Lynn Leach – United Kingdom

Swan Lake

Description

For me the word equilibrium conjures up thoughts of my love of the ballet where the 2 opposing forces of a male and female dancer are perfectly balanced and brought together in a harmonious way. I tried to capture this by using only 2 main materials, sinamay and feathers. I wanted a lovely curved outline to the base of my piece and the for the feathered wings to have a sweeping upward feeling to this with some looser feathers to the outside of the back wings giving the illusion of movement. I attached 2 feathered wings representing the male and female dancers and placed them one slightly in front of each other representing the coming together of the 2 opposing forces. I tried to capture the on Pointe tippy toe movements of the dancers with the curly feathers before the coming together of the 2 dancers in perfect equilibrium.

Materials

• Simamay
• Brim Wire
• Feathers
• Flower Mount
• Elastic

Techniques

• Sinamay blocked on a crown block
• Sinamay design planned cut and streamed to shape by hand using freeform technique
• Edge wired
• Sinamay self binding edging sewn
• Made wings using above technique then feathered
• Wings sewn onto headpiece
• Flowers sewn on
• Millinery elastic attached to back