Storm King

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Entering the South Fields of Storm King  _  photo: AndyToad

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Last week I was able to escape the city for a few days with an excursion up the Hudson River. On one of those days, about 50 miles upriver, tucked away in the Hudson River Valley I found The Storm King Art Center – a fantastic outdoor sculpture museum. Thankfully I wore my walking shoes – for over 100 monumental sculptures are spread out across Storm King’s massive grounds (500 plus acres.)

Here are a few of the many sculptures living amongst the hills, fields and woodlands of the Hudson valley. I strongly recommend a visit.

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Adonai  by Alexander Liberman  _  1970 _ Steel  _  photo: AndyToad

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Under Adonai  _  photo: AndyToad

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Free Ride Home  by Kenneth Snelson  _  1974  _  Aluminum and stainless steel  _  photo: AndyToad

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LUBA  by Ursula von Rydingsvard  _  2009-2010  _  Cedar, cast bronze, and graphite  _  photo: AndyToad

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LUBA’s view from Museum Hill  _  photo: AndyToad

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Solarium  by William Lamson  _  2012  _  Steel, glass, sugar, plants  _  photo: AndyToad

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Solarium  by William Lamson  _  2012  _  Steel, glass, sugar, plants  _  photo: AndyToad

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View of Mom and Dad through Solarium  _  photo: AndyToad

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Three-Legged Buddha  Zhang Huan  _  2007  _  Steel-and-copper  _  photo: AndyToad

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Three-Legged Buddha   Zhang Huan   _   2007  _  Steel-and-copper  _  photo: AndyToad

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Foci  by Chakaia Booker  _  2010  _  Rubber tire and stainless steel  _  photo: AndyToad

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Foci  by Chakaia Booker  _  2010  _  Rubber tire and stainless steel  _  photo: AndyToad

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Mermaid  by Roy Lichtenstein  _  1994  _  Painted carbon fiber and epoxy over aluminum  _  photo: AndyToad

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Suspended  by Menahse Kadishman  _  1977  _  Weathering steel  _  photo: AndyToad

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Endless Column  by Tal Streeter  _  1968  _  Painted steel  _  photo: AndyToad

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Watermill Center Residency with Christopher Williams

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Watermill Center   _   photo: Gregory Spears

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Recently I returned from a week long stay at The Watermill Center where I was in residence with Christopher Williams and Gregory Spears working on our upcoming “dance-opera” Wolf-in-Skins. During our time there we worked to further develop the choreography, music, and designs for Wolf-in-Skins. Watermill provided an enriching experience, an awesome opportunity to be amongst my collaborators for an extended amount of time and to focus on our work. In an amazing space. (Thank you Watermill!)

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The Knee at Watermill Center   _   photo: Gregory Spears

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In my studio space at Watermill  _   photo: Gregory Spears

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The Watermill Center’s large collection of world masks, objects and photographs offered me much inspiration as did exploring the library’s vast book collection. I spent the majority of my time at the center sketching, planning and refining the costume designs for the race of The Fay and The Hounds of The Fay (both played by dancers), and the Ellyllon (played by opera singers).

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Friends in my studio  _   photos: AndyToad

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The sacrifice totems  _   photos: AndyToad

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Some sketches by AndyToad

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Ellyllon shapes by AndyToad

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In conceptualizing the costume design Christopher and I have set some guidelines for the look of these primordial characters. The Fay come from a time of mystery and elegant magical craft whose history has trickled down to us through myth. The time of the Fay roughly corresponds to our geological time period known as the Stone Age.

The Ellyllon are very ancient elemental entities, older than The Fay. The Ellyllon are the storytellers, the voices guiding the narrative. They are Shapes and shadows in the process of forming and un-forming.

The aforementioned races exist in a time prior to human mastery of fabric and tailoring. The Fay and Ellyllon “garments” are more hide and skin-like – shells, vegetation, skin, bone, teeth, amber… organic and manifested in unknown ways.

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Costume Textures   _   photo: AndToad

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Hound mask in progress  _   photo: AndyToad

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Christopher with dancers Matthew Flatley and Caitlin Scranton  _   photo: AndyToad

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Wolf-in-Skins in progress showing  _   photo: Jake Schlichting

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Wolf-in-Skins in progress showing  _   photo: Jake Schlichting

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Observing a hound in progress  _   photo: Jake Schlichting

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Hound in progress  _   photo: Jake Schlichting

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Mythical Actual

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Chimeras, a photography project that I helped my friend Felipe Vasquez with, is featured in Dossier Journal :  http://dossierjournal.com/look/photography/chimeras/

Felipe shot these photographs in Chile earlier this year. He and I worked together to realize the look of the characters which are based on ritual costume and supernatural figures of the world.

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Salamander 

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Mandragora

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Lilith

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Ritual Union

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The bride and groom in avian form

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Over the past few months my buddy Rebekah and I have been working on a wedding dress for our friend Brooke. (Andytoad bridal…?!)

I designed the dress I hoped to make and together with Rebekah, and her amazing tailoring skills, we set out to build it. (Also cap, veil and masks.) Not wanting to reveal anything before the special day I’ve been kind of mum. However the wedding was this past weekend so I’m spilling the beans…

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Brooke waiting to walk the aisle

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Years ago Brooke, knowing what kind of work I do, asked if I’d make her wedding dress. Thinking she was joking or just being nice I said yes. Flash forward five-ish years.  I get a call from Brooke. “I’m getting married! Remember you’re going to make my wedding dress.” She was serious. So excited and nervous we began.

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The bodice with it’s many pieces

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Brooke found a nutty bride’s dress from the 70’s that was mostly tulle and beaded applique, a friend of mine donated a white satin dress he had around the house, I fell in love with a WWII silk parachute – we had our materials.

Where we began:  the puffy 70’s dress, the satin dress, silk parachutes

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Rebekah models the parachute

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Parachute preparation

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We stripped apart, reworked, and reconfigured these materials and fashioned a dress (loosely inspired by the white peacock.) The wedding had a myth/ storybook theme to it  with a masked ball reception afterwards. Guests were given masks to wear when they arrived and the bride and groom entered the hall after the ceremony wearing peacock masks.

A lot of the work I make is used for art and performance purposes (costumes, masks, set pieces…) And honestly you don’t have to stretch the imagination much to see a wedding as performance art. It’s been exciting making the centerpiece costume for an ancient ritual. And Brooke was awesome and open to me making the dress in a way that was interesting to me.

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Brooke and Jeff

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The silk train / The wedding party

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Using these material harvesting techniques is appealing to me. They give one a set of limitations to work within that often leads to unexpected results. Sometimes those results can be quite wild but I don’t think that’s the case here. I think Brooke’s dress is unique, flashy, and lovely in a subdued way (for me.) Knowing where it came from I think we streamlined and reworked well.

Brooke looked beautiful and she was happy. And I’m very pleased with what Rebekah and I made together. Mission accomplished.

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Bride and bridesmaids

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All photos by Andytoad except for aerial parachute image by Bettmann/CORBIS

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