Curvy Aerialist rough t-shirt design

I've been recently enamored with t3apot's fantastic circus shirt designs. I love me some apparel that reflects the art that I pour my blood, sweat and energy into on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, it's very rare to find depictions of my art that actually depict me- which is to say, a curvy girl-shaped person with hella hips and tits that continue to get in the way of my straddle up. We do exist, though it's difficult to find pictures of us because cultural discourse dictates that images of willowy ballerinas are more pleasing and acceptable to illustrate what aerial is. It would be really cool, I thought, though probably impossible to find a design of an aerialist that wasn't all impossibly long limbs and a size 0 waist.

One of the benefits of being an artist is that you get to change things like that.

This is obviously a really rough sketch- I literally knocked it out in five minutes while watching Blackadder last night- but I'd like to clean it up and possibly put it on a screen and print a few shirts. Making art like this is important to me, because I can have tits, and an ass (shit, just look at my amazing lyra teacher!), and MUSCLES that take me up into the air and back down. And if there aren't any t-shirts that reflect that, then I'll make my own.

Trapeze

Another one from the sketchbook I kept in Sao Paulo. I went through a pretty difficult time for awhile in Brasil, and as usual, my aerial work helped keep me grounded (....heh) and sane. Sometimes, when I'm in particularly dark places, I feel like my trapeze is all that I'm clinging to to keep myself together.

In pleasanter aerial news, I have a performance in Manhattan this Saturday! It's this event at Santos Party House. I'm excited and nervous-I haven't had nearly enough time to prepare for it because I don't have a studio to rig in back East and I've been relying on the kindness of my friends at the Baltimore Free Farm who let me practice in their warehouse. Send me all the luck on Saturday night, and if you're in the New York area, come out and see me!

The Reach (WIP)

One of the first things I learned when I started performing was that unless your parents were somehow coming to every show you did, no one in your audience actually wanted to see you succeed. The reason we incorporate dangerous things into our acts, the whole basis behind dumb stunts for money, the sharper or more on fire your props are- the more the audience is hoping you'll fuck up, just for them.

I like to motivate myself before I go on by deciding not to give them the satisfaction.

Another piece for my class show, although it's drawing from the emotional black hole that has reared its ugly head yet again. I used to incorporate a lot of garroting wire into my work back in high school, this is another iteration of that.

I'm pretty unhappy with how this is looking, and it's a struggle to get art to work at all right now for me. Suggestions appreciated, particularly for a background.