January 28, 2011 Intensive Overview

Overview of thesis development during the intensive

Angie Odom

I entered Thesis studio as a blank slate.  I abandoned all my preconceived ideas, all my methods of processing information (which is very direction oriented – begin at point A, get to point B), and all my anxieties about time and due dates.  I was an empty shell.

My first assignment was very challenging.  It was to find something that inspires me and study it.  I began reminiscing about a time when I was able to enjoy my artistic side. I began my first degree (I didn’t complete!) at Viterbo in LaCrosse, Wisconsin in Music Performance (Opera).  I still love to sing. Sometimes a melody can stir and inspire me. The thought of music of course lead me to think about poetry. My second degree (which I completed!) was in English and Art History.  Poetry inspires me. I found one of my favorite poems that still moves me too tears - Petrarch’s Sonnet #292 "The Eyes That Drew from Me."

The eyes that drew from me such fervent praise,

The arms and hands and feet and countenance

Which make me a stranger in my own romance

And set me apart from the well-trodden ways;

The gleaming golden curly hair, the rays

Flashing from a smiling angel's glance

Which moved the world in paradisal dance,

Are grains of dust, insensibility

And I live on, but in grief and self-contempt,

Left here without the light I loved so much,

In a great tempest and with shrouds unkempt.

No more love songs, then, I have done with such;

My old skill now runs thin at each attempt,

And tears are heard within the harp I touch.

From thinking of Petrarch, I began to feel the old tug of some distant movement that used to inspire my art work.  It was the movement of ballet. Many of my works were inspired by ballet (such as The Sarcophagus below). 

 I used to study and study the movement of ballet.  How could one movement create a sense of softness, quiet, stillness that seemed to hover in the air one could almost grasp it just enough to understand something more monumental than a word could express?!  How could one movement, jagged, short, and rigid – speak of death and dying in such an eloquent whisper?  And then, I made the leap to Anna Pavlova whose body language inspired many pieces of my art.

I had found my inspiration.

What next?

I found old videos of Anna Pavlova on “YouTube” which were great!  I watched many of them; one in particular, stirred up my sense of wonder and awe.  It was Anna doing the “Rondino” for Douglas Fairbanks in 1916.  The setting seemed to be a drive-way area in front of a home.  Trees spread across the background and Anna took center stage – dancing as if no one was there – lost in the grand moment of the dance and its meaning.  What is it, in this video that I could draw from in my work as an architect?  What is in ballet that could become an attribute of structure?

I began my analysis by creating still shots of the “Rondino.”  Every 2 seconds, I recorded an image. From this string of images, I chose and printed the first fifteen segments.  From these segments, I created charcoal images using a transparent overlay.  The charcoal images were bold.  The dark black charcoal brought out other aspects of the dance.  The relationship of figure and ground (not to be confused with Nolli…) became apparent.  A shadow below her feet became apparent.  The direction of hands and feet and placement in the air became apparent.  What was not apparent to me was the abstract qualities of the drawing itself.  I wanted to see and study the actual occurrence and understand what the reality of the dancer in the photo meant. But, it was pointed out to me that there were other relationships and aspects to draw upon as well. 

In the charcoal sketches, between the black lines and blank spaces, are shapes.  

In the charcoal sketches, between the black lines and blank spaces, are relationships.  

In the charcoal sketches, between the black lines and blank spaces, are connections.  

Can the study of the apparent be realized through abstraction?  Perhaps it can. By taking a photo and sketching over it, I created a method of expressing the photograph.  By taking a sketch and organizing it into shapes, relationships and connections, I have created a method of expressing the sketch. Some grain of truth has to be found within this process of studying, sketching and overlaying!

Further study produced a layout of proportion and distances between hands, feet and body.  Another study revealed the connection of movements in a 2-dimensional manner.  A 3-dimensional study tackled form and enclosure of a space created by the movements of the hands and feet.  

In this way, I began to look at each result differently.  It was no longer about the actual but what the actual could be.  A “tutu” could become a pattern in concrete, or a structure, or create a path.  The location of the foot upon the ground could become a study of movement, an indication of weight and lightness, a study of void and mass.  But, there is a sense in this selection, in this search for the next study that some paths are correct and others are not.  Some studies produced a result not worth pursuing further.  They were not in this “truth” that I sense from the dancer.  As I continue my endeavors, I take with me from my intensive experience, the awareness of various methods of analysis – both real and abstract, and many playful methods of discovery.

There is a small pearl forming in the shell.