Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Calligraphic Dancer | The Footwork Challenge

The Footwork Challenge - Calligraphic Dancer Project (C.D.P.)
Process is a lovely creature and must be given freedom to explore. 

Today my first challenge approached me while choreographing my dance language to Hossam Ramzy's version of Enta Omri. While dancing and envisioning the calligraphic characters, my body only wanted to do footwork and no other movement. I had forgotten the world of foot work when I "completed" my "alphabet!" (How silly!) I thought I was good-to-go to arrange the choreography - plus I was under the impression that because I must give the dancer the freedom of their personality, arms and feet placement would be to their discretion - so no foot work needed. But to my happy surprise, I discovered a new character just calling to be conjured!

So what would signify foot work in place? No traveling. I already have travel characters... And what if later I need to add a move on top of that footwork? What would it look like?
Here's the outcome after a few trials....

Foot work

Process is a lovely creature and must be given freedom to explore. Just because one thinks they have something fortified, there will always be something else knocking at the door. Be curious and take a peak. Let it flow and be natural. As creative minds, these types of challenges should be welcomed and worked with.

Foot work with a Figure 8


Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Calligraphic Dancer | Categories of Characters



Since my last post about my Calligraphic Dancer Project, Beginnings, I've made slow but nice progress and I'm excited! 
So far I have a list on types or categories of characters, almost like an alphabet. They would be interpreted by the dancer through his or her own style, but would, of course, have to learn the "alphabet" before taking on a series of characters or choreography. Arms and feet placement would be determined by the dancer and you will see that there is no direction in my notes for that. It's a sort of "loop hole" that I want to leave free for the interpreter. 

Categories of Characters:
  1. Hip Circles
  2. Hip Drops
  3. Accents (pops, locks, turn of the head, basically a small and sharp movement)
  4. Undulations
  5. Figure eights
  6. Shimmies
  7. Shoulder circles
  8. Snake arms
  9. Turns
  10. Travel movements
  11. Stops

This list will continue being tweaked and experimented with. Take a peak at the two examples below....

Hip Drops

Variations of Undulations - still experimenting

More to come...!


Friday, June 27, 2014

The Calligraphic Dancer - Beginnings




My next project is called The Calligraphic Dancer. I started in 2012, yet after my Fall graduation I paused due to a number of reasons. It's been two years and it feels really nice to return to something a tad more conceptual and full of layers. Painting is wonderful, but I'm ready for new things.

An artist talks about their experiences through the mediums they feel are appropriate. In doing so, they reveal their own sort of "language." For me the fun part is watching the beauty of chance and the beauty of failure reveal themselves. This project can go in so many ways and I'm not sure if this visual exploration into Middle Eastern Dance will work. As a source of inspiration, John Cage's special words hang on the walls of my studio: "Art is not an escape from life, but rather an introduction to it."
So if my work is an introduction to Middle Eastern Dance, I hope that it will be a tasteful, perceptive and fresh one.

Serpent's Hip Circle

This week I worked on the basic shapes and started with "circles." What are movements in Belly Dance that make "circles?" We have three sizes of hip circles, small (omi's), medium and large. We also have circles of the ribcage, shoulders and head (which can translate more to swinging and flipping your hair). So many more, but I'm sticking to basics....

So far out of about 50+ tries, the image to the right has been my favorite. I call it the Serpent's hip circle or hip circle with heel taps.

For you dancers out there, can you dance it?

For you non-dancers (yet *wink wink*) or beginners, take a look at the image below with numbers. Imagine you're breaking down a large hip circle. You'll start in the middle. Then, slide your hip to the right and tap your heels to the floor creating a small bounce of the body (that's one). Two, slide back and heel tap. Three, keep your hips back but slide left and heel tap. Four, follow the smooth line by bringing your hips forward again and finish the circle! How did it go...?


Stay connected for more on my progress! 

The future had loads more research and involvement, I promise it'll be fun.
Thank you!




Thursday, April 24, 2014

Interview with Artist Kat King


Kat King's story takes from a limitless palette of objects, both personal and found, and enters them into the world of books! In my interview with this fascinating and multi-media artist, I became very aware of how her research, inspirations and aspirations are hidden and detailed within the complexities of her books. It's a wonderful artistic hybrid of sculpture, collage and painting that's dreamy and raw.

Let's give you a taste of who is Kat King!....

