The Halycon, 2020
vellum over paper, #1 with digital manipulation, inspired by the myths of Euridice & Alcyone
“Would, oh I would, I were a kingfisher, That flies with the halcyons, Along the breaking waves, with a fearless heart, That noble bird, that holy bird, The deep blue of the ocean.” Mary Zimmerman, Metamorphoses
Mask Making, 2020
Vellum over paper with digital manipulation.
“I came across one […] word[], Maskenfreiheit. It means “the freedom conferred by masks.” It’s always been hard for me to make a space for myself emotionally around other people. It’s some old childhood thing, a sense of never feeling protected by my parents or from my older brother, Keller, who used to tease me relentlessly when we were growing up – a sense that no ones out there was really listening. Maybe for a performer that’s what the stage becomes: a space you can fill up with what can’t be expressed or gotten anywhere else. Onstage, people have told me, I’m opaque or mysterious or enigmatic or even cold. But more than anything, I’m extremely shy and sensitive, as if I can feel all the emotions swirling around in a room. And believe me when I say when you push past my persona there aren’t any defenses there at all.”
Kim Gordon.
To see more about the process behind these, see here
Breathe 2020
Velllum over paper, with digital manipulation, inspired by breath, this was also turned into a short video piece by soprano Laura Kimmel, which can be seen here
To read more about the process behind these see here
Nightingale 2020
Inspired by the filmic opera of the same name by B.E Goodwin, and produced by Frisson Films. To see more about the creation of these see here.
La Princesse Maliene 2019
collage on paper, inspired by the opera by the same name by Whitney E George & B.E Goodwin. see www.ClaireTownsendDesigns.com for more info
Fairytales, 2016-2018
collage on wood and paper
“Maybe magic ends with me
and it will never cross your path
but I want you to remember
that survival is an art.
The world is falsehood
so you rely on your smarts.”
Nikita Gill, Fierce Fairytales
Tarot Card Series, 2010
multimedia in American History book pages
“All this is like a dream which the word bears within itself and which, passing through him who writes, is freed and frees him.”
―
American History Collage
collages refashioned from a 1950s history book continued, 2006-12
“Any story worth it’s salt can handle a little shaking up”
Salmon Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Kaliedoscope Digital Series, 2013
multimedia, digitally manipulated
Michael Ondaatie
“For we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, makings up a single monologue. We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.”
Floated Series, 2012
Collage on Water
“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It’s always our self we find in the sea.”
E.E Cummings, 100 Selected Poems
Things I Never Said To You 