Yesterday I had a chance to visit with Linda Arkelian, a dance artist who is an inspiration to all who know her. This image was taken of me drawing her dancers on printmaking sheets in her dance class, an ongoing project that has yet to be printed up properly.
Dancer Drawings
Castled Tortoise
This papier mâchè tortoise stands about 6″ high was created two years ago for the Place des Arts annual Positively Petite show. What’s his story? Is he looking for others with castles on their backs; maybe a tortoise RV park in a sunny climate? Or does he need little people to inhabit his castle; rather like a Gulliver in search of Lilliputians. He’s on a quest, that I know and his pondering, wandering stance seems to bring out the storyteller in me as I wonder what his story is.
Heart and Home
It’s been almost a year since I attended Glen East Workshop, which was held in South Hadley, MA. While there, myself and two others took a trip over to the Eric Carle Museum nearby. The three of us are big fans of his work which makes for an extra special experience when you have others to share it with. While at the museum I picked up a bit of fabric created from his end paper designs. I found the colourful spots worked well for this piece called Heart and Home. My roommate Carrie who was at the museum with me that day made a big impression on me and it was our talks on communication and home and heart that eventually evolved into this work.
Papier-Mâché Creature Shop
It’s a busy time in the Kirkwood studio. Preparing for upcoming Spring classes mean creating prototypes and updating previous ideas. One class I’ve tried to run twice and am attempting for the third time is a papier-mâché creature shop class where children 8-12 would have a chance to design and produce their own creature with movable parts. The results could be quite sculptural, or like a rod puppet, be more mobile and animated.
With this criterion in mind I created a new creature for the display case at Place des Arts where the children could see the structure underneath such a project. Originally begun as a rabbit he morphed into a kangaroo(ish) and seems quite proud with how he’s coming along. The class numbers went from one to three in his first week in the case which is promising. Two weeks to go and I have my fingers crossed that we can meet my 6 student minimum to run the class.
Papier-Mâché Creature Shop
“Create a creature sculpture with workable moving parts, an expressive face, and it’s own unique personality. With a mishmash of materials, a few structural principals, and a lot of paper and glue you will build a creature of your own design (realistic or imaginary) from the inside out.”
Click on the blogroll Place des Arts button for more information on this class or others by Joy and to register.
Art of the Doll Workshop
“The Art of Doll Making”
Upcoming Personal Journey Doll Workshop
On Saturday, April 14, 2012 from 10 am to 4 pm
at Place des Arts 1120 Brunette Avenue, Coquitlam, BC, V3K 1G2
To register please contact Place des Arts at www.placedesarts.ca
About the images:
‘Creativity Board’ showcases the process for making a free form doll.
‘Clarity’ is a small doll made to fit in the palm of your hand. She is a commission piece that grew out of the request to include glass in the artwork.
PERSONAL JOURNEY DOLL Workshop Description
Designed as a gentle and intuitive way to free up your imagination, the Personal Journey Doll Workshop brings play and spontaneity back into the creative process.Techniques taught are a combination of fibre arts, soft sculpture, and mixed media and include wrapping, knotting, sewing, weaving, and/or gluing the dolls together. Please bring a small memento (button, shell, stone, wood, word…) as a starting point for your doll. Sewing skills are not required, supplies are included, and anyone 16 and over is welcome to attend.
Artifacts of an Active Imagination Artist Statement
“Each art doll I create is an expression of a feeling, idea, or memory rather than a realistic facsimile of a human. These organic, enigmatic figures are formed intuitively; the elusive made real. My intent is to fuse my creative imagination with my skills as an artist to enchant both the child and adult facets of myself and others.”
Beaded Dragonfly
My latest dragonfly creation is a fibre art piece with a silk embroidered body and heavily beaded wings. This is the first dragonfly that I have not made legs for and will create a copper wire stand instead so that it is suspended in the air. The image of the dragonfly in the window exemplifies the effect I am looking for.
The straight lines of multicoloured beads in the wings remind me of an abacus and add a distinctive quality to the piece. In art, whenever two dissimilar elements are brought together, a space is created for dialogue and poetic interpretation to take place.
Under the Sea
A curiosity about the creative process is that I’ve discovered I have a sense of ‘age’ as I work. For example: the previous piece “Cameo Mermaid’ feels as if it’s created for those over 16 while this piece is for a younger audience or those young at heart.
This sense of age does a few wonky things to my creative process including; altering the choice of materials available for the work, the way I work, and the lack of concern for the resulting aesthetics. At the completion of such a project I have no idea if it ‘worked’ and am convinced that its success depends on the measure you use to judge it.
In “Under the Sea” I started with a leftover rice paper scroll from a class for 6-10 year olds and a jumble of bits on my table from other projects. Discarded words from my workshops on creativity were brought in in as well as these tacky foam shapes bought at a local dollar store. They would never have made their way unaltered into a ‘serious’ piece but here they are in all their artless glory. The whole piece continued on in this couldn’t-care-less vein which is its charm I think.
Looking at the finished work the first line of the song, “An Octopus’s Garden” by Ringo Starr, I’d like to be, under the sea… kept coming to mind and is how I settled on a final title for the banner.
Cameo Mermaid
Lately mermaids have been the focus for my art doll works. This has not been a conscious decision but rather an intuitive one. What has been different is this piece (and one to be showcased in my next blog) is that they have become flatter; less 3d in form. This 2d relief style makes them more illustrative and works well for the mermaids. Now they are lighter and appear to ‘float’ and dwell in an environment as seen by the starfish in this cameo piece.
In the closeup you can see in her centre a star shaped space that holds a piece of beach glass, encased in copper netting with pearl beads stitched around the outside. I like how the centre is open though I have yet to figure out the best way to frame or mount the piece so that the light can shine through. I think a frame would be too rigid as flexibility and flow are important concepts for this piece.
It’s not uncommon for the logistics of displaying my work to be the biggest problem of the process.
Bird Mask
For the past week I’ve been working on a prototype for an upcoming in-school project for a kindergarten class. I revised a design that I developed quite a few years ago where I use a modified plastic 6 ring holder as the template for a mask. I like how these pesky things can redeem themselves by being useful in an art piece.
Most of the masks I’ve made with kids in schools have been for older children (see Lynx mask September 12, 2010). This one is meant to be worn on the head by dancing five year olds whose inspiration for their performance will come from the book “My Many Coloured Days” by Dr. Seuss.With this criteria in mind the design needed to be colourful, simplified, lightweight, and flexible. We’ll be attaching the mask to a hat band for this project but it’s a very comfortable mask to wear on the face as well.
The materials used include: plastic ring for the base, 1 ” strips of colourful papers, foam sheets (beak and eyes), glue sticks, glue, scissors and staplers.
Purple Dragonfly with Green Wings
Here is the latest creation in my series on dragonflies. The wings for this fellow are made from a fibre mesh material that I bought at a craft supply store and then repainted with acrylics. After cutting out the shapes to fit the florist wire outline I stitched them in place and then coated them with acrylic medium to add shine and protection to the wings.
This new material creates a bold, colourful look that I like. I’m enjoying exploring new materials and seeing how far I can push the boundaries and still have a work that reads as a dragonfly.
The second image is of the dragonfly outside in a tree. My attempt at photographing my art in nature is a work in progress. The image doesn’t quite ‘work’ but it does help to inform my art work as I attempt to integrate my pieces back into the natural world that inspired them in the first place.
