Hula hooping is like riding a bike, it comes back to you. "I can't remember the last time I hula hooped," said Jessica Lynn Wildman, explaining that she used to play with hula hoops as a child. Only recently did she take up the hula hoop again for a painting now on display at Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown, as part of the Movement and Position show.
A few months ago, Wildman saw one of her friends at the Old Miami bar pick up a hula hoop. It was at that point that she decided she would incorporate the hula hoop into an artwork. The painting was done in one night, at Cass and Canfield, before a performance by an a capella group. Wildman extended a white cloth on the floor, and dipped a hula hoop in red, yellow and blue paints, then hula hooped over the cloth dressed in a white leotard.
Wildman is the ony artist in the show from Michigan, Jane Larson explained. Larson is the Whitdel Arts treasurer, and also the one who put the current show together. Anna Maddocks from Colorado is inspired by the dollhouses she used to play with as a kid. "I was reading this book ... about how the miniature opens up the imagination," she recalled.
The show features artists from all over the country, including John Early, whose piece call for varying levels of viewer participation. The show is scheduled to go on until February 9, according to the gallery's website.
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