The Drawing Circus Photo-set: The Sleep of Reason (Day) (Patreon)

With the exception of our joyful summers at the Phoenix Studios, The Sleep of Reason was our last big Drawing Circus event. Few photographs exist of the strange and wild day at the Old Market theatre where one of our photographers, entailed in briars, never showed up. The night remains a fitful dream of 25 models in dramatic tableau lit by the cold blue light of an artificial moon. Instead, in this photo-set we are sharing photos from the first run of the Sleep of Reason at the Bosco Theatre in May 2018, taken by Mary Martin. 

In Greek mythology there were nine muses, but no muse for the visual arts. In this Grand Drawing Circus we took nature as the muse, and the imagery of tapestry as our visual reference with the event set in front of a huge backdrop showing the forest by day...and by night. With the 'Circus camped out at the edge of a forest, Ringmistress Francesca Cluney sets off on a morning walk through the woods and settles in leafy glade to embroider a woodland scene. As she sits, sewing, the forest dwellers appear around her; first the spirits - naiads and dryads and the goddess of the earth; then the animals - the deer and lion and bear and birds. The bright flame of inspiration flickers above her, time whirls past in the bright white garb of mid-day until with a sharp stab of pain, she pricks her finger. As a drop of blood beads on her skin she falls into a deep and dream filled sleep....(enter Night here)

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