Body Mobile

 After researching Alexander Calder who works a lot with wire and mobiles, I was inspired to make my own one. The Body Mobile!

Sand Bodies

It was pointed out to me that some of the life drawing I did looks like the sand images. What a happy accident! I really like the effect of these, almost like bodies of sand being blown away!

Le Point Parfait

"Ballet dancers point their feet to make long, graceful lines with their legs. They point their feet almost every time they leave the floor. Ballet dancers work hard to achieve perfect points." The same can be said for aerialists! In our case the simple pointing of your feet is what keeps you on the equipment! I used a similar technique to David Oliveira for this sculpture. I really enjoyed making it but I found it quite difficult. I want to play with this technique a bit more!

David Oliveira

My new favourite artist! David Oliveira makes wire models of people and animals. I love how his sculptures look like drawings and the way he hints at certain parts instead of filling every point. Its really interesting the way he drapes bits of fabric over random parts of his image to add to the depth.

Experimenting with Sand

For these Collographs I tried to recreate the sand photos from earlier. For the first one, I used sand and wire to try and get the lines of the sand. This didn't work in the way I had hoped but I like the effect. For my second one, I experimented with different materials to create a sandy effect. I used sand, sheep's wool, string, glue and wire. This one came out much better than I had expected.

Movement of the "body"

For this guy, I did a similar pose on the ground but with more movement, I then filled the space with polystyrene balls, and left it to see how other people's movements would affect it.

Dead Leaves

I started plying around with the idea of marking the space around my body. I did this by placing masking tape around me to create a "drawing" of myself. I liked how this looked and decided to fill up the space inside. As the leaves are all dying and are everywhere I thought they would suit nicely!

Dancing in Space

This video is beautiful in many ways, I love the use of space, particularly when it zooms out. I'm really impressed with how the dancers occupied the space visually and emotionally, they worked in such a large space but it might as well have been a small box!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE7CS6vpO4A&feature=player_embedded

Craneflight

I just wanted to post this photo, as it is what I have been working from and I think its a great shot! It gives a much better idea of what we were doing and how high we were!

Wire Drawings

So I was looking at my movement drawings and i started thinking, these would look great made of wire. At first I tried to work straight from the picture but I was getting nowhere, so I took each movement image and made them then stacked them on top of each other to get the final image.

Rebecca Horn

Rebecca Horn is an artist that I feel very fond of! I love her work with extending limbs and her work with feathers intrigues me a lot( I have a fascination with birds!)
One of her pieces "Extended Arms" reminds me of my silks piece as the woman is wrapped up in a red fabric so that she can no longer move. I find this very interesting as it is almost a juxtaposition to my work!

In circus when we want to create new ways of moving, we limit ourselves, eg. not allowed to sit, changing levels with every move, tying limbs so they cannot be used. I feel like this would work really well with sand, but first I want to try it with paper. I'm going to try and tie my legs up similar to the image, and then move around the space to "draw" an image onto the paper with paint or charcoal.

Drawing from the Sand

I did a couple of charcoal drawings from the sand, to see if I could get the same depth. I like the quality that came out of them but it changed the image I wanted to come out.

 I'm going to try different mediums to see what happens.

Movement in Sand

I want to start working with sand, I feel like it leaves such a great mark for movement, footsteps, sweeps, everything turns into a drawing! While I was working in Clifden, the group I was working for brought me to Dog's Bay, an almost tropical beach with a coral reef and white sands! I stumbled across these incredible markings in the sand, that looked like veins or trees. They must have been indents from seaweed being dragged out in the tide.

Feet in Motion

As an aerialist, one of the most important things is your feet! How they point, flex, grip and hold tell the difference between a beginner and a professional. I decided to make a piece about this using the motion of my feet in the fabric piece. I covered my feet in red paint (to symbolize the red fabric) and while watching the piece, I copied the movement onto paper.

I really liked how this turned out, particularly the fact that it almost looks like blood. It's like a metaphor for the pain that aerialists go through, particularly burns and cuts to their feet.