiction of the model. By turns, they speak to a sad, habituated routine marked by the transition from the apparel of daily life to the embellishments required for bar work in Paris.
Masud Khan's gushing description of Winnicott,
"A childlike spontaneity imbued his movements. Yet he could be so still, so very inheld and still. I have not met another analyst who was more inevitably himself. It was this quality of his inviolable me-ness that enabled him to be so many persons...
"A childlike spontaneity imbued his movements. Yet he could be so still, so very inheld and still. I have not met another analyst who was more inevitably himself. It was this quality of his inviolable me-ness that enabled him to be so many persons...
February 11, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Masud Khan's gushing description of Winnicott,
"A childlike spontaneity imbued his movements. Yet he could be so still, so very inheld and still. I have not met another analyst who was more inevitably himself. It was this quality of his inviolable me-ness that enabled him to be so many persons...
"A childlike spontaneity imbued his movements. Yet he could be so still, so very inheld and still. I have not met another analyst who was more inevitably himself. It was this quality of his inviolable me-ness that enabled him to be so many persons...
Not paintings as such. Sections of tables used by students in the RMIT MFA program.
February 6, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Not paintings as such. Sections of tables used by students in the RMIT MFA program.
More variations of the use of hands in media reports about child sex abuse in the church.
February 5, 2025 at 12:12 AM
More variations of the use of hands in media reports about child sex abuse in the church.
I have started researching for a paper about the trope of hands, and in particular clasped hands, in media reports about institutional child sex abuse. The images invariably isolate the hands from the body. There are so many layers of meaning: historical, psychological and political.
February 4, 2025 at 11:58 PM
I have started researching for a paper about the trope of hands, and in particular clasped hands, in media reports about institutional child sex abuse. The images invariably isolate the hands from the body. There are so many layers of meaning: historical, psychological and political.
A series of watercolours I made based on photographs in my school yearbook. I attended a Catholic boarding school. Many of the staff were either convicted of child sex abuse or exiled to Pacific islands to escape conviction. The multiple eyes relate to the all-seeing Salesian 'preventive' system.
January 31, 2025 at 12:21 AM
A series of watercolours I made based on photographs in my school yearbook. I attended a Catholic boarding school. Many of the staff were either convicted of child sex abuse or exiled to Pacific islands to escape conviction. The multiple eyes relate to the all-seeing Salesian 'preventive' system.
More Bernard Buffet
January 29, 2025 at 11:19 PM
More Bernard Buffet
Celebrating the life and work of French artist Bernard Buffet (1928-1999)
January 29, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Celebrating the life and work of French artist Bernard Buffet (1928-1999)
A social note: my mother turns 104 today. Still going strong.
January 29, 2025 at 12:23 AM
A social note: my mother turns 104 today. Still going strong.
Winnicott has stated: 'In psycho-analysis as we know it there is no trauma that is outside the individual's omnipotence.' But I would add that omnipotence is not mastery; in it there is a tremendous denial of both inner and outer psychic reality, ... (Masud Khan, Hidden Selves)
January 27, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Winnicott has stated: 'In psycho-analysis as we know it there is no trauma that is outside the individual's omnipotence.' But I would add that omnipotence is not mastery; in it there is a tremendous denial of both inner and outer psychic reality, ... (Masud Khan, Hidden Selves)
David Wojnarowicz: "Globe of the United States" at the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid
January 27, 2025 at 12:45 AM
David Wojnarowicz: "Globe of the United States" at the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid
Arrived in the mail yesterday. Italian monumental cemeteries are one of my passions.
January 21, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Arrived in the mail yesterday. Italian monumental cemeteries are one of my passions.
Pavel Smarov's (Paul Chmaroff) ' Journey on the Champ Elysees' from 1902. The insouciance of the mother preoccupied by her thoughts and the daughter who has reached the age where she realizes her family's place in the world, is all captured in a momentary glimpse as their carriage goes past.
January 20, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Pavel Smarov's (Paul Chmaroff) ' Journey on the Champ Elysees' from 1902. The insouciance of the mother preoccupied by her thoughts and the daughter who has reached the age where she realizes her family's place in the world, is all captured in a momentary glimpse as their carriage goes past.
The yellow ribbons became a popular symbol of remembrance in South Korea. In every city I went to, large tents were erected in public areas where people could distribute ribbons, and sometimes vent their frustrations.
January 16, 2025 at 11:24 PM
The yellow ribbons became a popular symbol of remembrance in South Korea. In every city I went to, large tents were erected in public areas where people could distribute ribbons, and sometimes vent their frustrations.
I still tear up when I re-visit these images. They are as powerful and deeply felt as any work in the pantheon of trauma art.
January 16, 2025 at 11:17 PM
I still tear up when I re-visit these images. They are as powerful and deeply felt as any work in the pantheon of trauma art.
I seemed to be the only foreigner on the island when I visited in 2015. The effects of the tragedy were still very raw across South Korea - there was a deep sense of collective trauma that still persists.
January 16, 2025 at 11:13 PM
I seemed to be the only foreigner on the island when I visited in 2015. The effects of the tragedy were still very raw across South Korea - there was a deep sense of collective trauma that still persists.
The affective impact of seeing the art of children responding to trauma can be overwhelming. These are tiles assembled along the pier of Jindo island in South Korea, close to the location of the 2014 Sewol ferry tragedy that took the lives of 250 children from the same high school.
January 16, 2025 at 11:06 PM
The affective impact of seeing the art of children responding to trauma can be overwhelming. These are tiles assembled along the pier of Jindo island in South Korea, close to the location of the 2014 Sewol ferry tragedy that took the lives of 250 children from the same high school.
I recently purchased a secondhand copy of Thomas Ogden's classic 'The Primitive Edge of Experience'. I love this copy - besides the contents, it displays the physical traces and curiosity of the previous owner. It feels like buying an old paintbrush that still has traces of pigment in the bristles.
January 15, 2025 at 10:18 PM
I recently purchased a secondhand copy of Thomas Ogden's classic 'The Primitive Edge of Experience'. I love this copy - besides the contents, it displays the physical traces and curiosity of the previous owner. It feels like buying an old paintbrush that still has traces of pigment in the bristles.
Charlotte Delbo's account of Auschwitz shows a different set of horrors in Summer. The stench of the camp was overpowering. People were blinded by the sun when they alighted from the darkness of the train. The lived experience of trauma is not confined to dark spaces.
January 14, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Charlotte Delbo's account of Auschwitz shows a different set of horrors in Summer. The stench of the camp was overpowering. People were blinded by the sun when they alighted from the darkness of the train. The lived experience of trauma is not confined to dark spaces.
Why do we often associate traumatic experience with darkness? I visited Auschwitz in the height of Summer. The grass was so thick, it was laborious to walk through. Swallows circled in the sky and the willows swayed in the gentle breeze. When it operated, Auschwitz never stopped for a Summer break.
January 14, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Why do we often associate traumatic experience with darkness? I visited Auschwitz in the height of Summer. The grass was so thick, it was laborious to walk through. Swallows circled in the sky and the willows swayed in the gentle breeze. When it operated, Auschwitz never stopped for a Summer break.