BOO !

Halloween might be over  by the time you read this, but masks are never out of style for the fabulous "Historical Dance Ensemble" that modelled for me in early October.  Well, they didn't know that;  it was incidental to what they were actually doing in their noon-time performance at The Dance Centre's "Discover Dance" series. 

The Ensemble performs Baroque dances (such as the ones shown here) in historic costumes, accompanied by a trio of musicians, also in authentic costumes and playing period instruments.  As I learned with this dance series last year, it's a challenge to do quick sketching of fast movements -- and in the darkened theatre.  The elaborate costumes, I knew, would add to the challenge.

I'd chosen a seat fairly close to the front and was practically looking over the musicians' shoulders.

From that vantage point,  I spotted a new marvel to behold:-- a fairly large stringed instrument with, wonder of wonders, a beautiful carving of a woman's head at the top of the instrument's neck.  I was -- and still am -- enthralled.

There's always a  Q&A session at the end of these performances, and I asked the musicians to introduce their instruments.  What a surprise -- my first sighting of a viola da gamba!!  Of course, I'd heard baroque music before and therefore heard viola da gambas (also known as "viols"), which I knew to be precursors of my forever favourite instrument, the cello -- but I'd never before seen one.

As the audience dispersed, I went up for a closer look and learned from the trio's leader that the carvings are a tradition -- she showed me their second viol with a tiny bird on top and said that lions' heads are also common. 

Back home on the internet, I found this stunning performance  by a lovely earnest young woman with an exquisitely carved viol.  I can't get these heads out of my head -- and I know it's not the last time I'll sketch (or paint?) them.

Two weeks later, keeping with my plan to do live sketching in alternate weeks, I was back at Basic Inquiry Studio for the first male model I've had there.  Guy models can usually be counted on for lots of bone and muscle (among other things).  This one did remarkable, almost acrobatic, poses -- best shown in the one-minute poses.

Five-minute poses:

 Ten-minute pose:

Thirty-minute pose:

It turned out that he himself is a dancer, which explains his facility and his physique.

As for me, I continue on my genteel way.  Watch this spot as I continue to kick up my heels.

The seasons change

  

 Early this year when my "Flash Mob Series" was just gathering steam, I resolved that when I completed ten paintings in the series, I would seek out an artist/teacher to give me a personal critique.  I didn't plan a timetable but, in the pattern of synchronicities and serendipities that the Mob has generated, I finished the tenth painting in September.

Now it happens that autumn, which I'll loosely define as August to October, has been a key season for me through my whole life.  Moves to new locations, starts of new jobs, major family events -- so many important things have happened to me at this time of year.

When I began this tenth painting with the title "Reset",  I hadn't foreseen that it might just foreshadow a reset in my artistic development.  But let's finish the painting and the series before I explain.

Like some of its predecessors -- "Lean In" and "A Conversation We Need to Have"  -- "Reset" derives its title from a trendy word/phrase that strikes me as rather silly.  The City of Vancouver, for example, last year "reset" its housing strategy.  Faced with the crisis of homelessness and lack of housing affordability, they didn't "retire" the  prevailing housing strategy; they didn't "replace" it; they didn't "revise" it.  They reset it. 

Okay -- on to the painting.  I assembled my figures in a circular motion that might indicate what had gone before, leading to ....whatever would come next.

 Well, one thing that had gone before was my challenge in working on a new and more absorbent paper -- so I spent a great deal of time dealing with missteps and making corrections.  Resetting, you might say.

 One maddening example was the leg and foot of the left-most figure.  It looked right in my original small sketch, made years ago at the swimming pool.  But something was lost when I scaled up and began to paint.

It was too short.  It was too long.  The knee went the wrong way.  The foot went the wrong way.  In the final painting, I think it's at last right.

For the (always sought-after) developmental sequence, see here.

And for the complete "Flash Mob Series" of ten paintings, see here.

Meanwhile -- back at the significance of autumn.  The artist/teacher who I'd set my sights on and approached with some nervousness actually agreed to come to The Yellow House and "take a look" -- and was more than generous and insightful in his observations.   The key takeaway for me (hey, that's a word that calls for a Flash Mob) is to -- press on, in the way I seem inclined to enjoy working.

I'm still processing some of the insights he gave me, and today I came across words of Joanna Field, a psychoanalyst who was one of the early figures in the "journaling" movement.  These  seemed -- serendipitously -- to parallel my personal reset.

"I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know."

Or -- in a light-hearted vein, the spirit of the Flash Mob is dancing into a new phase...not yet fleshed out, but full of excitement.   Happy Halloween.