I began The Maddie Project in 2023 after acquiring a mannequin at a local tag sale. The 90-year-old homeowner refused to sell the mannequin to me because she considered it improper to sell it to a man. My wife was with me and she offered to purchase it instead, and the elderly seller agreed because the money would pass from one woman to another. As someone who is highly associative, I immediately named the mannequin Maddie, a name dredged from my memory of a middle school girl who, along with some of the school's football players, bulllied me almost daily. I haven't wanted to explore why this mannequin and that girl have coalesced, but I suspect it has something to do with why I explored the visual possibilities of disarticulation of the mannequin's pieces.
