By mid April, I had sorted out the technical and material issues related to the new work I wanted to make for the Mythomania exhibition – but the actual designs were still in need of figuring out. The nature of my work means that I spend ages designing the shapes and surfaces of my pieces – then the manufacturing & assembly process is a bit like building a ‘kit’…in other words, there’s not much ability to deviate from the plan once it’s created. Moreover, there’s very little room for error once the manufacturing begins.
In the case of my cardboard artworks, I’ve established a process that generally weeds out most of the problems: I create a maquette, which helps me identify all of the problem areas – then I fix them & after that I’m confident the actual sculpture will come together OK. Here’s an example of one of these typical maquettes:
But with the new fabric artworks I was creating, I wasn’t sure how to create the equivalent version of a maquette. I suppose I could have sewn miniature pieces of the cloth together…but (unlike with the cardboard sculptures, where – even in small form – slight measurement problems are apparent) I was worried that my (nonexistent) skills at sewing would mean I couldn’t trust what was an error in the blueprints, and what was simply an error in the assembly.
It should be noted here that I hadn’t actually sewn anything by hand since I was about 20 years old (i.e. about 23 years ago!) – and hadn’t used a sewing machine since I was about 10 years old. So first I needed to train myself how to use the machine – a Husqvarna Emerald 118.
Due to time constraints, I had to learn “on the job” while making a maquette. As mentioned above, I wasn’t entirely sure how to make a cloth maquette…so in fact I made it out of paper. I printed a full-scale version of the sculpture design onto thin (80gsm) A3 paper – then cut out the individual shapes. I then crumpled each of the pieces up repeatedly until it was soft and “cloth-like” – then sewed it together with my Husqvarna. The process served two functions: 1) to determine if my sculpture pattern worked, and identify any problems with the pattern, and 2) to learn how to sew using a machine.
One of the main difficulties I found with sewing was making turns, and keeping the speed of the machine under control. I was often feeling like the needle was “running away” from me, resulting in wonky lines and overshot curves. It honestly took me until the end of the project to learn to control the foot pedal better, and importantly to have the patience sometimes to do one stitch at a time – readjusting the fabric stitch by stitch in order to accurately follow a complex shape. This was especially important with the patches, which have intricate contours and have to be carefully stitched around the edges.
Anyway, here is a shot of the maquette:
Once it was done I hand coloured it to help me see better what the final piece would look like. To be honest, I hated it until I added the colour – at which point I could begin to visualize what the real (leather) version would look like, and I started to feel like I was on the right track. Importantly, however, the sculpture actually WORKED – meaning the pieces all fit together and produced the desired form. I’ve never worked much with curves before – my other sculptures all use flat planes, which are easier to calculate – so thankfully it wasn’t a total disaster!
