Wednesday, September 24, 2014

what an artist does all day


I saw a series of video documentaries under this project title and had a revelation-- it is a mystery to even my closest friends what I actually do all day. Often it is to me, too.

So I photo-documented my activities on Instagram during four days of making a new caryatid statue costume for the Hamburg Fair in August... minus the boring things like eating, sleeping and basic hygiene, (though there is precious little of that going on before a deadline anyway, as you can tell from the general decline in my appearances throughout the photos).

It's interesting, even to me, to see in photographic evidence the variety of skills that goes into building a living statue: sewing, painting, sculpting, building, prop shopping, plumbing, weightlifting, acting... there is occasionally a benefit to being a jack-of-all-trades.

Even with all this effort, the statue had some pitfalls the first round through-- the pedestal was to be rigged with a novelty trick that ran into technical difficulties, the dress didn't fall as statue-like as I'd imagined, etc, so there is more to be done. You have to love process to be in the statue arts!

On a side note-- though usually more of an art history major's interest and not mainstream knowledge, caryatids turned up in the news right after the Hamburg Fair debut. What are the odds!




















And the result, thus far:




Many curious and happy tigers!