Janet Echelman
Janet Echelman is an American artist, specializes in large-scale fiber sculpture. She used to live on a small island for five years, and she draws inspiration to create a new approach to sculpture when she saw some fishermen who bundled their net into mounds on the sand. The new method allows her to make some huge soft sculptures without heavy solid materials so that the artworks can be hanged in the air. One distinct feature in Janet’s sculpture is to embrace changing by the wind, on account of the sculpture is made up of soft and durable materials.
She designs sculpture for hurricane winds, and embody some local identities. Sometimes, the sculpture’s surface interplays with natural and projected light, as well as engages the audience to form a unique and ever-changing interaction.
The dynamically moving sculptures are living, breathing, elegant and eye-catching, which remind me of the movements of starlings murmuration, a massive group of birds up to millions, billowing in the air by constantly changing their flowing direction, velocity, flying formation, to form an elegant phenomenon of bird ballet. The behavior of starlings is a mysterious phenomenon that scientists cannot explain. Both Janet’s sculpture and starlings murmuration are dynamic, elegant, engaging, relaxing, and tridimensional, involving a range of parameters, such as flowing direction, velocity, density, form, and shape. These parameters are similar or can be transformed into some music and dance terminologies, such as melody, rhythm, notes, composition, and space.
1.2_Denver, Colorado
What impresses me is not just limited to the ways how did Janet produce her artworks; but more importantly, I highly appreciate the ways how did Janet present her artworks and engage the viewers. I enjoy the feelings when seeing her artworks, which make me feel relaxing, bright, lightsome, elegant, splendid, pleasurable, lithe, and graceful. These kinds of feelings inspire me to rethink what really matters in our daily life. Then, I realize I can make our lives better through art appreciation. Especially, when I looked back to my art practice, I found many artists and I who just like silkworms, generating cocoon, and were stuck into a spiritual world, where is a kind of barrier that was constructed by ourselves. Furthermore, I found many artists invested lots of their feelings and emotion into their artworks and making their artworks to be unique and meaningful. However, everything has two sides. Constantly investing lots of feelings and emotion into our artworks will consume us too much energy, and some artists may feel struggling as well as addicted to the creation process, just like addicts to alcohol, such as Francis Bacon and Amedeo Modigliani. What’s more, nowadays, we are over-relying on the internet and suffering from information pollution. The number of people who are suffering from depression or anxiety is increasing significantly. Therefore, when I move on to Unit 3, I look forward to creating a new series of artworks that are able to pacify the viewers. I will pay more attention to the artworks’ visual experience over the meanings of the artworks shall deliver to the viewers. I define my creation motivation as a new attitude towards a new life. To some extent, my new attitude towards life is similar to hedonism, popular culture/music, perfume.
How do Janet’s artworks and the phenomenon of starlings murmuration influence my art practice?
I think of myself as a music conductor or perfumer; I process and refine the movements of starlings murmuration as a new ingredient/layer and integrate them with other elements that I’m exploring, such as petals, shoals of fish, hair, city night view, etc.
What’s more, Janet produces artworks through interdisciplinary collaboration with other fields, including sculpture, architecture, urban design, material science, structural & aeronautical engineering, and computer science. How she and her teams manipulate artworks inspires me to explore new ways of creation with others who specialize in other disciplines.
Reference
Two Musicians: Ludovico Einaudi and Roger Subirana
The famous Chinese writer Jiang Yang once said: “We once yearned for the waves of fate so much, and finally discovered that the most beautiful scenery in life is the calmness of our hearts. We used to expect so much recognition from the outside world until we finally learned that the world is ours and has nothing to do with others.” I look forward to pursuing the calmness of mind that described by Jiang Yang.
The first time I knew Ludovice Einaudi was origin from watching the video “Elegy for the Arctic.” Ludovice was sitting on a flotage in the centre of the Arctic Ocean, and playing the piano, surrounded by glaciers; He wore a black coat with no word to say; The withe glaciers contrast to his image. My first impression of him is calm, silent, lonely, melancholy, focus and minimal before his performance. I often feel anxious and really hard to concentrate on anything, so is the reason why I was attracted by Ludovice’s peaceful temperament, and I knew that was what I’m looking forward to being.
Elegy for the Arctic
Ludovico Einaudi
The first I saw Ludovice’s performance, I thought Ludovice was a piano poet with a profound spiritual world. He used piano performance to express his elegy feeling for Mother Nature and the melting glaciers due to global climate change. At the end of his performance, he gradually slowed down the piano sound until you heard the melting sound of the glaciers. What impressed me is his performance is a reflection of his temperament, as well as being full of awe towards nature and life. Then, I became his followers and listened to many pieces of music of him, including Una Mattina, Nuvole Bianche, Fly, Fossile, The Earth Prelude, etc. Ludovice’s music reflects on his identity and the relationship between him and the external world. It resonates with me because all my artworks are my reflection on the relationship between my identity, material world and spiritual world.
When I was listening to Ludovice’s music, I could feel a strong connection between his music and me, and I even could see my shallow inside his music, or maybe the state of Ludovice’s temperament is I’m looking for. For instance, sometimes, I thought I was a lonely poet with a rich spiritual world or a free dancer who was dancing with the wind in the air.
Elegy for the Arctic
Ludovico Einaudi
Screenshots
When it comes to my artworks, it reflects how I get rid of nihilism and becomes an existential nihilist. I used several related objects with bright and vibrant colours to celebrate the beauty of life. The visual effect is stunning and exaggerated; it’s more about the relationship between my attitude and philosophy and the outside world from an ideal perspective. However, Ludovice’s music inspires me to reflect on the relationship between me and myself from the point of metacognition. Therefore, I’d like to add a new layer that inspired by Ludovice’s music, using physical painting in the front of the printed artworks, in order to explore self-perceptions and intuition. What’s more, Roger Subirana is my second favourite musician who has a similar performance genre to Ludovice. His representative music includes Between Worlds, In the Air, The Orchestral Point of No Return. The main difference is Roger’s performance sounds much more positive, energetic, and warm, while Ludovice’s performance sounds a little bit melancholy and cold.
Reference
Ludovico Einaudi. Wikipedia. [online]available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludovico_Einaudi
Ludovico Einaudi Official Web. [online]available at: https://ludovicoeinaudi.com/
Ludovico Einaudi - "Elegy for the Arctic" - Official Live (Greenpeace). YouTube.com. [online]available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DLnhdnSUVs
Roger Subirana Official Web. [online]available at: https://www.rogersubirana.com/en/bio.php