An exploration of Object Relations theory provides a useful entry point into an exploration of art.  Winnicott’s ‘transitional object’ can be used as a heuristic to focus upon the complex issue of our relationship with the objective world through our first ‘not me’ possession, and our first experience of the world as separate from the self.  It also provides an entry point to the issues of creativity, play and cultural experience, which are relevant to our experience as adult artists. [i]    

In Winnicott’s words the transitional object ‘represents the infant’s transition from a state of being merged with the mother to a state of being in relation to the mother as something outside and separate’. [ii] The infant initially does not understand itself as a separate entity or have any concept of an external world, believing itself to be omnipotent, which the mother or caregiver reinforces by responding promptly to the child’s every need.  Inevitably over time, the mother/caregiver becomes less attentive, and causes disappointment and anxiety in the child by failing to respond immediately to its needs.  Through this necessary disappointment the child gradually comes to understand its nature as a separate being.

The transitional object is believed by Winnicott to be created by the infant due to separation anxiety when the mother/carer is temporarily absent.  Providing the absence is limited to a short and manageable period, the child is able to invest its anxiety-causing aspects of self/ mother relationship into some other object as a comforter, such as a blanket or soft toy.  In the child’s mind this is part of its self, and has in this sense been created by the child.  It is important that no one interferes with the material object in any way, and it must not be taken away, altered, mended or washed for example.  Winnicott commented that mothers and carers generally understand this, and the toy or blanket is often allowed to become dirty and ragged.[iii]  As the child matures, and develops an understanding of itself as separate and non-omnipotent, the object loses its emotional investment.

Winnicott comments that the creation of a transitional object is not vital to developmental health.  Many children do not develop them, or instead of objects they use techniques such as humming, or watching lights, or studying the interplay of borders as, for example, curtains in a breeze. [iv]  But the object or technique that is developed is evidence of the beginning of a relationship with the world.  He also says that there is an evolution from the transitional phenomena and the use of objects to the whole play capacity of the child.  The relationship of an infant to its first object is an early version of play, and the capacity for play is a sign of health in emotional development. [v]

P.L.Rudnytsky comments in Transitional Objects and Potential Spaces: Literary uses of D.W. Winnicott that Winnicott’s version of object relations theory is the first to offer a ‘satisfactory account of aesthetics’.[vi]  Winnicott himself says very little directly about aesthetics.  He does suggest in Playing and Reality that the transitional object’s quality ‘between fantasy and reality foreshadows that of works of art, which likewise partake simultaneously of reality and illusion’, [vii]   and in The Location of Cultural Experience he wrote that the transitional object, the first ‘not-me’ possession is also the child's first use of a symbol as well as the first experience of play, which later expands into creative living and the whole of adult cultural life.[viii]  

He also asks in this paper the surprising question ‘what is life about?’ and adds that ‘the absence of psycho-neurotic illness may be health, but it is not life.’ [ix]  It is evident that he considers play and creative living to be indicative of healthy life. 

Many other researchers have taken up the concept of transitional objects and potential spaces since Winnicott first wrote of them, and there are now numerous papers to be found on the Web and in journals expanding his original idea into other areas of cultural and personal experience, and other stages of life.  There are titles such as 'Pets as Transitional Objects', and 'Treasured Possessions and their Meanings in Adolescent Males and Females'; and 'Paul Klee: Art, Potential Space and the Transitional Process' for example.  These move well away from Winnicott's original concept of the first possession in infancy; some would say significantly dissipating the meaning and use of the concept. [x]