In my studio: Dislocating ancient bird goddesses

I’ve just been looking down the list of my recent blog posts and there has been a lot about me gallivanting around and less on what I’m actually doing in the studio.

Original Idea - breaking up a goddess figure

Last time I wrote about my work in progress, it was to share the drawings I was trying to do daily.  Of course, I haven’t succeeded in doing one every day, but they are on-going and throwing up lots of other ideas. 

My drawing from the vase

For example, I have been considering making a piece for the CQ exhibition for the Festival of Quilts.  I’ve never entered one of their juried shows before, but the theme ‘Dislocation’ resonated with what I’m working on with my forgotten goddesses. 

Some of my doodles looking at the shape

I looked up lots of different dictionaries for the definition of ‘dislocation’ and it includes, paraphrasing the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘the state of being out of place’.  So I had been thinking of making one of my figures and then ripping it up into pieces and laying them disjointed on a background, a bit like my rough sketch, almost like the goddess figurines would be found nowadays when they are discovered on an archaeological dig.  I still like the idea and will make the piece sometime, but for CQ exhibition, there is a strict size limitation and I want some of the pieces to stick out of the sides as if they can be contained.  Also I need to spend more time than I have thinking through the technicalities, having left it to the last moment as normal.

Where I've got to!

Luckily, I was really taken with today’s daily drawing, from an ancient vase in the collection of the Met Museum in New York.  I’ve spent quite a long time doodling it and have come up with some alternative ideas for this lady, who looks a bit like a bird goddess.  Fingers crossed the samples will work when I try them tomorrow!