Artist Prompt: Home-Body

At Dia, our education department works closely with artists. These artist-designed prompts encourage people of all ages to connect with their surroundings as they relate to the body and find ways to be creative within the home. 

Home-Body
Designed by Bel Falleiros

Timing and Frequency
You can do these exercises all at once. Or, if you prefer shorter sessions, you can split the exercises into segments, always starting with the warm-up phase. For instance:

            Day 1: Warm-up + exercise 1
Day 2: Warm-up + exercise 2

Materials and Prep
You will need paper and a drawing instrument such as a pencil, crayons, or sharpies (colors are great, but are not mandatory).

Tip: To accompany this exercise, it’s ideal to have music playing in the background. I suggest this album from Tiganá Santana. You can listen to it on your smartphone or any other device. It is an exercise for family and friends—everybody is invited to join.  

Sit in a comfortable position (ideally on a mat or rug on the floor, in a calm and silent area). Ensure your materials are available in order to start the exercise and play the soundtrack.

Warm-Up Exercises
a)     Let’s take three deep breaths with three different phases: inhale, hold, exhale. Repeat this step five times. 
b)    Take a piece of paper and something to draw with. We are going to warm-up our body for drawing. There is no right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. The main goal of this exercise is to never remove your pen or pencil from the paper.
-      Start making scribbles in circular and spiral forms in a continuous line until the whole page is covered.
-      Keep the rhythm constant and steady, focus on ensuring that your spiral goes to every corner and fills up the entire sheet. Pay special attention to the rhythm to ensure it is comfortable for you.
-      If it feels natural, tune in with the rhythm of the soundtrack. (It is not a problem if you are not listening to music!) 
c)     Use the backside of the page for our next exercise. Make a dot in the center of the page and go from there to the borders of the paper in a continuous line until you cover it all. 
d)    At the conclusion, repeat the breathing exercise.

Exercise 1: Draw the Body from the Inside
a)     Make sure that you have a piece of paper in front of you and a pen or pencil.
-      Close your eyes.
-      How are you feeling inside? What parts of your body are you feeling right now?
-      Let’s navigate inside the body, and go through every part of it, starting from the head. First, feel every part of this spherical vessel, your skull, understanding its volume all the way to its perimeter.
-      From there we will navigate down to the neck and throat, then the chest and lungs, arms, belly and stomach, pelvis, legs, and all the way to your feet. What are the parts you felt more? What shapes were they? 
b)    Now rest the pen or pencil on the sheet of paper and draw these shapes with your eyes closed. Remember, there is no right or wrong. You are drawing your body from the inside out, focusing on your feeling for it. 
-      When you think you are ready, open your eyes.
-      Take a moment to look at your drawing without touching your pen or pencil. Just observe it. 
c)     Repeat the breathing exercise.
d)    Choose a word or feeling to write onto the drawing. Use the first one that comes to mind. (Don’t change it!) You can add extra details or colors if you want.

Exercise 2: What Do Bodies Need to Feel Protected?
a)     Make sure you have a piece of paper in front of you and a pen or pencil.
-      Close your eyes.
-      Let’s think about the layers of protection that our body has—our skin, our nails, our clothes, the walls of our house. Let’s think of them as capes that we wear. What are the layers of protection and comfort that our bodies need? All living beings (animals, humans, etc.) have homes, a place to house their bodies. Nests, Lairs, Caves, Houses, are all forms of homes. Even before we’re born, we’re all held in a womb (our first home) and some animals are in eggs. 
-      Visualize a home for your body. What does your body need to feel safe and cozy? What would be the shape of that cozy space? What materials would it be made of? What are the layers that it would be composed of? Does it have entrances? Windows? Lights? Colors? 
-      With your eyes still closed, pay attention to the details and feelings that the home for your body has.
b)    Open your eyes and draw it. Take your time and draw every detail. 
-      When you finish, take a moment to look at your drawing without touching your pen or pencil. Just observe it.
c)     Repeat the breathing exercise.
d)    Choose a word to represent your home and write onto the drawing. Use the first one that comes to mind. (Don’t change it!) You can add extra details or colors if you want.

Go Further
a)     Watch this short video about an artwork called Passagem (Passage, 1979) by the artist Celeida Tostes (please mute the soundtrack).
b)    What did you notice? What captured your attention? Think about the material (clay and the building process), the form (nest or womb), the action (the idea of birth). Why do you think the artist made this work?
c)     Take a piece of paper to draw and write down what emerged from the reflection.
d)    Optional—read this description of the work.

We would like to see your creations and add a selection of them to the blog. Please share images of your work by emailing submissions@diaart.org.

Bel Falleiros is a Brazilian artist whose artistic research focuses on land identity. Starting with her hometown of São Paulo, she has worked to understand how contemporary landscapes, city tissue, and monuments (mis)represent the diverse layers of presence that constitute a place. Falleiros is an artist educator at Dia Beacon, where she works with the Arts Education Program. She currently lives and works in upstate New York, rural Virginia, and São Paulo.