Flattening the Curve, Day 27

Reviving the Dance

Friends, today is the twenty-seventh day of my mandatory quarantine from my work site due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and today I took care of some unfinished business.

I started the collage above, entitled Reviving the Dance five years ago! I remember when I needed to get new tires on my car, I brought an Italian printed vintage book, titled Ceramiche e porcellane cinesi, along with me to the tire store. As I sat waiting for my car to be serviced I cut the three images of women, known as mingqi or 'furnishings of the spirit', (shown) out of the book, knowing I wanted to use them in collage. Of the three women, the standing figure on the left is a 'court lady' from the Sui Dynasty (589-618) and the other two are dancing tomb figures from the T'ang Dynasty (618-907). Both were part of a broad afterlife tradition known as 'furnishings of the spirit'.

There were several 'false starts' with the three figures over the years as I stumbled through various ideas, but it wasn't until I was looking through a copy of North American Wildlife (another great vintage find) and saw the dancing Sandhill Crane (middle panel). Part of the description for the Sandhill Crane states "Pairs perform together during courtship, but dancing is confined neither to the breeding season nor to pairs; hundreds of birds may dance at the same time."

That was my 'a-ha' moment. Dancing ladies and dancing cranes - now that's a party! During one of my failed attempts to make this piece, I had punched out the brown and light blue floating balls or dots, and it seemed like the work was coming to life at that point but it wasn't until I started cutting out the cranes and experimenting with placing them with the dancers that it felt like the energy and emotion of the dance was becoming more apparent.

The last problem to solve was how, because the figures are all similar in size, to create some interest in how they each sat on the page. That's when I got the idea to find some kind of base for two of them to stand on. Now the figures are all grounded, yet each sits at a different height, which gives the piece more interest. And, finally, the work is ready for the imaginings of the viewer to wonder what this dance is all about!

I'm very happy with how this collage turned out and that I was able to finish something, even though it was started five years ago. Now, I wonder what other unfinished business I may have in my art box?

How about you? Do you have an unfinished project of some kind laying around somewhere?

Thanks for looking and I hope your day is good and your night is restful.