Artist Ellen Jaye Benson

Lesson Plan: Amorphous Shapes suspended as Kinetic Sculptures (Stage 5)

2012-01-16T17:03:00.008+11:00

STAGE: 5 (note this lesson plan could easily be adapted for stage 4 - by abandoning kinetic sculpture element - you could either make painted cardboard relief sculptures influenced by Arp or paper cutouts influenced by Matisse)
FRAMES: STRUCTURAL & SUBJECTIVE
OUTCOMES: 5.1, 5.3, 5.6

LESSON OBJECTIVE: On concluding this lesson students will better understand the ART ELEMENT SHAPE and DESIGN PRINCIPLE BALANCE. Students will be able to recognise and create amorphous shapes and demonstrate their understanding of the design principal balance by configuring shapes in a kinetic sculptural format. (This lesson should follow on from lessons focusing on organic and geometric shapes).

image from Marie Claire Ideas: Calder Inspired Mobile

STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT:
-The structural conventions of art - focusing on the art element shape and the design principle balance
-Through the subjective and structural frames students create their own intuitive amorphous shapes whilst listening to emotive music
- Kinetic Sculpure through visual investigation and discussion of artist Alexander Calder

STUDENTS LEARN TO:
- Record their understanding of amorphous shapes by creating a visual bank of their own amorphous shapes
- Learn the properties of and how to manipulate mixed-media materials
- Translate 2D drawings into 3D forms

MATERIALS: Wire, Tissue Paper, PVA

INTRO: Define Amorphous shapes - discuss and show slideshow of artists who create amorphous shapes - suggested artists include Robert Motherwell, Jean Hans Arp, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore. Later discuss Mobiles and Kinetic sculpture - Core focus on Alexander Calder (this could be a critical/historical lesson of its own).

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. draw amorphous shapes on paper intuitively whilst listening to music (subjective frame)
2. bend wire to make selected amorphous forms - leaving a 3 inch tail to attach later by either converting tail into a jump ring or wrapping around wire branches
3. on tissue paper rougly trace around shape leaving a 1-3cm border (pending shape size) then cut out
4. wrap border over wire form and glue to secure
5. move your shapes around on a large piece of paper to map out a rough hanging configuration - then map out how you are going to make a suspending armature of rods (or branches) to hang the shapes. (Teacher should make a slideshow of mobiles-kinetic sculptures to demonstrate possible options - calder great to look at here) as well as design principle BALANCE.

SUGGESTED ARTIST INVESTIGATIONS:
Jean Hans Arp

ROBERT MOTHERWELL

Alexander Calder

Henry Moore

Henri Matisse

'Labourious'

2011-07-05T16:29:00.001+10:00

Crude abstract studies constructed whilst in early stages of labour - eerie, naive and primal. Watercolour + acrylic on rag paper.

Drift: The Distance Between You and I... (panels)

2010-09-07T20:40:00.000+10:00

Artworks from 'DRIFT' as seen at The Library Artspace

2010-03-31T11:15:00.000+11:00

'Drift' plugged in 'The Melbourne Art Review'

2010-03-21T13:59:00.001+11:00

Ellen Jaye Benson ~ Drift article by Emma Kirsopp

Posted using ShareThis

Wall Shots of 'Drift' at the Library Artspace

2010-03-11T12:59:00.000+11:00

(last image as displayed at 'Chronicle' show Wall Works 'Drift' by artist Ellen Jaye Benson and shown on opposing wall in current show, floor piece shown here is by artist Alice Parker

All but the bottom photo is taken by Robert Hock http://www.roberthock.com/ and photo editing by Artist Ellen Jaye Benson

Upcoming Solo Show: 'Drift'

2010-01-31T09:39:00.000+11:00

Drift: My Mountains

2010-01-01T23:15:00.000+11:00

Drift: Pillars of Strength and Illumination (construction preview)

2009-10-09T12:02:00.000+11:00

Drift

Driving movement or force; impulse; impetus; pressure

“Far away in outer space / A lighthouse guiding star / It's there to help you human race / and tell you where you are” 'Lighthouse' lyrics by Hawkwind

“Lighthouse man can't help us all / Some he'll save and some will fall / He'll show you where the danger lies / But he can't help it if you capsize / He'll light your way but that is all / Steer your own ship back to shore" 'Lighthouse' lyrics by The Waifs

Summary Statement

Drift is a mixed-media phantasmic wonderment using man-made engineering structures such as lighthouses, bridges and powerlines set in immense landscapes as a metaphor for humankinds romantic and precarious desire to understand, harness, shape & control nature.

