Next project (skipping over three or four that aren't finished, but I'll come back to these sometime, surely), is a sculpture, an image of someone dancing in air. I want to make it out of sawdust and linen. Barry Flanagan's rabbits inspire me to capture that motion-in-flight feeling. And I started wondering if anyone had created sculptures in sawdust and linen before. Online I found little rolled bags of sawdust and linen which were wrapped with mummies. This along with salt and resin was used for embalming (quick, get that image out of my mind). My mummy will be dancing. I also found strange little linen sculptures at Fort Mason last year, and I'm sure that had some impact on me. One way to go would be to make smooth linen-sawdust filled river rocks and spear them with a copper rod (but would that have motion?). I also thought of those blue guys, the "Mummenschanz" dance troup--helping me capture the thought. The dancer will be 4 x 2 feet, plus the wooden/copper base is 3 x 1 feet. I love the idea of making the pattern, sewing it together and then filling. I'm sure I will think of more references in this beautiful January California light.
