My idea was a woman with a sort of cape, or pelt, as in the film Peau d’âne (1970) by Jacques Demy (Music by Michel Legrand). Beautiful Catherine Deneuve plays a princess who has to disguise herself as a kitchen maid because her father has fallen in love with her. Strangely enough, her disguise consists in the skin of a dead donkey that had been shitting gold. She is wearing it like a cape; the donkey head serves as a hat. This disgusting idea reminded me of the Aztec god Xipe Topec. Sculptures show him as a man, wearing the skin of a sacrificed victim. This even included the skin of the head and face; the strange double mouth that some Aztec sculptures have was actually the widened mouth of the skinned person, through which the mouth of the god underneath is visible. Frequently the skin has an uneven surface; this is because it was worn inside out, with the fat knobs showing. This new skin indicated the beginning of a new year of farming.

I was looking for a woman that wasn't in her twenties any more and found a model, but somehow the idea with the cape didn’t work out. After two attempts I decided to regard her abundant hair as the “skin” covering her. The idea was that she as well would renew herself, maybe after a depression; and it worked very well with the spring light in her hair. Coming out new and beautiful after a dull winter.