Hanging about

Thinking about symbolising Fears as the weight inside the body bag that weighs a person down, inhibiting spontaneity.  Taking some small plastic balls I wrapped them in torn fabric to lose the smooth exterior and dipped them in plaster of Paris to give them weight.  I experimented with changing the colour to black to get rid of the airy bright finish.  The acrylic paint has a shiny finish so might try and get hold of some black gesso.

Knitting nets to hold the weights is satisfying but perhaps not a good use of my time as I expect to develop a covering of a ceiling of a room as part of an proposed installation.   Fortunately I have found a large supply of garden netting [in my husbands green house] which is very similar to my knitted netting .

spreading the top of the netting which will be suspended from the overall top net will give a more integral and organic feel to the hangings. [They do look rather like Polyps which can also cause a problem.]

I suspect that grouping some of the weights and varying their size will add "weight" to the symbolism...

I have looked at the work of Ernesto Neto who has created installations similar to this;  I intend mine to be darker and more forbidding.

Working on the theme of Hanging [the vertical is reminiscent of the standing figure], I have used a piece animal skin [suede, with some fur adhering, donated from someone once] it has a fetishistic, feral feel that expresses fear, of the unknown, torture, flaying; it has attracted odd debris [an uncared for feeling] to the surface to which I have added a small tied bunch of feathers [spells, magic, witch craft] and hung it from a jaggedly twisted wire.  This adds action and emotion so the piece speaks strongly to the viewer of unspoken terrors.

The ribbon piece is an experiment in using colour to symbolise fear. Yellow, a sharp acid yellow or a muddy yellow, a red for angry fear, black for despair and death. A wire to add enclosure, it would be interesting to hang fabrics so that hanging in a darkened room they would slide across the entrants face and they would FEEL FEAR.  It is perhaps less successful as it has a rather partyish atmosphere, I will experiment with rough cut fabrics.