Whist Elena has been taking chunks out of my pieces, I have selected to sample just one of her disembroidered pieces over the course of this past week. I’m not really sure what I’m looking for in the work yet which gives me a great opportunity to experiment… and progress some of the methodologies I previously discussed.
How far away from Elena’s work can I take her work and still leave it recognizable? Is it possible to change the textures yet leave it feeling still part of the work?
I tend to start work late at night. I’m an insomniac and I enjoy the silence of the night, generally working from 10 till around 2 in the morning. I can produce a couple of hundred varied mages within that time frame so the work really starts coming down to a selection process… and yet, as I write, I know its not that simple.
I select processes. That’s the first point. I select the image I steal. The apps I run it through. The pixels I alter. The colours I vary. The stitches and drawing that I introduce. I select the final images that I show only after due consideration where I have weighed up the merits and disadvantages of each individual piece… but even within that process there is another sub-process. The majority of the images I create – or the iPad creates – are never even saved; they are fleeting; only ever seen by me and rejected for a whole variety of different reasons.
What are these? – not the reasons for rejection, but the rejected sketches? What would the results represent if I only saved those that I would normally reject?
Questions… questions.
For me the images that I choose represent my taste or work that gives me ideas to progress further into painting, 3D or print making, fabrics etc. they are sketches produced by machine that stimulates and inspires the new in me… they are the flint in the lighter that sparks the next piece of work, and from reading what Elena has written, they are obviously having a similar effect on her.
It’s a highly addictive process… I’m not sure its wise to admit that… randomizing imagery… that curiosity of what else might be generated that makes you hit the button again… and again.
I haven’t started a painting yet… yet I have more images than I could paint in a lifetime… another selection process will have to take place at some future stage… another ay of presenting may need to be found…
Worryingly, Elena has already sent me 10 or so disembroidered samples! Is she feeding my addiction whilst having a quiet chuckle at my quandary? Does she realize the dilemma she creates? Is that a part of the work to?
