Lay Down… Lay It All Down by Parra and Case Studyo

“Let your white birds smile / At the ones who stand and frown / So raise candles high ’cause if you don’t / We could stay black against the night…” Melanie Safka’s song “Lay Down” and its Woodstock-era message become literal manifestations as porcelain figures. Designed through collaboration between Parra and Case Studyo, the pair of figurines, one stark white and the other stark black, form the yin and the yang of the metaphorical pairs in Melanie’s hit. Christened “Lay Down… Lay It All Down,” each in the set of statuettes is akin to a 1960’s rendition of a Lamassu – except this time the anthropomorphic character sports a woman’s flowing hair, high heels, and the beak of a bird on the body of a dog. Though humorous in form and in interpretation, the hybrid creatures still retain a certain sense of poignancy in message.