Distinct from the Girardian snob, who slavishly desires only that which is desired by others, the fetishist heeds the call of a genuinely spontaneous impulse that is indifferent to external mediation. Remote from the cerebral desires of the vanities, the fetishist-as-artist, pursues gratification not through passive, mimetic consumption, but through the creative act of automatic transfiguration, a process that sees the mundanities of everyday life-wearing a rain-jacket, spilling chocolate syrup, or traipsing through a muddied field in woefully inadequate footwear-imbued with limitless erotic potential by the fetishist, and limitless poetic potential for artist Brittany Shepherd.
