Having had a big wardrobe sort out for winter I am now again in the happy position of being able to add to my ongoing work SPECTRUM. This piece is totally reliant upon an influx of clothing driven by growing or careless children. I can be the only mother on the planet to be delighted at the sight of ripped trouser knees.
This brings me to think about how my work is actually created. SPECTRUM is exactly as it says it is: a range of colours and I have some BIG gaps in the ‘red leg’ area. Red was allocated a largish space to fill as when I started on this work my children’s school wore a red uniform and so I had a plentiful supply of red labels, I am also in the habit of wearing red and green clothing together, purely out of badness, and so this colour was in abundance. Now that my children are at a blue uniformed school and with SPECTRUM not complete, I find that I am seriously lacking in red.
The upshot of this is that I need to PLAN. This means that I am now choosing clothing for my family, not based on fashion, or personal preference, but that will create (on it’s demise) a suitably coloured fabric label. I find myself enthusing to my boys, over rather unsuitable items of clothing, with a crafty eye on the bigger picture; ‘why of course smallest son, purple IS your favouite colour’!
Such forward thinking is becoming rather headache inducing, and seems a lot of effort to go to to get a singular label which will be one of a few thousand. In desperation for new materials I am nearly (but not quite) at the point where I have to sabotage my own stuff. Yet it is important to me that they are ‘authentic’ – no charity shop scavenging allowed, all labels must be from clothing worn or donated to my family to be eligable for inclusion.
Why oh why do I add these strict ‘rules’? Would anybody else know if I cheated? (if you are interested in challenging me I can tell you the provenance of every single one of those 1008 sewn on labels).
Sad to say that Life imitating Art, is now becoming Art dictating Life.
Red pants all round……
