making

13/02/2018 - Process: scale

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Up scaling work from the hand-bound book overlays using a domestic printer and adobe acrobat to tile print the images. The smallest images in the photgraph below are A4, the middle image is ink on paper, a fragment drawn freehand, from the page that was then scaled up in the printing process.Using a scrap length of muslin, the cloth I favour due to its transparency, I taped to the largest image and utilised various colour markers to trace out  the different fractured patterns. This is prep of density embroidery testing. 

06/01/2018 - Making: Bookbinding - Encasing the chaos

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biographical art or a metaphor for the bigger picture? confessional - there is stress in my household and I find binding comforting, containing the chaos and creating organisation.Links to the containment of people, gathering or restricting movement, stopping the 'chaos' of globalisation, immigration, movement.IMG_6767IMG_6769

unplanned binding - not measuring, guided by eye, scrappy, unmeasured.

  

26/11/2017 - Task 2 - FFF - FORM - FRAME - FRACTURE - Making: book

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To bind,to form through bringing together. The lines bind the fractured patterns in to what is left of a semblance. The patterns of the everyday bind the time passing, the inhabitants of the city, the city to the earth. it is in binding that histories are created and manufactured, families are formed, cultures emerge, radicalism, activism, socialism. Binding is what moves life forward, circulating the earth as the stitches weave through the fibres of the substrate.Book-binding, book construction, book folding, book making...it has a place in my practice, bringing together thread, paper, geometry, process.Moving away from the stitched books I have made previously (see work review post), the pieces called out folding, moving back to the construction of the walls in space (see post).Initially I folded instinctively.Creating a simple book from one sheet of screen-print, simply folding and slicing a divide in the middle. With no specific beginning or end the book allows the patterns to be fractured and layered repeatedly.
paper 33cm x 24cm, screen-printed, folded to 12cm sq - then folded in half.

23/11/2017 - Task 2 - FFF - FORM - Process: Embroidery on paper

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Initial thought: embroidering the geometric patterns on paper - perhaps to be suspended as walls in stead of hung like painting or picturesIMG_4844Referencing Coates embroidery book, considering other stitches... but choose to continue with chain stitch, although changed to reverse chain stitch as the paper was not as flexible as the fabric I usually work with is. Note to look for Tambour needle in Dubai. (UPDATE 30/11/2017: no Tambour needles available, manage to find a Ari needle, this doesn't have a latch to hold the thread in and is super fiddly, will need to practice).chain stitch  reverse chain stitchdouble chain stitch  tambour Began with the Japanese 24221 paper. Has a fabric like texture and although looks delicate and translucent it has a sturdy fibrous feel.IMG_4864

paper, cotton, 33cm x 24cm,

Difficult to keep the tension while creating a chain stitch. ended up lightly taping the paper to an embroidery hoop to free up a hand to complete the chain stitch. I also began to piece the stitch hole with the needle prior to completing the stitch. This helped to maintain even spacing and also mad it easier to track the needle from below as the paper is not forgiving like fabric and marks are left behind from any errors in piecing through.IMG_4860 copyThe technique created anxiety as I was concerned that the paper would tear while stitching which meant the process was longer than stitching on fabric.It is this physical and mental tension that I find stimulating, linking back to the elements of communities within cities jostling and looking for balance, one slight misalignment and chaos, in a manner, can result. The next piece was the Akashi-Ya paper.This paper was a little more fragile and also more fibrous but not as bonded, hence the fragility.IMG_4879

paper, cotton, 33cm x 24cm,

I began with the white thread, and ripped the paper. As I had identified my slight issues with 'whiting out' the work and being read from a colonial aspect I opted to experiment with a grey thread. This certainly made the line 'pop' a little more... which I'm actually not too happy with as I am looking for subtly. Tracing 41IMG_5056

paper, cotton, 33cm x 24cm,

Love the translucency of the paper but its terribly noisy and scratchy to work with. It feels like super thin baking paper, a sort of waxy finish. One tight stitch would rip it and render the piece a fail... or would it. perhaps these errors are part of the chaos of the everyday, the curve balls that throw our routines out of sync for a nano second until we work around them and continue on our way, in to our repetitions,the calm.

IMG_5060scissors beneath the paper to show the translucency. paper, cotton, 33cm x 24cm,

 AcetateIMG_5072This need pre-marking with holes. I've been doing it with the other papers for ease but I could stitch them without punching first, the acetate is tough though. It's ridges and, of course, plastic rather than paper. It's transparency is almost too much though, not providing any muting of a layer beneath, rendering the fractures to be seen on the at the space opacity but with some distance of the layers if spacers are used. Acetate does also come in matte which I believe provides some opacity but the texture at the moment is lost on my. there is no sensuality of the touch, it doesn't bring texture to the fractures, it mimics the slickness of the city. Due to this I will not be using it for future experiments other than as a transfer medium for printing etc. The acetate is also unforgiving because you can see the back of the work, the threads hanging and and the 'temporary' knots that I'm too lazy to stitch in to the work to hide! oops!

