.gif) Design stage |
This was inspired by the folkloric ballet dancers in Mexico. I wanted to get across the full dresses and the sense of movement. I originally had an idea of painting a fiesta scene on the bottom of the dress with flags coming out of the waist. The sculpture is in Raku clay - chosen for strength. She is coil built in the body and then 2 slabs connected for her dress in a very touch and go enterprise.
|
Prior to bisque firing at 1000oC |
 |
After exploring the Futurist movement I was quite taken with Boccioni's picture of "The street enters the house". I wanted to have a go at painting a whole street scene on the canvas of her dress, using a cubist style. First I attempted some paintings on flat sheets to see what I could do. |
 |
 |
Not feeling very successful at
creating a whole picture look I then had a brain wave of using stripes on
the dress (since most of the dresses I was painting contained stripes.) I
tested this with bits of paper. I then had the idea that each stripe could
represent a layer of Mexican life.
I had written a story "Mexican Roots" after returning from Mexico and meeting a number of teachers and I used this to create the ideas behind each layer. |
Painting with acrylic paint. |
 |
I painted three layers
representing ancient culture, land and present culture. I intended to do a
fourth layer which featured architecture of the churches, symbolising the
invasion of the church into Mexican culture - but I ran out of time. I later put a shortened version of the story "Mexican Roots" into a brochure which went with the finished piece, and purloined it as the title of my piece. The lace was an afterthought - after my mother-in-law said that the interior of the piece let the whole thing down. Lace is a big thing with these dresses and goes really well in contrasting with the smooth sculpture - a feminine touch and it makes you want to touch it! |
 |