This week, I made a new umbrella out of newspaper. It looks much less like a jellyfish. I haven't redone the film since the weather hasn't cooperated (for a change). I thought of making an umbrella that comes down to my calves and making the handle into the viewers in submarines with 2 mirrors to be able to see above. I thought it would be interesting to walk backwards through the city while filming through the submarine-viewer-telescope as someone else films people's reactions. I'm not sure how conceptual that idea is. Perhaps it just seemed like it would be fun.
I'm also experimenting with how to show emotion with umbrellas. So far I've worked with a pair of star-crossed umbrellas that meet despair. Semi inspired by Valentine's Day. I'm interested in pursuing stop motion, but in a way I'm more interested in letting a singular sculpture be a narrative in itself since sometimes stop motion can seem over the top. Also, the umbrellas are pretty frail and it would be difficult to achieve a realistic lifelike quality. I think the umbrellas evoke figurative connotations where the hook handles can be seen as either a head or a hand that can be linked to another handle.
I've been collecting umbrella handles and have tried making "frankenstein" umbrellas by mixing and matching parts. One of the figurative umbrella portraits is of a female wearing a skirt/dress. I swapped the original handle for one with a hook, but I think a thinner handle would be more fitting, or dare I say feminine.
Once I found a book about famous pairs or couples through history depicted simply with pears. I like the simplicity and cleverness that something like that elicits. For example, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn was one intact pear and one with what could be considered its head cut off. Mike Tyson is intact and Evander Holyfield has a bite out of him. You get the idea. Even though its a coffee table book, I like the concept. There is a lot of potential in the original form of an umbrella to create portraiture or general human emotion.
