July 5th

Ari's husband came to visit this week and he is helping us with our project. Here Ari is showing him and De'Narrow how to use the sewing machine. Sewing Tyvek proved to be more difficult than we had first anticipated. Trouble shooting ensued.

Arielle, Maureen and Hayley (guest of Maureen) worked on twisting together lengths of paper to prepare them for weaving onto costumes and the cocoon.


Sydney and I spent most of the afternoon caged in and sitting in wheat paste but we managed to finish covering the inside of the tube by 3:30. We kind of felt like puppies up for adoption at a fair: "Free to a good home. Potty-trained."

Tomorrow we are going to start filming and do some performance exercises led by De'Narrow. Video footage should be posted by the end of this week so watch for it!

July 1st : Team Nature presents!

John's group was the first to give a group presentation and they rocked it. They sported crowns while showing off their collection of videos that you can check out on their own blog: http://blueskyjohnpena.blogspot.com/

Here's Alexa speaking at Team Nature's very own human podium (made up of Rachel, Christany, Jeen and Shay) - You can't buy one of those at Walmart, that's for sure.

PS: Happy Fourth O'July everyone- Hope you have a good one!

hanging the crown

By Thursday afternoon the crown of the cocoon was complete and we hung it from the ceiling where we will continue to work on building out the rest of the structure.

Everyone just barely fits underneath - in the final installation/performance we will all be standing or sitting inside the large cocoon. The cocoon will stand at about 8 feet at its peak.

The view from below (looking up into the crown structure) is very ethereal thanks to the fluorescent lights in the ceiling above it.

the Beginning

Wednesday we finally began construction on the large cocoon. We used wheat paste (used for paper mache/wall paper) and different tying techniques to cover a chicken wire frame. Above De'Narrow and Arielle work on covering the tube-like entrance.

Sydney knots strips of fabric on the crown of the cocoon.


Close-ups of the cocoon's crown show all of the layering that began to happen on the surface. Bits of plastic bags, ripped fabrics, paper, tinsel and even De'Narrow's sock made it onto the cocoon, producing a beautiful, heavily textured surface.

The crown of the cocoon by the end of the day on Wednesday. Almost finished!

Uniforms: 100% Tyvek

The Tyvek jumpsuits came in the mail on Wednesday and now our team looks like we work for NASA or NASCAR. Working in uniform will give us a stronger sense of unity and purpose (like bugs we live together, work together and look identical). They will be the base for our final individual costumes/cocoons. It also allows us to get dirty while continuing to be extremely fashionable. Win-win situation if you ask me.

QUICK- PUT ON EVERYTHING IN SIGHT! (inspired by Georgia)

The other day, following Georgia's initiative, we all took a dive into the piles of fabrics and stage clothing that everyone was kind enough to donate to us and began dressing/wrapping each other. The end result was pretty fabulous. Ivy gave Ashley a chicken wire helmet complete with a lace veil and a cardboard sword.

Ivy fixing Sarah's hat for her.

From left to right; Sydney, Sarah and Maureen

From left to right; Ashley, Arielle and Jalisa

string cocoon

After all the spools of string and rope were unwound we combined our castoffs to make a bigger cocoon. Here you can see us encasing Sarah.