In the first Studio project, we were assigned to create a map that visually represented the passage of time. As I began sketching my ideas for the project, I focused on my interpretation of the structure of time. In my preliminary sketches I represented the past as fading away: becoming lighter and looser in form. I thought of the present as being more structured and distinct. Lastly, I thought of the future as flowing into the unknown. I evolved my original idea and sketches into the idea of representing the fluidity of time. I decided to create this journey of time through “snapshots” of a dancer in motion.
I created my map in illustrator, using colorful brush strokes to represent the flow of dance.. Each different dancing pose connects either to the past, present, or future though movement and color. The first pose is the past, its light and faded in color and the movement flows into the other poses. The second form is present, its darker and more distinct, the precarious pose represents the balance of time as the motion flows into the future. The future is the darkest and most structured of the dance positions, the motion eludes to the dance continuing on beyond the boundaries of the page.
I decided to make the dancing forms gestural to connect to the idea of fluidity, as gestural drawings are a fluid artistic style itself. For the background, I created a watercolor wash that flowed and followed the line of the dancers. Watercolor is also a very fluid medium that connected to the theme of the piece.
My map tells a story through movement, form, and dance. Similar to cave paintings, it strips motion down to simplistic forms and shows the passage of time with simple elegant lines.
I learned from my critique that my peers found that my art evoked emotion and was thought provoking. Many people began to make their own connections from my piece, including one of my peers who related it to the ancient Greek myth of the “Red Thread of Fate”, and another who compared it to the ancient paintings of the Lascaux caves.
