SHAPE

A Formula for Meditation in Art : Overlie's Six Viewpoint Theory and Practice in Performance & Antony Gormley's Sculptural Process

Workshop 1 :

One Viewpoint/Performance > < One Aspect of a Process /Sculpture

SHAPE > < MOLD

participants are seen performing an opening ritual. The hands are vigorously rubbed together and first brought to the body, then the architecture, and lastly, the earth. The tactile senses are awakened, an awareness is drawn the breathe, and all share an act of individual involvement and collective power. With every workshop I lead it is imperative that we begin and close with a ritual. This designates the space as safe and sacred, setting aside the daily life and entering the world of the unreified where we can support each other in taking risks.

"Silence Nothing"

"Smunchy Watermelon"

"Cut Chapped World"

All Photos above taken by Ivan Mayes

(Above 3) Body sculpture pieces that arrived out of participants discovering individual SHAPE "signatures" and then moving from impulse, I brought them together with other participants. The pieces were then titled according to words that stood out to participants in performance from an automatic writing exercise executed earlier.

Photo taken by Amelia Charter

Above we see a sculptural artifact from an exercise where participants were blindfolded, given at least half of a 25 lb. block of clay each and told to MOLD their body's SHAPE out of the clay.

All material that arrises out of this method becomes an artifact because of the ephemeral nature of performance and lasting nature of sculpture. Because it is strictly about the process, the inevitable product of the process becomes an artifact rather than a "sculpture".