A lot of steps were involved in
creating these screens; first were the frames themselves which only took maybe
two days, thanks to Craig’s suggestion of assembling them by using the
pressurised air tools. At the same time I was collecting photos on both my
phone, digital camera and the disposable camera – though after getting the film
developed I settled on the printed photos.
There were a few difficulties
that caused me to deviate from the original plan, though they also helped to
add detail and bring the piece back to the original concept. Buying fabric from Spotlight was costly, so I
decided to look at alternative materials. Curtains are an object previously
used in my work to set up these similar ideas of subconscious association, but
in this work I really liked the metaphor of curtains being an object that
obscures or hides things. I think the choice of curtains over the silk chiffon
I had originally intended was better in the end – it was a fairly easy material
to work with and was a bit less clean, or smooth than I had originally planned,
which was a nice addition.
Then there was a problem with the
amount of material – I ‘d miscalculated slightly, and while there was enough
material there wasn’t enough if I considered the bleed area for when I’d be
printing, so when I cut up the fabric for that particular step I ended up with
7 and a half 90cm wide pieces. This was easily fixed by sewing together the
scrap pieces at the end, but it took away from the overall neatness of the
screens together, in lieu with the theme, that frame brings to mind the phrase
‘piecing together of memory’, which I like.
- Constructing a memory from
fragments.
The main issue with the idea that
I’d resolved was the time, and particularly the cost it would take to print all
of the screens. Luckily I’d already worked sewing into the piece, adn in
addition learnt some new skills with the pressurised nail gun and stapler, so
the skill criteria was covered without having to use the digital workshop.
There were several options I considered, ranging from spray painting abstracted
versions of my images on the screens to printing on one screen and leaving the rest to the imagination; in the end,
though, I settled on projecting the images onto the screens. I printed the
photos on transparencies and tried overhead projecting first and experimented
with different ways of setting up the frames. Leaning them up against each
other seemed to be the way to go, otherwise they would have to be set up on a
base like I had initially intended. The projection was a success though, and I
designed an arrangement based on that that would allow the viewer to stand
amongst the screens.
The only trouble was I needed
additional projectors, which I had to accost this morning.
