A letter to Mohatt
On inspiration...
This is disjointed, because I haven't had much sleep. I was kept awake until three thirty in the morning, when I finally gave up and obsessively searched for morning glory patterns (in linework, quilting, embroidery, etc) to put on a black victorian ballgown.
inspiration comes from the damndest things, and when it comes to costuming or sculpting or a story... it comes in a flash flood, and in the case of the former two, won't leave me alone until I've gotten it down. In the case of the latter, it plays out as a story in my head, usually while I lay in bed before or after sleeping or while I'm driving or while I'm wandering around talking out loud to myself. But it comes from little things, inconsequential things, and it's like dominoes.
Bits of ideas I will never do cascade into ideas for things I really will complete. An idea for a wig, in burgundy, with half-pigtails of dreadlocks somehow metamorphosed into something else, and I forget what that was, but that cascaded into a burgundy victorian walking dress, and I have the feathers for the hat. I have the pattern for a blue victorian overskirt, meant to be worn over a bustle, and want the pattern for the underskirt I have in mind to go with it, and of course the bustle to go under it all. The ideas for the top of this haven't congealed, but I did find feathers to go with it.
I've gotten a full tuxedo with tailcoat, in black wool, for $62 including shipping on eBay. In my size. It came with shoes, pants, coat, shirt, tie, vest, cufflinks, studs, and probably something else, and all of it is in my size except the shoes, which I asked not to receive. I think I'll put ribbon lacing and D rings in the back of the tuxedo jacket. Perhaps I'll wear the jacket with the Victorian skirts. Perhaps not.
I want to make a black and burgundy hat, but I have no idea if I'll ever make the dress that goes with it.
I am in the process of making a costume set called the Siren, including skirt (bought), overskirt and halter-sarong (one piece, in watery shiny fabric, bought), wig (not bought, but includes custom-made dreadlocks I intend to order from a site called Synthdoll, six-pack rings, and miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam), fangs, creative makeup, and a long, full skirted fitted coat with belled sleeves made out of fishing net and covered in everything I could think of. Currently that includes scraps of fabric in canvas, tea-stained canvas, ice-blue acetate, dark green cotton, and something else; drilled seashells, some from leis taken apart; long plastic aquarium plants; six pack rings and pop tabs; monofilament fishing line; fake pearls and sheer iridescent ribbon; sand and tiny seashells set in puddles of silicone caulk; plastic or resin human bones.
I had coffee for breakfast and it finally kicked in. o.o WOW.
Train of thought, train of thought... ah, screw it.
Okay. One piece of string cheese, two bowls of fruit salad, and one session of sitting on the floor shaking, and the aftereffects of having coffee for breakfast are now over.
...yeah, we're not doing that again any time soon.
Where was I... oh yeah! While I don't have a point, I did have a reason for writing. See, aside from the morning glories at three in the morning...
okay, lost the train of thought again. BUT I HAD IDEAS.
Can art work together to become art? The morning glory dress, a black Victorian ball gown with butterfly train, embroidered or appliqued with gold and blue morning glory vine, is one piece of art. The black wig that goes with it is something in between. "Chaos," a mannequin done completely in gold, with my arms, torso, and hips, and one human leg on backwards, one elephant leg, one tentacle, and if I can find room for it, one other leg, is another piece of art. It also has composite eyes, hanging in a wire-cage skull on monofilament line. Each eye is made up of other eyes glued to a sphere: fish, camel/horse/goat/sheep, cat, snake, dog, one or two kinds of insects... everything but human. "Chaos" has male and female genetalia, and comes with a plexiglas walk-through pedestal so underneath can easily be seen.
"Order," the companion piece to "Chaos," is another piece of art. "Order" is a human form with my proportions done in epoxy, glass, cut and glued plexiglas (which would give it a neat faceted look) or whatever else I can get my hands on to make a transparent, colorless figure. "Order" is without gender, and has silver spheres inset as eyes. To match and balance, it also has a walk-through plexiglas pedestal.
Now, the morning glory dress, "Chaos," and "Order" are all stand-alone pieces of art. But there's an installation piece that combines them and adds to them called "Creation Story," and that's ANOTHER piece of art. "Chaos," dressed in the morning glory dress (which is the reason why all these mannequins have my proportions in the necessary areas), wearing the black wig, with "Creation" and "Destruction" painted or etched onto the platform, is in the half of the room painted white. A swarm of "enough" black and gold butterflies is suspended from the ceiling surrounding the figure.
"Order," dressed in either knit steel wire, a chain-mail dress made of safety pins, or something else either silver or white, with cornrows glued to its head, is on its pedestal, which is etched or painted to say "Preservation" and "Stagnation." It is in the half of the room painted black, and on the floor all around it are silver and white cocoons and "dead" butterflies.
In the center of the room, on the floor, where the two colors meet, "Growth" and "Existence" are painted on the floor in a circle. A CD of waltz music plays endlessly, representing Time. Painted on the wall over the door to the room is the creation story.
"In the beginning there was not even nothingness, for in order to have nothing you must also have something, as opposites define each other. The first thing to exist was nothing. Immediately after nothing came into being, something came, and that something was Chaos. Chaos, out of itself, eventually created Order, and Order and Chaos together made Time. These three, Order, Chaos, and Time, made the world and everything in it, and
all
the
possibilities."
And this too is art. It is multiple art, like a Russian doll... "Chaos" is art, the morning glory dress is art, "Chaos" in the dress is art, "Order" is art, "Order"'s dress is art, "Order" in the dress is art, any photographs I take of these six pieces are art, and the installation room is art. Art within art within art.
Wow.
other bits- the "prayer wheel" half-mannequin, wearing my red dance costume, floor or wall-mounted (floor would be easier) makes "Mandala," since that's what the skirt looks like.
The "self-portrait #(whatever it happens to turn out as)" mannequin, a realistic sleeping housecat made of rabbit fur, whatever I find in the fly fishing aisle of the sports store, and whatever I wind up using as an armature, scaled to be able to fit a certain costume, is one piece. "Self Portrait #?", dressed in the black dance costume, becomes something else.
...the Siren just seems to stand by herself. Intricate as she is, I think she needs movement to be at her best.
~Stephanie
--
"I love deadlines. I love the WHOOSHING noise they make as they go by."
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