Redamorphed

Redamorphed from Mano Sipowicz on Vimeo.

performed by
Danielle Louise Reddick & Mano Sipowicz
film & editing by Mano
special thanks to Bett Williams and her arroyo in New Mexico

Redamorphed is part of RED, a series of improvisational collaborations by the Painted Ladies - Danielle Louise Reddick
Mano Sipowicz
Michelle Vest
Saschia Ryder

Red Within Me

 




to see the full set go HERE

There is something about painting myself red that is so stimulating for me. 
The Painted Ladies painted ourselves red for the first time back in August.  We moved in the tall green grasses at one of the most Northern parts of the Santa Fe River.  I was so buzzed after that I needed to go back out and play some more.  I ended up back at the river again but further down stream.  I ran around like a maniac while I took pictures of myself.
It was that first day with the painted ladies, I was rolled up in a ball under a tree and I just had a strong sense of the red ball that lives inside of me; my very creative source that is fiery and yet round.  There have been times working with this color that I have felt almost over stimulated, it is a very humbling sensation to be tapped into.  And I am not always sure I am so good at productively channeling it, there are times it has ended up being channeled into neurotically facebooking.
Fear runs along side my red.  I feel like when I touch red I am touching something within me that has been forbidden, it seems a bit like a Pandora’s box, and then you put in the mix red of others and well a whole lot of potential lives there.  I have this assumption that red demands a kind of strength, like being able to ride a wild horse and I’m not sure I have the skills yet to fully take that on.  And yet dancing around the edges of a storm can actually be the most dangerous place to be.
Red demands that I show up with all of my capacity.  Do other colors do that, hmm, we will see.
Looking at these photos again, i think that day i was the wild horse with out a rider.

Friends Gone Red In the River

to see the full set go HERE

RED is a collaberation of the Painted Ladies,

in these photos

Danielle Louise Reddick

Mano Sipowicz

Michelle Vest

These shots were taken on the same day as the video “In The Valleys”, you can see HERE

While all these photos where taken by myself, we all went out with cameras that day.

It has been healing for me to be my own documenter.  To participate while I observe so I am not just objectifying.  And to take back that power of the eye, the one observing and communicating. If you have read my blog you know that I have identified in the past with being the silent dancer or the pretty girl that has nothing to say, the one who is only to be looked at but not talked with.  My being labeled as having a learning disability back in the fourth grade did not help with this idea that all I had to offer was my beauty there was nothing else of value in this person but my body.

This day out in the Santa Fe River felt like perhaps how it can be amongst women friends, a celebration of our beauty, our love for each other and ourselves. 

It is thrilling for me to see the shots where we catch each other photographing ourselves.  There is a way that this is a red act in itself.  Capturing women taking pleasure with each other with out the presence of a man.   So often this is seen as vanity or perverse, and here I hope others can feel what I felt that day, beauty that is felt from deep within, a celebration of beauty that then becomes sacred and shared between women rather than coveted or even hidden.  When I hold the camera I reclaim beauties value in this world.