What have you been up to lately? I'm on my way to become an art teacher. I was struggling with figuring out what I wanted to do with my life and when I graduated with my BFA [in 2012] - it was very overwhelming. I was in a retail-esque job not long ago and I didn't want to be there forever so I left. I didn't want to be unhappy and it wasn't fulfilling. I've been working everything in line to be an art teacher.

What drives you to teach? When I was in elementary school I always looked forward to art class. I had the best teacher who would encourage and help us to grow and experiment with wacky projects that you wouldn't have thought of. When she passed away something just clicked - I needed to do art forever. When someone impacts your life and they're just.. gone, you step back and think "wow, if I didn't have this teacher, I wouldn't have been so impacted by art." And I really want to do that, to have that impact on someone else. My mom's also an artist, which helps from the home aspect.

How do you describe your style of work? From what I hear a lot and after stepping back, my work is really dark, and comes off as creepy. People might get turned off but I think if you dive deeper into it, really look and try to get past that, there are a lot of meaningful things in there.

Can you take us through your process? I start by slicing with a box cutter, the middle part of a page and then rip chunks of pages off. After I rip the pages I'll put glue on all three sides, let it set. Later, after like a day, I take a box cutter again and slice either in the middle or just the first page to open it up.  But it's gotten harder and really strenuous causing lots of wear and tear on my hands, and I feel like I'm starting to get arthritis, so sometimes I get very discouraged and I don't want to rip up any new books. I try and power through tearing up multiple books at one time so that if I want to start another idea in the middle of something else, I can just do it then.

Kat also mentions that her ideas are either sketched out and pre-planned or come intuitively, whether she's listening to a song, remembering a dream, borrowing someone else's story (as to create portrait-like pieces) or more simply by picking a color she wants to use at the moment. Check out this lyric that inspired one of her books: "Oh please come hold me, said the woman all covered in leaves. He's come again, the man with the roses that grow from his hands." China White by He is Legend.

What research do you do? I have a lot of art books that I revisit. My favorite is "Book Arts" that has about 1,000 mixed media books. There's nothing in there that's the exact replica of what that I'm doing, but it's nice to see the other ways people have used books. Even though a lot of the information I see is not transferred into my work, it just helps me to think outside of the box and create chain reactions to thoughts and ideas. I can relate to artist Joseph Cornell's visuals and how he collages different objects into a box-like space.

Kat and I also talked about Louise Bourgeois and her spiders. Although Kat might not use them for the same reasons as Bourgeois does to reference her mother, Kat similarly ties family with spiders in her books. A lot of my books have "daddy long legs "all over them that I can trace to issues that I've had with my father.

Would you consider your work as somewhat "spiritual?" It could be considered spiritual in that it's me trying to heal myself through creating art. It started off as wanting to vent and talk to someone but couldn't' fit the words out the way that I felt them so they just started coming out as art. It relieves that tension that gets bottled up. It's ironic, though, that when I tear up the pages it hurts. I'm transferring something that had once hurt me, feeling pain while I work, and making it into something tangible. So, yeah, it becomes a healing process.


What's the most fun out of making your work? Being able to use whatever I want to use, it's so free. I also really like seeing finished product with proper lighting to see all the shadows, depth and details that pop out. I pay attention to details a lot. There are things that get overlook unless you get close and personal, which I think everyone should do with art - get super close to grasp a full appreciation for it.

What's a dream project of yours? I would go to Yale or Harvard's library where they have huge, beautiful old, expensive books and I would rip them up. Most people who love books hate me, because they're like why would you rip that up, that's such a good book? It baffles them, but I wouldn't work with first editions or originals. I have an appreciation for books too. I have a bunch that I love that I would never rip up. But if I had two of them, I would rip it up.

Also, It would be a dream if I could be an art teacher by day and super sleek gallery owner by night. It's hard because their two separate worlds, but I would love to be a part of both of them.


Where I met the artist: Kat and I went to school and graduated from Florida International University, sharing a BFA show in the Fall of 2012 at the Frost Art Museum. I've "stalked" her since because her work is divine! Check out her website: www.katkingarts.com

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Why I make Belly Dance Art

The following blog was originally posted on the Belly Motions blog (check it out, wonderful posts by beautiful people!)

