Comfort Objects: Portraits of Children and the Dolls, Blankets and Stuffed Animals They Hold Dear
Did you ever have a ‘comfort object’ as a kid? Maybe it was a security blanket, or a beloved stuffed animal that you carried around everywhere. Maybe you still have it somewhere in the attic where it’s more socially acceptable now that you’re an adult.
These objects meant, at least for a time, the world to us; A connection to security and safety that was, if irrational, also undeniably comforting. And it’s these objects and the children who love them that make up photographer Anna Ream‘s recent series Comfort Objects.
The inspiration for the series came from Ream’s own children, each of which have their own comfort objects:
While I did not have a comfort object as a child, my three children have each had one. Like many parents, I’ve hunted for it at bedtime, sent it along when leaving a child in another person’s care, and carefully packed it on trips. It is a conduit for meeting their emotional and psychological needs.
According to Ream, psychology refers to these objects as “transitional” objects because they act as a stand-in for the mother-child bond when the two can’t be together. As a mother, this idea fascinates Ream and so she uses the series to explore it.
She describes the photos she’s taken — which feature her own children, her friends’ children and strangers’ children as well — as “a vehicle for pondering childhood and reflecting on my feelings about parenting.”
To find out more about Ream or browse through the rest of her portfolio, be sure to visit her website or keep up with her through her blog.
(via Lenscratch)
Image credits: Photographs by Anna Ream and used with permission
