Lupine and Canine
In the studio sculpting wolves and hounds for “Wolf-in-Skins.” _ photo: AndyToad
Posts
Progress
Photographs from the studio.
Glamour Masque
Hood Maquette
Sumptuary Millenary
Bears in the Studio
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Working away on a set of paper bear heads for choreographer Cori Olinghouse. They will debut in a new dance piece this coming spring. I’m having fun working with Cori, collaborating with her on her experiments in vaudeville and shapeshifting. I’ve always had a thing for human animal transformations.
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I love this still from a video of Cori creating movement. One of the costume we’ve created (pictured) is a deconstructed backless button down shirt, a boater hat, and some early 1900’s-ish baggy trousers. Various other clothing bits come on an off, in and out – and there is also an opera glove and cane in the mix as well. More as it develops.
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Whoa… grizzly bears… dancing…
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Reliquaries and Mother Goddess Figures
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I have reliquaries and “venus” figures on the brain…
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Studio shot of the paper mache reliquaries in process
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Christopher working on the inside of “Flosshilde.”
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A few days ago I took a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to do research.
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Outer Coffin of Kharushere
Virgin and Child Reliquary, French, 1170-1200
The Visitation, German, 1310-20
Bust of Saint Yrieix, French, 1220-40 (Made to house his skull)
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Voluptuous ladies from the past, your silhouettes still inspire.
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Venus of Lespugue (resides in France, at the Musée de l’Homme)
Venus of Willendorf (resides in Austria, at the Naturhistorisches Museum)
A Mother Goddess (resides in Turkey, at the Ankara Museum)
Diving back in
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A dear friend of mine has inspired and encouraged me to start blogging again. And so, not without some apprehension, I begin. (Hoping to avoid polluting the internet with an esoteric trail of hedonistic self-absorbed residue.)
At the time of this writing I’m focusing most of my energy on a collaboration with my choreographer friend Christopher Williams. I’m designing and building some fairly elaborate costumes for Christopher’s two new piece “Gobbledygook” and “Hen’s Teeth.”
I can’t share too much yet about how they will look. Not until the piece opens. But I’ll share sneaky glimpses of things as they form. Like this webcam shot of me working on a full body reliquary costume:
The blurb for Hen’s Teeth:
Incorporating imagery of the mysterious flying women found in a Breton fairytale preserved by 19th century folklorist François-Marie Luzel, the Graeae, or three swan-like crones of ancient Greek myth who share only one eye and one tooth between them, and that associated with the display of holy relics in the middle ages, Hen’s Teeth is a work for three middle-aged women, six younger women, and one man set to to contemporary music by Gregory Spears in the form of a requiem mass sung in Breton, Latin, and French by members of Lionheart and Anonymous 4 that incorporates elements of the homophonic chanson Cigne ie suis de candeur by Claude Le Jeune (c. 1528-1600)
More info at:
http://www.christopherwilliamsdance.org/performances.php