Last week, I took my third trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. This time, the five days of vacation was spent primarily museum hopping and soaking in a lot of Georgia O'Keefe. One of the museums I went to was the International Folk Art Museum. Apart from the permanent collection of folk art from all over the world (huge and delightful), the museum had a special collection called The Flamenco. Unsurprisingly, it was all about the flamenco dance showcasing the dresses worn by women and men. The dresses were lovely, of course, yet, hung on the mannequin they looked inert with nothing to hint at the great waves of motion they can produce when the dancers move in them. But, I did take a lot of photos.
When I came back, I wanted to do a painting of the dress with a human figure in it. Yet, I was reluctant to do a female figure mainly because it felt like objectification of the female body. So, I settled for a Day of the Dead image. After all, it is very New Mexican and seemed a perfect medium for what I want to portray.
I used pencil, gel pen and watercolors to do the little painting above.
For some eye candy, below are many of the photos of the dresses. Enjoy.
