21 Nov Stepping into the Labyrinth-FFF #4
Not to be confused with a maze,a labyrinth is about a journey. A quest. It’s so apt that Sally suggested it to me as a way to frame my fractured forms during our cohort crit call. This project has indeed been a quest, a very personal one that will continue until I reach the proverbial centre.
“Things outside you are projections of what’s inside you, and what’s inside you is a projection of what’s outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you’re stepping into the labyrinth inside.”
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Contemplating neolithic symbols, mark making and the methodology required to draw a labyrinth – I began doodling. I think I will continue to work on top of this drawing for as long as it takes to find answers. I had been reading the book Chroma by Derek Jarman (Les recommended it) in tangent with the FFF project and felt inspired by this poem beautiful describing a spiritual journey of sorts in an altered state. There are at least 4 or 5 references to labyrinths in his book. The treatment of colour in his chapters, has planted seeds for another passage in this project: Colour monoprints that I have started, romantically titled ‘echoes from the labyrinth’. Details to follow in another post.
Whiting out memory
Cross-eyed meddlesome consciousness
A blinkered twister
Circling in spirals
Shall I? Will I?
Doodling death watch
Mind how you go.
Connections reveal themselves as I doodle. A brain, our subconscious or a womb. The ritual of ‘walking the labyrinth’ or a symbol of wholeness. Daedalus created the Labyrinth to hide the Minotaur from society, to hide the scandalous evidence of its birth. A metaphor for seeking your destiny, where persistence is rewarded. It presents opposing meanings – the fear of getting lost in there versus the pleasure and challenge of exploration. A useful metaphor for life itself, an archetype that still moves us and describes life for us in some essential way.
Construction. I wanted to make a model of a labyrinth using wax as a macquette for an installation/sculpture. An imagined place you could walk through. I used a sketch as a footprint on a canvas board and built walls with watercolour paper I had reinforced with wax. I added broken red crayons to the melted wax to tint it red. This was influenced by the red backlit wax paper photos as documented in the ‘crit call’ blog post. Hopefully suggesting connections to the body.
Building the walls with wax paper 
Wax paper model 
Wax tinted with crayon 
Painting on the red wax
Close up of the model: entrance to the Labyrinth
Inspired by Bob & Les’s enthusiasm for little people I have ordered some on eBay. I’ll be excited to re-shoot the model with its new occupants when they arrive. [ Santa has promised me a new macro lens for my camera too, if I’m a good girl. ] So I can shoot it in context with finer detail.