Nagwa Fouad, 2013
Someone once told me that I’d have to choose between Belly Dance and the visual arts to properly fulfill my career path. I was dissatisfied and felt like I was getting cheated from being myself. I believed my identity was a mixture of many creative avenues, not just one. So I trusted my instinct, emerged my two passions and created my dream career against all doubts!

I graduated in 2012 with a BFA from F.I.U. double majoring in Fine Art and Art History, and went on to completely immerse myself into the career of my dreams – becoming a full-time artist and a professional Belly Dancer…and merging the two!

As I reflect on a full year of work, I experienced that the magic of becoming you comes from the process of fulfilling your dreams . I won’t lie that in doing what you love comes tons of work that might not have been expected, even with creative careers! I’ve found that working consistently is the key to staying inspired and learning more!  In my experience I have come across three ways to fuel my passion for visual art and Belly Dance…and I hope these can be an inspiration to YOU too!

1. It’s a personal journey. The arts are wonderful avenues to discover the person that you are. Letting me be discovered by me has truly helped in the development of my work. I am an adventurous person who loves to travel and loves surprises. I like people, tea, conversation, etc… and I give in to it! What I like become statements of who I am which are eventually reflected in the art work.

2. It’s about and for the community. Whether it’s teaching dance and art or working on a one-on-one collaboration with a client (a.k.a. commission), I make sure my work and it’s messages circle in a figure eight – what goes around, comes around! In other words, what I learn I will always give back whether through dance, paintings or teaching.

3. Belief that art is life. I like to think that art and life go hand-in-hand as they are both surprising and like to sneak up on you, even in the tiniest of places. The most important thing I’ve learned and that keeps me inspired is that art is a “connector” between people! For example, dance, what I like to describe as “one of the oldest forms of communication” before verbal language, is as much a part of me as it is to my students and audiences. It can bridge people despite their differences and I’ve felt that magic happen! Effectively, I incorporate those experiences into my art work.

So if you gravitate towards one creative avenue, whether it’s cooking, crocheting, inventing, painting, dancing, or writing… make sure to continue! There’s growth, learning fun, new things and you’ll most likely meet someone that will share that similar passion! I believe we are all creative and we’ve all been there even in the smallest way! Make it simple, just do.

Stop by Belly Motions and visit out our gallery where you can view a few of my paintings!  You can also find more information on my visual art at www.Alexandra-Molina.com




Friday, March 28, 2014

Learning to be the Artist I want to be.


It's tea time, March 28th, 2014.

Lately, the inspirational creature that lives inside me has grown more temperamental and wanting to let loose. It has to do with several reasons and I know this sort of thing doesn't just happen on its own. Nothing ever happens on its own. As someone who's field is working with what they love - creativity - there's always that misconception that "inspiration just happens."

It takes lots of consistent labor, actually, and not just in making art work! I am thankful that my success in selling my work is growing, but I understand why that is and I wish that more artists understood the following....


Learn to be you. Understanding and being aware of who you are, your actions, your desires, your small habits and your biggest fears, and giving in to it is one important step. Whether it's a start for you or a continuation of your work, learning to be you at home and in public is highly beneficial.

Expect the constant struggles. Be a welcoming person to all things! It will guide you to the places you might need to be. 

Working on the creative stuff as much as you work on the admin stuff. Taking time to edit or update your website, sharing images on social media, posting, replying to people is part of our jobs as artists. I mean, we want to have people buy our work eventually, right? We need to start a following, plus the internet is free! 

Be curious about the world. I love watching TED Talks, PBS and Art 21 shows. That's my little circle of "internet friends" I can meditate ideas with back and forth. There's something exciting about knowledge and actively surrounding yourself with it. It makes me feel like a kid in school who's learning about a really cool bug or ancient civilization. Which also brings me to...

Be surprised. I LOVE surprises and what that teaches me about myself! It makes me happy to let something bewilder my senses and make me think. It's a great way to keep your mind sharp and active!

One of these days I might have blogs elaborating more on these points, but for the meantime it was good to just get them out there.

I'll promise myself to write more on the bigger and the smaller things that go on around me. It's just plain fun to have a personal blog and live out my creative side in all ends of the spectrum.

Thanks for popping by!

Photo's in this blog entry are courtesy of "Women's TEA TIME" Facebook page, 
who is always posting inspirational images and words.



