Following on from a very informative tutorial with our visiting tutor I have been re-evaluating what I am trying to do. She suggested that some of my work is unresolved and this has made me realise that I have not been thinking about the materials I am using in a productive way.
In particular, I have cast concrete using cardboard yarn cones as the formers without giving enough thought as to what the cones are used for. For example, yarn is wound onto them by machinery and the yarn is soft and coloured. I realised that I had not questioned my use of concrete or the copper which I had included in the piece. The tutor suggested that by extending my investigation of the cones other work would evolve.
In essence I need to start thinking about what a material or object is used for because that will help me to know what I can do with it. This sounds obvious but until now I have been too hasty in inventing new work without developing what I have already made. I need to look back at good work and investigate its potential.
The connection of yarn cones with my grid drawings is interesting because I have been spraying paint through punched cards which were originally used to programme textile looms. The result is a kind of photographic image which I have further developed by spraying through old plastic netting and other woven or grid materials. By highlighting elements within the resulting pattern I have been able to achieve depth within the drawings.
The punched cards suggest that I can make my own cards with their own ‘code’. They could be coated with shellac, similar to the originals, and then be used to make prints or left as objects in their own right.
Cones can be further developed by casting with something other than concrete and incorporating the yarn within the material. Metal elements can be introduced as a way of association with the machinery that winds the yarn onto the cones.
