Gallery of past work

Monday 31 May 2021

Making changes, joining and finishing off

Why does it always take so long to finish off a piece of work? It doesn't seem to matter if I'm working with paper or fabric, or with print, photographs or mainly in stitch. It always takes me longer that I expect to get everything how I like it. 

The Tower piece I first showed as a small maquette in April, has needed many changes to the individual images that make up the final tower. This sort of piece in particular seems to evolve slowly. 

Since this is a 3D hexagonal piece with no practical possibility of printing the whole in one go at A3 size and then joining down one line, I'm considering several joins. Do I print out the separate strips of tower images in threes so I have only to make two sets of joins on the opposing sides of the piece, or do I print them out separately and join each one to its neighbour which makes it much easier to cut out the look throughs which are an integral part of the piece but may result in a distracting forest of thread ends? 

Next, I'm pondering how to make the joins to best effect. The options would seem to be joining with thread, with bent staples to reflect the metal structure of the original building, or using tape or small cardboard joins on the the inside of the piece. The card option seems clumsy and can be seen when looking down inside the piece and bent staples have practical issues as they are difficult to do consistently and the card can easily become damaged as photo 3 below shows. 


I have therefore opted for thread sewn through and tied either on the inside of the piece, or on the outside to make a feature of the join. A variation of the latter seems to offer the best option. 

I then have to sort out the imagery on the inside of the piece. I have opted so far to use a section of words from the small book, the initial images of which I showed here. I am still playing with the weight, opacity, size and font of the words to be printed on the reverse side of each face of the tower. 


So far, the size and opacity of the lettering needs more work as some of it jumps when the piece is viewed as a whole - and I may yet change my mind about this completely!



6 comments:

  1. I think the thread joins are much the best option so I am glad you are going with them. I am looking forward to seeing this finished. xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Lin. I’ll be glad to see it finished too! ... Then I have two more smaller ones I want to complete to make a small installation ...

      Delete
  2. It always amazes me how many options present themselves as one works through a project/design, how many decisions constantly have to be made in the course of construction, even on those projects you expect to be straightforward, or at least mostly so. I really like the individual towers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the idea of having the thread joins ending on the front ... then comes the many questions of colour, texture of thread...something that enhances the finished piece ;)
    Can hardly wait for the finished structure !

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have tried so many things & times to comment ... let's see if this time is the charm.
    I love what you are doing and I especially like the photo of the inside !!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just love the last photo of the inside !

    ReplyDelete

Hello and thank you very much for taking the time to leave a message on my blog. Every comment is welcome and I will try to answer you as soon I can.