Friday, March 7, 2014

Review on Adrian Molina's "Perpetual-In-Terra-Action"


I once titled this review "What Jackson Pollock wished he would have thought and where Albert Einstein would have felt magical" because Adrian's scrolls have many "action painting" qualities that Pollock made famous. And as for Einstein feeling magical - well... I would imagine that man was always feeling magical with all the beautiful things that came out of his fathomless mind! Adrian's art is an intricate and continuous figure-eight of creativity, science, physics, philosophy and pure fun.

I wrote this in 2011 after my first trip to Boston, re-editing it recently just a bit (Isn't it crazy how we look at things later and are like... man, I write better today than I used to! We're either ashamed or we laugh about it - I laughed.) I'll always remember this wonderfully, successful show and I'm very proud of my brother for conjuring such intriguing work.

Hope you enjoy the read!
_____________

Looming Scroll, 2011
Photo by Adam Moskowitz
It's Friday, November 11th, 2011 and I'm in Boston, Massachusetts. My brother, artist Adrian Molina is exhibiting his first full show of work, which has already blown my mind. Located at Yes.Oui.Si Gallery, a block from the Boston Museum of Art, this quaint yet lively space is charming and exciting my curiosity.

“Of course you can touch it. This isn't a museum.” –Adrian playfully clarifies in the midst of a crowd exploring his Looming Scroll or what I like to call The Mother Machine (image above). As in many cases with his work, I feel that he always had the intention for the viewer to become physically and intellectually involved. It is very much evident with this multi-media project.


The show had everything; sound, visual, touch, mind power, and human interaction. It had all of the traditional qualities of fine art (painting, drawing and sculpture) blended with less tangible medias such as real-time video, live music and concept. The gallery set the perfect cozy and home-like atmosphere for this intimate experience. Guests packed the space from 6:30pm and on receiving at least 100 plus throughout the night - a fantastic turn out for this young space.

Cleanly and well curated by co-founder of Yes.Oui.Si. Olivia Ives-Flores, there were two main rooms that held the intricate project. In the main room sat The Looming Scroll. There the journey began with you and one other person turning the wheels of the da Vinci-esque contraption to view the scroll of time that it presented. Above us was a camera which captured live feedback that was being shown in the second room. 
Surrounding the main experience were visual extensions of the show - meditative scrolls titled After Thoughts, a gravity-defying, surreal self-portrait halfway between painting and sculpture and charming mid-sized assemblage's, many found on his tumblr on pages 2-3, click here!

The place was on fire with conversations about the work!

I tried The Looming Scroll several times with different people and of course one round with Adrian. I rolled it forward and back taking in all of what it communicated to me. The language of the work was alluring, gently pulling you in to respond to it. The wheels turn harmoniously together creating a relationship with two people - who possibly may not know one another. This echoes a desire for universal human communication - an essential, innate collaboration. It took a few people, without Adrian's guidance, to get this momentum - but when they happily figured it out, it was a great little ride for them.

On another level, Adrian involves time travel and scientific elements - an interest owing to our father Nestor Molina for his philosophies and research in science. The scroll is the constant and the timing it rolls is relative to the variable (the people maneuvering the machine.) Add a bit of a philosophical spice with the content of the scroll and the observer gets pulled into the deeper, intellectual pockets of the project.

The first way the sequence of the narrative scroll rolls is towards the "future" and the second is towards the "past." Respectfully one can interpret the sequence of narration in reverse. The "past" begins with calligraphical characters Adrian's subconscious has produced seeming to narrate the beginning of time. Then nature and a bird in flight appears as we follow it towards the future morphing into a plane and then into "energy" as we pass through the land, an industrialized age and eventually into space and the universe.

In action or stillness there is mediation. Meditation on the images, on the interaction of the two manipulators or observers, and on a more grandeur scale, the manipulation of “their voyage in that life.”

What I found to be enlightening was how the community was open and humble and easy to converse with - a quality that I desire so much in the Miami art scene, and I know I'm not the only one. Everyone was excited, both young and old.

The collective that is Yes.Oui.Si. is rare jewel in the art world - or at least to my eyes. They work gracefully and constructively building unique and inspiring projects. Adrian's Perpetual-in-Terra-Action exhibit was a success within the collective, the community and for his own growth.

If you have questions for the artist, contact him here: admoart@gmail.com

Want to see the Machine in Miami? Email me your interest and I'll get working on it! (hello@alexandra-molina.com)