The Figures Project

Every two months the theme at Wae changes, and a different team (comprised of three or four staff members) are put in charge of expressing that theme on the walls of the center. (How cool is that?)

Our team was Anne Gelman, John Skillin, and me.

Our theme was “Identity and Personality.”

As I have a long history of doing art shows and art projects - and since I work in the Art Room at Wae – I was more or less put in charge of our team’s presentation. (Though, thinking back on it now, I don’t really remember anyone telling me to assume the position. Maybe it was a blatant power grab on my part.)

My initial idea was to create life-size figures of various members, and keep adding more until our time was up. I wanted to totally populate the space.

Alas, members and me kind of burned out on doing the same kind of activity week after week - so we ultimately diversified the show.

The figure drawings all started out in the Meditation Room, where I hung the paper on the wall and shined a spotlight on each person as they stood before it. I then traced the silhouette.

I don’t know what it is about that traced outline, but it does indeed capture something of that individual’s life force. There’s something magical about it.