Shadow Puppet Intrigue

On November 2nd, 2009, I experienced a spectacular performance of Stravinsky's opera "The Nightingale and Other Short Fables", staged by Robert LePage at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). I was spellbound. LePage's operatic concept was strikingly avant-garde, and yet his ideas included the ancient artforms of puppetry, Vietnamese water-puppetry, shadow puppetry, and the dramatic play of water and light. Combining such an array of artforms was breathtaking and remarkably coherent. The audience and I fell headlong into a child's magical world right from the start. Though we acknowledged the unreal world of puppets, the opera singers/puppets catapulted the libretto into our present reality, as the viewers become captivated by the unique transformations set before them.

The orchestra pit, filled with water, was the "stage" where some of the opera singers sang and waded, dressed in colourful Asian costumes. The singers, half immersed in the water, animated the puppet figures (using Javanese style sticks for maneuvering) that glided along in beautifully crafted boats. Sound wild? Yes, but it worked so well. The full impact of the unusual theatrical elements and brilliant singing pulled the audience away from a pretend sensibility into one of an intense here-and-now reality. We became children being "read to", while the "pop-up book" scene and complex musical richness shimmered before us. And what of the Nightingale? The Russian soprano, Olga Peretyatko, sang with a gorgeous coloratura voice and was well-suited and versatile in her role as the magical bird.

This particular extravaganza put me in mind of many intrinsic elements that I have recently come to recognize in my own art expression. Unbeknownst to me, in terms of a conscious effort, the figurative puppet element began last year with a silhouette drawing of the profile of the heads of friends whose "bodies" morphed into Maori objects, culminating in tapered legs that diminished into stick-like points. I call the drawing "A Fine Polemic" (2008, 4'8" x 4'2"). A playful synergism?

To see something of what made the Nightingale so special, go to Youtube and type in:
Michael Curry Demonstrates his Nightingale Puppets
or
ExMachina/The Nightingale
or
Waywang Kulit (Dewa Ruci by Ki Manteb 2/10)
or Vietnam Water Puppet Show 2008 part 3

From the Past:

Have you ever looked at some of the silhouettes and paper cut-outs by Hans Christian Anderson? He always carried a pair of scissors in his pocket, and if he met a child of a certain age, he would pull out his scissors, and while telling a fairy tale, he would begin to cut out an elaborate cut-paper image. The image illustrated the story! Since he always wanted to to be an actor, all of this was dramatized, the story ending with the final paper-cut!! While living in Cambridge, England for a year, I began a series of cut-paper creations for my daughter, who was five and a half years-old at the time. Every so often, I would draw and colour an image that had been folded and cut, and then leave it at night as a surprise on the floor in front of her bedroom door. In the morning, what fun! This activity got me thinking about how important paper templates have been in my struggle to find my own art niche. Looking back at a series of ribbon paintings, completed in the 1970's - '80's, I realized that they were a result of the manipulation of three different templates which I had drawn and cut out for use on large scale (8' x 5') canvases. Looking farther back, I discovered that repeat patterns used in my fabric design class at SAIC, were the initial source of the way I approach my art practice today.
Examples of the folded paper and cut series (6 1/2" x 14"), and the painted ribbon series (5' x 8') are shown here.

A Discovery: Part 4

When I am using frottage as a way of working, I find that a peculiar, intuitive spatial depth occurs. Even though I have carefully controlled the placement of textures, the final outcome is filled with unintended and random imagery. Recognizable images, like fish, animals and people, for example, may appear between and around the intended imagery. Even rubbed areas that were unintentionally embossed by the wooden edge of my pencil, reappear when other patternings are rubbed over them. These surprises and patterned layerings float and intermingle, materialize and disintegrate, throughout the drawing surface. When I use profiles of life-size people, they suggest the iconic representations seen in postage stamps, coins and in the profile paintings of ancient Egypt. I feel that the partial essence that remains of a rubbed object, forms a kind of memorial or commemorative of the actual object. Perhaps references to the ancients, archeology and anthropology can also be inferred. What I see are the textures immersing the images in an "electrified forest", carrying with them a spinning, illusory momentum that skids and careens across the surface of the picture plane.
Here is the detail from the drawing "Russian Bowls" as promised from my last blog:

A Discovery:
Part 3

I asked myself; how can I make this combination of image plus textured rubbings work and still involve some technical aspects of drawing? Why not practice placing the textured surfaces around and even layer them using old has-been drawings. I found the perfect throw-away item. It was an image of two large flowers (hard at the best of times to not sentimentalize) and a Russian bowl whose rim segued into a duck's head (something rather esoteric).
I worked fiendishly on this drawing, adding bits, erasing, and generally sweating over it. In the wee hours of the morning, the completed work met with some kind of intuitive, know-when-it's-right, cognitive reality. I burst into tears!
Now, people who know me have seen me burst into tears before; there was the image of Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus" located in the National Gallery in London, U.K. There was many a poignancy in viewing various Shakespeare productions at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival Theatre, Ontario, Canada (Othello, Hamlet, and The Tempest), and finally, I can cry over the sweet, innocence of young children and their thoughts. Ok, enough of that. I guess that what I'm trying to say is, I think I found my drawing niche!
This is the deciding factor drawing that spurred me on. Click on this image to enlarge.

The paper petroglyph idea all started while scrambling to prepare an art lesson for 8-10 year olds. I had had these same kids since they were 6 years old, so consequently, 50 new ideas later, I still needed a new 51st one! I thought about the idea of doing a lot of different textured rubbings on a piece of paper, but I was worried that parents might say "What? that's kindergarten stuff. Not teaching any technical skills?" So, I quickly threw in the idea that something realistic (an image of a rhinoceros for example - kids love animals) would have to be drawn (I always gave a how-to draw-it demonstration). After that, I prepared a mock-up of what the realistic image might look like. But, instead of using the rhino as the realistic image in which to integrate with the rubbings, I casually took a life-size, profile-silhouette (from an earlier kid project) and began to fill that in with textures. Wow! An Arcimboldo-like image was developing and something ancient, Egyptian tomb-like, and fleetingly iconic, suggesting a kind of commemorative, began enlivening the inanimate stillness of the drawn surface! How could I harness these images.

This image shows a child's profile-silhouette, heavily textured. It's entitled "Familial Circuitry".

A Discovery

What happens when you find textured surfaces from dollar store items (a fly swat, garden flamingo or plastic lace) and lay some of these objects (one at a time) under a sheet of soft Stonehenge paper and then rub - frottage the textures (with a graphite stick)? Odd-looking, old-looking and partially cropped images emerge. Like patterns in an old tree, unintentional images appear, and now the fun begins. Controlling the placement of the textured surfaces, layering the textured surfaces and working on a grand scale (a five by seven foot sheet of paper), I form what I call a Paper Petroglyph.

Here's an image that I created based on silhouettes of my family.