IMG_5066scissors beneath to show transparency. acetate, cotton, 33cm x 24cm,

 translucent bondIMG_5080a much thicker paper out of the ones used so far. too thick and large to attach to the embroidery hoop, also this is not helpful as the paper needs to be turned to complete the stitches as it is very difficult to guide the needle through without looking. The 'translucent' term here is slightly misleading as it really isn't particularly translucent, maybe slightly thinner than standard printer paper.IMG_5083

paper, cotton, 33cm x 24cm,

 ON FABRIC - Moving forwardPrint on to sheer fabric and french knot with textured yarn to build texture and layer more pieces possibly link with threads if distance between pieces, or if touching the threads would hang and loop between the pieces.Still see paper as fabric, it is fibrous, comes from natural resources and can be manipulated in the same manner as 'traditional' fabrics, pleated, folded, stitched, dyed, woven etc.

14/11/2017 - Task 2 - FFF - FORM - Making: Screenprints

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IMG_6844Screen-print testing in the studio on papers. Trials on Japanese papers to see how they respond to the ink before they are stitched. A couple of screens did not expose well as the Japanese papers were not transparent enough/the exposure wasn't long enough. I have exposed with tracing paper and printer paper before but not in this studio so I was reluctant to push the technician out of their comfort zone.IMG_6843  IMG_6836      I used black ink and then as it ran out I blended in white to create a variegated effect and eventual subtleness of the print in white on the white paper. Time was limited so I managed 20 pints on the Japanese papers.IMG_6830I also created 3 'play' prints on standard A3 cartridge paper making noise by moving the screen around the paper haphazardly between print layers, I also did this while the ink was wet so ink was picked up and moved by the screen in the masked areas.IMG_6833Screen-printing seemed like a natural process for work lead by repetition and meditation. ink, print, repeat. I enjoy the quiet of the process, but also the way it can create visual noise through layering. However the prints themselves feel quite lifeless, flat and uninspiring.IMG_6838Initial thoughts are for the screen prints to be used a 'noise' or background, perhaps have elements of the fractures drawn out in stitch, embellished or embossed by the thread. Or to use them to create book forms, perhaps fracturing the pattern down further through folding.I opted to use a far more complex fracture for the screen printing, lengthening the process due to time taken to draw out the patterns. Perhaps a better option would be to screen print the simplified fractured patterns as overlays, but this does not sit well at the moment, they feel precious, like they need to be protected... perhaps even... 'elite', higher in status than the other fractured patterns and therefore tended to in a different manner.

11/11/2017 - Task 2 - FFF - FORM - FRACTURE - FRAME - Process: fractured reassembled patterns

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Following on with my process, I had photocopied previous fractured patterns, using a piece of square mount board I had collected in a drawer, I cut random squares out of these pieces. This resulted in crops of pattern that had already been through a process of building and releasing/forming and fracturing and were once again being fractured.IMG_9083As a consequence fragments of paper in slightly abstracted shapes remained. These were then pieced together to create an unrelated fragmentation.To re-form, these were transferred to the sketchbook to create a unified look.img_4090   img_4088img_4087   img_4089An app called Scannable was used to create high contrast images, removing the noise from the page and paper texture. An interesting emergence considering that the images themselves are chaotic and noisy, but the feeling of the crisp background giving a quiet note to the pieces.scannable document 8 on 8 nov 2017 at 01_02_43   scannable document 11 on 8 nov 2017 at 01_02_43scannable document 10 on 8 nov 2017 at 01_02_43   scannable document 9 on 8 nov 2017 at 01_02_43Comparing these to previous fractures, they have a lot of detail missing, are far more simple while still alluding to the repetition of geometry. How far can they be fractured and still maintain the essence of repetition?

06/11/2017 - Task 2 - FFF - FORM - FRAME - FRACTURE - Sketchbook: question

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What does it mean that you use the same process; that your practice and the content of your work go through this habitual taming and liberation? 

practical repetition - process & inspiration - mirroring & replication
reiteration
restatement
retelling
recapitulation - summarising & restating main point = dearted
reprise
iterane
reccurrence
reoccurence
replication
duplications
echo
Pattern: design, motif, system, arrangement, sequence, framework, composition, layout, shape 

To use the same process.
Practice & content continually/habitually tamed & liberated
accumulation gives a sense of direction
repetition moves forward & descends in to controlled process produced chaos.

for me: repetition of process provides accumulation, which gives sense of direction, it moves forward, mirroring the everyday that takes persistently recurrentlyrepeatedly us through life.

collage created from own image archive

collage created from own image archive

digital patterns created from own image archive.

digital patterns created from own image archive.

utilising the symmetry of the architecture alongside perspective of image to generate new lines of symmetry

collage created from own image archive

collage created from own image archive

collage created from own image archive of digitally manipulated photos

collage created from own image archive of digitally manipulated photos

digital patterns created from own image archive.

digital patterns created from own image archive.

digital patterns created from own image archive.

digital patterns created from own image archive.

utilising the symmetry of the architecture alongside perspective of image to generate new lines of symmetry