Jocelyn Foye - Roller Derby Project
For those not in the loop on her work, Jocelyn Foye captures the performances and actions, primarily by athletes, in clay and then uses those imprints to make sculptural works. Live performances/actions or photographic documentation of performances often accompanies the work. I’ve been working with Jocelyn for a while now, and commissioning, promoting or exhibiting her projects whenever possible. Jocelyn has work in New In Town?, a show opening next week at Angels Gate, which will feature a dozen of the artists who have joined the Center in the past two years. While Jocelyn and her husband Jeff are no longer at the Center, having secured a truly awesome live/work space in Pedro, both of their work will be featured in the exhibition.
Jocelyn has two pieces in the exhibition, one, a cast urethane rubber saddle, …and she rode it bareback., and another, a wall piece based upon the impressions and impacts of two members of the LA Derby Dolls, a banked-track roller derby association based out of a warehouse in Historic Filipinotown. I grew up watching the televised pro-wrestlingish version of roller derby, so I have a sort of childhood fascination with the sport, and I’m totally enthused that I’m going to be able to bring something related to it into my gallery.
Jocelyn invited me to stroll over to her studio to see and shoot the performance part of the project, which is where all of teh photos in this post are from. The two models for this shoot are Diana Brooks, a.k.a. Thunder Kiss and Kelly MacIntosh, a.k.a. Smacdown. Diana is in the pink helmet and Kelly is in the white one. Also featured in this shoot are Jocelyn herself, also shooting (seen at top), and Colin, one of her students who came by to help prepare the clay surface for the action. All 54 of my “good photos” from the shoot are in this Flickr set, if you want or need to see more than those featured here.
above - Colin smooths clay. Colin was extremely thorough and helpful in making sure that the surface was as smooth as possible. He had to catch a plane back to the UK the next day, which made him a double trooper for pitching in.
above - Diana and Kelly check out the surface. A lot of “How are we going to hit this? How hard can we hit this? Where should we hit this?” talk went on prior to the actual performance. One of the reasons I like Jocelyn’s work is that it involves non-artists in the creative process, that during her performances there’s a fascinating interaction between laypeople and art materials. In the two performances I’ve directly witnessed, there’s a period of cautious action and exploration, followed by enthusiastic engrossment in the action on the part of the performers.
above - Diana changes her wheels. I will admit here, I used to be an enthusiastic downhill rolllerblader (stop laughing now, please?), having basically grown up on a massive hill, where everything worth doing was down and miles away. So I totally get the importance of having the proper wheels for the job. The massive size of her skate key/multi-tool was totally impressive.
above - All dressed up and ready to go. Wardrobe is important for proper roller derby action. Both girls brought a mountain of getups. Roller derby is a little more honest and embracing about spectacle and theatre than most other sports.
above - Diana slides into the panel. The panel behind the clay was rather thin, so the whole time both women were trying to give it their all, but a little nervous that they’d blow out the panel. It buckled a little bit, but held up.
above - Kelly in flight, kicking the panel.
above - Diana grabs the top of the panel and slams into it high. The girls were trying to figure out novel ways to do damage to the top part of the panel.
above - Kelly doing a handstand reverse kick. It’s worth noting that she didn’t just do a handstand and kick the panel, she did a high speed approach into a handstand and kicked the panel.
above - Diana knees the panel. You can see a little of the bucking done by some heavy impact in the center of the panel here. One of the things about Jocelyn’s work that particularly fascinates me is the regularity and pattern of movement by the performers.
above - an amped up Kelly, post performance, with clay mess on helmet.
above - After the destruction was done, the derby queens pose for a post-performance photo. Come see the piece that results from all this fury and mess next week at Angels Gate, and don’t miss the massive two day Battle on the Bank tournament coming up next weekend. Roller derby teams from all over are coming together to battle it out in the blazing heat of the LA summer on the 28th & 29th.
Technorati Tags: LA Derby Dolls, Jocelyn Foye, art, process, performance, clay, sculpture, Smacdown, Thunder Kiss, roller derby, Kelly MacIntosh, Diana Brooks, LA art, documentation is everything, documentation, roller skating, skating
