Author: tmcnamara

 

Ancient Egyptian Isis is the goddess of magic, motherhood, healing, divine feminine

Ancient Egyptian goddess Sekhmet was the goddess of war, protection, feminine rage, and a military force that could wipe out all of humanity if angered. In her more relaxed form she was known as Bast, the goddess of cats and a joyful figure. Her existence is a reminder there is no light without darkness and no balance comes without sacrifice.

 

Artemis and Apollo were both known as hunters, but represented the moon and sun when depicted together. Artemis was known to be a protector of children women and often associated with helping women in childbirth as she helped deliver her brother Apollo into the world when their mother, Leto, was being hunted by the vengeful goddess Hera. Eventually Leto gave birth to them both on an island as Hera forbade her from safety on land. This is partially what prompted  Artemis’s first wish to her father Zeus when she asked him to grant her freedom to hunt in the woods forever with her hounds, to never marry or have children, and to be a protector of those in need of it most. Her brother Apollo was known as the chariot that brought the sun in every morning and a joyful god who enjoyed music, performance, and concerts. Apollo and Artemis are known for being mischievous when working together and occasionally play tricks on each other as siblings often do.

Aphrodite is one of the most well known Greek goddesses as she was the goddess of love, sensuality, and the divine feminine

Mermaids are some of the oldest myths in folklore

This is a continuation of the themes I explored in my first collage which was how do I view myself as a performer and a person. This year I began booking more shows professionally as a foot archery contortionist which includes a lot of themes of worshipping the divine feminine. I was drawn to the goddess Aphrodite for the first assemblage, collage and installation because my first experience performing was for a small burlesque, circus variety company Cult of Art. Cult of Art created a show called Aphrodisia, which was cultivated to be an elaborate ritual honoring the goddess Aphrodite. My costume theme was meant to invoke the birth of Venus, as I was in a full unitard mint, blue colored bodysuit covered in shells, mermaids scales, and bejeweled accents. This experience was incredibly healing and made me realize there is true power in being comfortable in your own skin.
I was interested in creating an assemblage with a mixture of natural material such as real shells and man made objects I had used in this ritual. I’m not going to go in the direction of just a literal altar however, to tie in all three projects I want this to be a bit more unique and focus on fabric manipulation and work with creating a collage on costume.
I want to transform the dress and bare fabric, so the dress can be worn on stage but the bare fabric will be the form meant for a gallery and the dress is meant to be more personal.

Inspirations for project two began as I reflected on my nomadic way of life.

As a circus performer who has worked professionally in the industry for over four years, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to live on the road. And it’s definitely not as glamorous as you might imagine being in stage would be. The thing about most circuses is they’re located in the middle of nowhere. That means for two to six months, maybe even a year or two years, you don’t have a home. The home is the tent. The home is the forest, the lake, or the sea in the distance. The home is nothing that you can prepare yourself for properly until you’re on your own.

But in a way, my nomadic experiences have also been the most beautiful parts of my life. Learning to rely on myself to survive in the wilderness made me realize I was a lot stronger than I thought I was.

My choice  to make the minis was to reflect on the idea that your life must fit in a suitcase as a nomad, you must forsake most material possessions or luxuries, in order to make it feasible as a solo traveler. I learned that once I spent a week without Internet that a lot of digital communication is what gave me a sense of internal safety. Without the constant chatter of the world around me to distract from my own thoughts, I was able to completely teach myself foot archery over the course of three and a half years.

There are some days I miss the wild, and I hope I will go back eventually. But until then I’ve traded in my sparkles and glitter for a cap and gown, wanting to give myself balance between both sides of my life.

And after graduation who knows, I’m off to the next adventure!

 

Major inspirations for the collage were the sea and its relationship to the moon, tides, and femininity

 For my project, I am going to create a book. Each page will have a different contortion pose corresponding to a letter in the alphabet. It will also become stickers so the poses could spell out different words. I am planning on having each photo done in the same style so it flows as a visual language. I’m still debating on doing black and white or color. My influences for this project was the artist Cindy Sherman and how she creates different costumes for each of her photographs. The idea of her transforming into different people is really interesting to me, and I was inspired by that idea in regards to my own life. My ideas for the different poses were inspired by snakes and the concept of transformation. Influences for the piece were inspired by multimedia artists like Erika Lemay and Cindy Sherman, whos work has themes of transformation. The title of the book is “Alphabet”. The piece explores how see the body and how it can be changed through contortion. The reason I chose this idea was because I believe that through contortion, the body twisting and turning into seemingly unnatural poses challenges the viewer to redefine what they believe is possible. I think this enforces the idea behind creating a “new” form of an alphabet that the viewer then has to use to make words.

For my archive, I was interested in collecting shells. I have been collecting shells for a long time and so has my mother. Ever since I was a little girl, my mom has labeled and collected the shells from each vacation we have been on. I find it interesting to collect shells because they are really the skeletons of once living organisms. It is a strange concept when you think about as something to keep being a skeleton. It prompted me to think about what humans believe is morally right or wrong when it comes to respecting the dead.

I find it really fascinating that the more shells I collect, I have a sort of living library of what was in the ocean, living at the same time I was there. We coexist at the same time. It also made me think about how much is in the ocean that is unexplored by humans. I wonder what is beneath the surface and in areas of deep, deep ocean that humans haven’t even touched yet.