Iris Steensma - printmaker: Fragments of Memory
Size: 30 x 14.5 cm THE GOAT
The war had finished and the zoo in Amsterdam re-opened.
My mother took me there.
I was normally scared of dogs in the street.
I had never seen so many animals before, all behind bars. Monkeys, zebras, an elephant, I remember the fly sitting on its big wrinkly body.
Then I was taken to a special part of the zoo, the children's zoo.
Pigs, hens, sheep and goats, and we were all on the same side of the fence. This was the stuff that nightmares are made from. I didn't trust any of them and clung tightly to my mother.
One goat had enormous horns. It looked at my mother, eyed her up and down, approached her and ate big chunks out of her flowered frock.
We went home.
Hand-coloured Linocut
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