+ TEMPLE of the ELEMENTS +

Yves Klein was a painter and performance artist.  He was also French which when I think of him makes me picture him in a navy blue and white stripped Breton shirt a la Picasso.  Maybe drinking Champagne.  Probably smoking.  He was also really into judo which he gives credit for inspiring his work.  He became obsessed with the sky and even has a color named after him - Yves Klein Blue or YKB.  You can probably get it at Home Depot which I think makes the story even more amazing.

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While lying on the beach in Nice one day, eighteen-year-old Yves Klein and his friends decided to divide the world up among themselves. Klein (1928-1962) chose the air, the cloudless sky. 

He remained fascinated with the element and its immaterial quality throughout his life. In the late fifties, he and the German architect Werner Ruhnau developed plans for an "architecture of air" composed of walls and roofs of air-as represented, for example, in the idea of the "Temple of the Elements" with fountains of water and fire and a café protected against the rain only by air currents. Klein associated this idea with a philosophy of optimism.... in which human beings would be free to pursue their own interests. (from Hatje Cantz website)

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We talk a lot about autonomy in class.  About finding the work in our lives that is specific to us.  Creating space in our lives to live in an interesting and creative and inspired way.  There is no exact or right way to do a pose.  As the teacher I take you through what is safe, what is optimal what is possible and then set you loose to create your own experience and image.  To step into a certain shape and then fill it and move it with your breath and connections are made.

It is the element of air that moves through us and surrounds us at the same time.  As big and never ending as the sky.  Symbolic of the never ending cycle of the breath and the endless possibilities that come with it - as reaching as the Far Side Of The Sky. 

I love this idea of constructing a Temple of the Elements.  Something you can actually see, touch, stand in and be surrounded and protected by.

Kind of like making breath visible or tangible to remind us of our potential...as if you could Write Your Name On The Far Side Of The Sky.

More about Yves Klein here.