Taking the art out of artistic gymnastics?

The old routines are the great ones

You may have noticed I don’t have much artistic gymnastics in my work. It’s the equipment. Mostly. Fiddling with bars or beams is a do I or don’t I try to represent them. The aerial nature of the sport is also an issue I’m working on. It’ll probably involve a different kind of sculpture but it’s do-able.

But that’s not the reason. Artistic gymnastics was my biggest passion growing up. I knew all the medal winning team members back to 1970 and who won all the individual titles. I could tell you the competition by the venue lighting or what leotards the gymnasts were wearing.

So what happened? To some extent, life took me away from being able to obsessively follow it but still, I do have occasional YouTube binges on routines from the 70s to about 2000-ish. After that...changes to the code of points incrementally destroyed what made artistic gymnastics artistic and I just don’t feel drawn to it as much. If you think that’s cos I is old or something, comments below those videos show just how many youngsters looove those older routines for the flair, originality and beauty. Think Yurchenko, Mostepanova, Illienko, Szabo, Dobre or Ma and Bo from China. Take your pick of wonderful routines from those decades.

So yes, it’s a style thing. An aesthetic thing. A gorgeousness thing. Those qualities that are sadly hard to come by in the modern era.

I could start with the ghastly hands, stiff ankles, lack of a nice instep curve and the leg lines that make you want to yell at the poor girl to straighten her legs. And the power requirements means many top gymnasts no longer have elegant shapes since they’re built for huge tumbles and stratospheric vaults. Which is fine and impressive but...it can affect lines and the impression of amplitude. Can I just say how insanely impressive it is that a full twisting double layout (for example) can be stuck cold on landing?! Anyone remember Henrietta Onodi who had that technique cemented back in the day?

I’m bored with beam 'choreography'; a bit of arm waving between the same skill combinations seen in every routine. There is nothing to beat a girl on high toe, with perfect insteps, flawless technique, fluid expressive arms and a bit of virtuosity and originality as a bonus. Something like this - Li Xue Hong from 2001. Good grief! The long legs on that girl make her split leaps and free walkover joyous to behold.

Floor routines used to be the crowning glory of a competition. You’d look forward to great music and see an incredibly diverse range of dance styles and choreographic elements. Now? Uninspiring music largely irrelevant to the ‘dance’ which is just hitting poses while saving breath for the big tumbles. And those gallumphing strides around the floor to bang out full twisting split leaps and falling out of double turns is just, urgh. I’m not inspired by the results.

So, after that moan, there are some countries that still produce gymnastics worth watching on repeat. High fives to the Netherlands and China who still produce the goods on beam and to an extent, floor as well. And we can be thankful that the likes of Russia still know how to produce elegant gymnasts. It’s not all bad but it’s evident that most national programmes pay no serious attention to dance training.

Progress isn’t always beautiful but it is inevitable so that means making some degree of accommodation with it. I do intend to make some pieces that nod to the current top performers and in fact there’s a Laurie Hernandez based sculpt on my table right now (that's it below, before it had the leotard in US colours/style added). It’s a case of looking for the gems and mixing the modern with the classical and melding the best of both worlds.

Art site of the week

Colour in Your Life is an Australian channel hosted by Graeme Steveson, who travels the country and later the world, meeting with artists and talking about and showing how they produce their work. There’s something about Australia that produces gloriously colourful work. My favourite show so far is with De Gillett (it’s one of the most popular uploads). The way she lays on the paint so thickly to create rich, vibrant paintings is a joy to watch.

How did I do with my actions list from last week?

• The three rhythmic pieces are done.

• The acro pieces have had one or two bits tidied up and are now priced.

• I took a whole bunch of photos after scratching my head on how to set up white background. This involved flat packed boxes, bulldog clips and a roll of white paper plus a desk lamp and my new ring lamp. The background came out a bit grey but a quick experimental tweak on the phone fixed that.

• I’ve been doing my ankle rehab. I think it’s improving a bit but still get sharp twinges when I’ve

been walking for a bit, and yesterday I did a bike ride to Farthing Downs. Man, that was a lot of hills. Hard to go up and pretty scary to go down. And it was hot. The evenings end with a huge molten red flaming sun this last week or so.

• Decided not to varnish the paintings since I've never actually done that before and it'd be smart to test on something that I won't mind if gets messed it up. General feeling seems to be that it's not totally necessary anyhow.

• I've done a tweak of one older piece and the other just needs a new base.

• Pinterest set up should get finished this evening along with listing a couple of new pieces on Folksy. It's hot again today and I want to get out of the house for a little while to catch the breeze. I'm back in the office Thursday and Friday so this is my last free afternoon this week.