Haphazard Process Reflection Notes

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.