Drift: Rocksalt Studies

2009-10-09T11:25:00.000+11:00

Some Cropping has Occurred

DRIFT: Geomont Studies

2009-10-09T10:31:00.000+11:00

These works are featured in my 'Rockwall' calendar:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/ellejayerose/calendars/3780238-1-rock-wall

'DRIFT' showcased in 'Chronicle' at the Library Artspace: sneak peak at developmental construction

2009-05-05T09:00:00.000+10:00

'GORGONS' (2008)

2009-05-05T08:00:00.000+10:00

1m x 1m digital renderings overlaying snakey construction lines to mason monumental head studies - yet to be printed and exhibited - hope to use soy-based inks and print on cotton rag.

Kick Start My Heart (2007)

2009-05-05T07:00:00.000+10:00

Exhibited at Forty Five Downstairs as part of the RMIT Drawing Grad & Honors Show

'CORPUS COUTURE: HOUNEN PUDENDUM' (2006 - 2007)

2009-04-13T09:10:00.000+10:00

'Undine' Extension of the Body: RMIT Body in Art Sculpture Elective Piece

'Corpus Couture: Hounen Pudendum’ playfully fashions genitalia as wearable adornment. The intimate ‘pubic’ becomes ’public’ spectacle to scrutinise proposed physical and metaphoric boundaries of the body in relation to dress, visual culture and physical space. My idea of the body is the imagined, the metaphoric, the other, the disciplined, the transgressive, the expected body manifesting and mutating as worn physical accessory. My awareness also extends to how the individual wearer transforms the bodily adornments and plays a part in a much larger body, ‘the Communal Body’.

'Tea Bagging' Showcasing at 16 Dally

This body of work addresses the precarious nature of defining a concrete boundary for the body. I am highlighting how the viewing of artificial appendages, such as clothing as purely supplementary is problematic. The supplement, though not obligatory, is essential in addressing the body as a complete composite.

‘Corpus Couture’ is a body of work made up of individually crafted adornment pieces. Adornment is tactile, wearable as well as visually intoxicating, not only serving to create a contemplative relationship between the art object and its’ possessor, but also a physical one. ‘Corpus Couture’ adornments precariously juxtapose ‘heavily loaded’ motifs to intellectually penetrate their possessors.

The danger and allure of the ‘Corpus Couture’ adornments lie mostly in the marital system of their consumption:

Step 1 Window-shopping in the object of desires house (pursuit/hunt)
Step 2 Discovering the object of desire (meeting eyes across the room)
Step 3 Flirtatious contemplation of the object of desire (courting/calculating)
Step 4 Exchanging goods as to possess the object of desire (dowry payment)
Step 5 Possession of the object of desire (ownership/control)

The owner of an art adornment piece is arguably more involved with and accountable for their possessed artwork, than say an owner of a painting. When worn, the owner physically occupies space with the artwork; it becomes a part of their physical identity, part of their complete body presentation.
The adornment pieces are made and presented in limited editions. This allows an intimate reading whilst still alluding to ideas about consumption/desire and mass-production.

‘Hounen Pudendum - Part iii’
Folded, formed, scrunched, glued, stitched and illuminated new and found materials form the male and female cod-pieces that make up ‘Hounen Pudendum‘. Consciously, I aim to reduce my dependence on heading straight for prescribed art store-bought materials in my work, due to personal reservations about environmental impact/convenience/mass-production/art hegemony etc. Found objects are attractive, both for their narrative history as well as their temporal/weathered Zen-like quality. ‘Hounen Pudendum’ cod-pieces are difficult to place, appearing as both refined art-object and as crass novelty-item. Brutally manipulated recycled tea-bag papers make up delicate forms echoing the light-weight and transparent nature of Japanese rice paper as well as the enamel staining of Zen ceramics.

