Again, this piece explores the ideas of expression and suppression.
I was thinking about how to express the inexpressible: how to express something without expressing it? How indeed!?!
I was considering two definitions of the word 'express': express can mean to physically eject something, as well as to communicate.
I was also interested in what happens to things which can't be expressed, what happens to that conflict between expression and suppression?
I thought about an oyster, about how an oyster resolves that dilemma: if it cannot eject the unwelcome grain of sand from itself, it protects itself by turning it into a pearl. (There is a certain irony to this action, as the creation of a pearl, in an act of self-defence increases the oyster's value to it's human predators... hmmm...)
The title of the piece refers to sweets I used to enjoy as a child: gob-stoppers, so called because a person supposedly couldn't talk whilst eating them! again a form of suppression of expression, hence using the title here.
Another aspect of the gob-stoppers, was the bitter, unwelcome taste of the tiny aniseed in the centre, like the grain of sand in the pearl, and this is what is contained in this woolen sphere: an irritant, an irritant which has been smothered, wrapped and cocooned with wool to suppress it's expression...