Let the excitement begin.....

At the beginning of the month the gallery at Medicine Wheel was emptied and I began my eggshell dress installation. Even though I had been planning and sketching and plotting for the past months - once the room was empty all bets were off - everything in my mind shifted. I suddenly realized that not only was I going to be building a large eggshell dress I had to create an entire environment. I needed to consider the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the lighting, .....

One thing i hadn't planned on was a door in the middle of the back wall. I was told I could anything I wanted to with it - change the size, change the shape or cover it up. I realized that i didn't want to cover it because having the door gave the room air, it allowed for a draft, a breeze ~ I wanted to have the room breathe. So I was keeping the door but how to have it work with the eggshell dress???

my first thought was to make it a dress, like a shadow. I took a piece of charcoal and sketched the dress on the wall to get a visual of what that would look like. I drew a large dress encompassing the entire door as it was. Once I drew the dress I started sketching an environment around the dress. I drew this room totally out of whack - a huge couch, a bed with wrong proportions, wild plants ~ Dr. Seuss meets Alice in Wonderland.

Now I realized that the dress door was too big but I had liked the scale of some of the sketches so I thought I'd just outline SOME of the drawings in black. Well once I had my paint brush in hand outlining some of the drawings ~ I couldn't stop!!! The ideas were flowing out of my brush and onto the wall - I was in the zone. This line lead to this shape.....

Now the idea for the space was to have the entire room painted a dark, warm gray with black line drawings over the gray, & my thought was that the black lines of my sketches would show through the gray paint. Well it didn't - the gray was too dark~ bummer. So after taking a moment to realize that i had covered most of the room with my black line drawings that were NOT going to show thru, I needed to reassess. The new plan was to decide what of the sketches I really liked and paint around them, and what sketches could be totally painted over. SO with the help of some of the amazing Medicine Wheel students I started painting the walls gray. It was A LOT of work - but it almost done.
This installation has been such a learning and growing experience for me already and I have just begun. When I am not at Medicine Wheel physically working, I am working different elements out in my head(even in my dreams). I am learning how to direct people and to open up my creative process. I feel truly blessed to have this opportunity and so excited to be along for the ride!!! peace