The paradoxical nature of teabag paper, is also inline with Zen, despite its humble, domestic appearance and application, teabag paper is constructed from abaca hemp, known to be the toughest of papermaking fibres. The domestic nature of using teabag paper to construct the male/female genital sheathes is also heightened by macramé knotting over wire armatures using new and found DMC cotton, synonymous with ‘lesser‘ female dominated textile arts. These genitals as formal outer-garments are further displaced when illuminated using club culture glow-sticks, appearing at once numinous and fetishistic. The body parts as clothing acts as both a separate supplement when viewed individually and part of a whole body composite when attached using a dress tie belt, a dress tie being neutral as both a contemporary male/female accessory.

Illuminated cod-pieces were made specifically for the loosely choreographed 'peek-a-boo' performance as part of 'Spincycle 3'(High Vibes Festival, Northcote), an eclectic fashion parade co-ordinated by the innovative melbourne artist/designer, Jo Porter. Performers included Kim Moukas, Mariam Jenehy, Grace Wong along with the artist initiator, Ellen Benson.

"A part of this strangeness of dress is that it links the biological body to the social being, and public to the private." - Elizabeth Wilson

"Our clothes are too much a part of us for most of us ever to be entirely indifferent to their condition: it is as though the fabric were indeed a natural extension of the body, or even of the soul" - Quentin Bell (1910-1996)

"The art of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive that if it were not for the beauty of the faces and the adornments of the actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species." - Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Artist: Ellen Jaye Benson
email: zzzpirate@gmail.com

Please contact the artist for permission to reproduce images/exhibiting information.

'HOUNDS, HEADSTONES N HEARTS' (2005)

2009-04-11T19:43:00.000+10:00

"Destructive, resisting and transformative responses to the grieving process using universal and personal symbolism and imagery - Based around a mythical narrative of a Dearly Deceased Dog"

'Hounds, Headstones and Hearts' was a 3 part Kabuki/Cabaret collaboration featuring Ellen Jaye Benson, Paul Compton and Kimberly Moukas performed as part of 'Spincycle' for Melbourne Fringe Festival.

My character was the chaos Kali-like death bringer, exploring birth/life/death connotations. A Shaman-like dance piece influenced by Japanese, Middle-eastern veil-work and contemporary movement. The costume was constucted of a found and altered dress - utilising chicken bones (left from a friends stock), cloth dye, ink, sealing wax, beads, chiffon, cotton thread.

Bloody Mary... Bloody Mary... Bloody Mary... (2005)

2009-04-10T18:28:00.000+10:00

Self as Other.... Self as Martyr...

'ROSECAM STILLS' (2008-09)

2009-04-10T13:02:00.000+10:00

'Rosecam' is a long-term project capturing webstills of my own head and body. I would hesitate to call them self portraits as they are sometimes auto portraits and sometimes completely contrived, even mythical. These pixelated stills are cropped, repeated and pieced together in cinematic pop star compositions to form the 'Rosecam' books that are to be self-published through 'blurb' at a later date.

INSTALLATION WORKS

2009-04-04T14:48:00.000+11:00

RMIT Drawing Studio

'Domestic Fractions' showcasing at 16 Dally

Moths In A Makeshift Closet (2004)

2008-10-02T18:21:00.000+10:00

Still Life Commissions Welcomed

Life Studies

2008-04-11T12:56:00.000+10:00

Portrait & Life Study Commissions Welcomed

Elle Jaye Rose Tees

2008-04-10T16:11:00.000+10:00

Find my illustrative, sporadic, dark and sentimental pop brainfarts in the form of t-shirts for sale on red bubble under the alias 'elle jaye rose':

www.redbubble.com/people/ellejayerose