my four new horsemen....

Why are people (like me) watching movies like Contagion? Because in this time of such anxious uncertainty, we can be comforted by a coherent plot, with the survival of the protagonist and with an actual ending.

Which also explains why I’m obsessing over these apocalyptic figures…..

So, for those of you with a similarly bent mind, here’s my plan for four new horsemen. Defeated, worn-out horsemen, waiting at a bus stop because their horses are dead. I need an appropriate bus stop….

with benches…

…and an arrangement of figures….yes, that’s a starting point to obsess over…

(Above) that fellow in blue, on the right - he’s just a place-holder for Plague. I really need to reassess the images of Plague, so I started collecting (Below), googling exhausted doctors/tired epidemic workers…..

ooh - death in a wheelchair, a wheelchair symbolizing weakness, disability….OK, but no amount of googling will get me “tired emergency worker in a wheelchair”…..

(Above) So, here I go: men sitting…..but why does Plague have to be a man? women doctors /famous women doctors/women doctors history…….hmm: should I show female legs? Definitely need more images of workers in those haz-mat suits…..

Skipping over the hundreds of intermediate steps, here’s my current figure of Plague (Below). I’m trying to show a haz-mat helmet around her head, to (perhaps?) get it to look like a helmet and also suggest a halo……not there yet.

The face of one of the first women doctors in China (origin of the current virus) holding a vial of blood and a face mask. She has her haz-mat suit opened in a sexy fashion, and is wearing sneakers (to move fast).

I had a minor epiphany while working on her: I’m always working to blend photos to create a seamless image, to get rid of obvious marks. But why? What I do is a kind of collage, only I’m doing it digitally, not with paste and cutouts. Why not let the image BE an obvious college?

meanwhile, I’m working on the stole:

Because my art is just too thick for regular embroidery hoops, I have to design my own devices for each piece. For the stole, I created 2 cloth-covered tubes clamped to a cloth-covered board. The cloth protects the stole from coming into close contact with potentially harmful chemical that might be lurking in the tubes or the wooden board.

Sorry - not the best photo, but the sewing is really coming along well. Better images next week.

Contact me at dianesavona@aol.com