Monday, December 26, 2005

Egg Exercise #1



I'm half way through reading Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit. Today, as I was reading today she wrote about one of her exercises: The Egg. She suggests rolling yourself up tight into an egg shape, then experimenting with moving to create new shapes. Small movements, large movements... whatever your spirit suggests.

By itself, it's a great exercise but I immediately saw a different warm up exercise that I can use my studio. So out of the bath/library and down to the studio to give this a try. ( Oh, pause for some clothes...)

The egg shape is symmetrical only in one direction.. which give lots of chances for mirroring and for change. If I cut out an egg shape, then attack it with a scissors or rotary cutter, how many different designs can I make that originate with this shape? Hundreds.

Today I decided to cut across the shape, leaving a thin (1/8") bridge along one side. Then I "exploded" the egg, turning the outside edge into the inside edge and fanning all my cuts out from there. It needs lots of massaging and a different background piece before I fuse it down, but I like the end results. It doesn't look at all like an egg.

Since Life seems to be limiting my studio time this week, I am going to try and do an egg exercise every morning... I see major design possibilities with this...(I call dibs).

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