Communal Art: Peepholes

Working with Sphere was a pleasure. After I was unable to trust my first choice to allow me to put art in their window, I found an older store that didn't have the same strict rules put upon it. As someone who is spiritual, herself, I found getting inspiration for this project- with the idea of Sphere and their new age theme- extremely easy and serendipitous. My first thought was to do something that was very obviously connected to Buddhism. But the way I saw it in my head was so fabricated and not natural that I didn't like it and didn't work on it for a long time. When I started to slowly move away from the idea of my own religion and just create something that used nature and my own personal meanings to it, I was able to come up with a whimsical shrine that I really loved.

One artist that inspired the initial shape of the hole for the peephole itself was Andy Goldsworth who used repeating shapes and places them in a gradient in nature to make these pulsating, curious earth works. Specifically, the piece that inspired me directly was this one:

I just really like the visual idea of it. But I wanted to make mine more chaotic. As if it was put together by something other than human, in a way. Something not manufactured. 

Work in Process Images:
I started placing twigs around the mouth of he black box I made with foam board. I used black because I wanted it to be less obvious in the dark. It definitely looks better in the dark.

I also added mulch to the sides to keep the color scheme and all over theme. The cloth inside is saffron that I had in my room. The pastel, vintage pink goes nicely with the light coloring of the twigs. 

The lights are LED lights that I had set so that they would twinkle. It ended up turning into a small fairy nest which pleased me a lot. I just let it evolve itself and went with what it told me to do, if that makes sense.