I spent Friday playing with the faux silk scarf squares that I have been picking up in charity shops for years. I have a complex relation to them – a relationship that I do not fully understand … I guess that I can call it a working relation in that I am working with the relation. Initially I had imagined patch-working the squares to create material that might be formed into some kind of tent like structure. More recently I have been thinking of simply patch-working them into a large piece that would be hung or draped.
On Friday, after weeks away away from the studio – the result of Supermarket, a trip to the UK, and paid work – I found myself taking the scarves from the drawer where they have been resting. I hadn’t planned to work with them that day though I had promised myself a day of working with physical material after too long a time of not having done that.
Quite quickly I realised that the few if any of the squares were the same size. I had thought that there would be negligible differences – a centimeter here and there – what I discovered were considerably more significant differences than I had anticipated. Looking at the larger scarves I realised that trimming them down would dramatically alter them – how could I have thought that the proportions of the designs would tolerate such cuts. Even if I sorted the collection in two the smaller of each selection … and therefore the template for potential cuts … were so much smaller than the larger pieces that any resultant patchwork would not only compromise many designs but it would also draw more attention to the act of patch-working that I had intended. Cutting the scarves would also, obviously, be irreversible, and I am simply not convinced that I want to make those cuts.
Later in the afternoon, after M and a visiting friend of hers came by and I spoke a little about my work, I tried doing the simplest thing – pinning scarves directly on the studio wall in a collage patchwork. I worked fast not bothering to press the scarves, not thinking too much about an overall design. With the fourth scarf I began to appreciate what what happening. The scarves expanded across the studio wall. I was installing them.
I think that my best work has often been installation. My previous thinking about the scarves had been coming from the wrong place – it had been coming from a place of object rather than a place of installation.
Whatever this piece becomes it is not primarily concerned with the craft of patchwork, so of course the piece does not need to be patch-worked in that way. Hanging the scarves individually and directly on the wall – overlapping and permitting no glimpse of the wall – refers to patchwork without being patchwork. This felt … feels … much more appropriate. I am excited to continue with trial work when I return to the studio next week. I am excited to think about a time when I will install these scarves on a wall where there will be an audience.
