Beginning the Piece - 28.04.15

I saved these long sheets of packing paper from an Amazon order I received. A key element of my own practice is using discarded, otherwise disposable and gifted materials to work with and on. As a result of this, I often use the materials as a starting point for a piece of work and use it as a catalyst to form ideas. What drew me to these sheets of paper was their length and dimensions: the resemblance to wallpaper gave me the connection I needed to create a piece of work that stayed true to the original ideas of the workshop and performance piece but would hopefully illustrate the ideas more clearly to an audience.

The first step was to create a grid in which I could work: this ensures that the angles are generally correct and that there is a coherent flow throughout the piece, which can be problematic when working on this scale. The grid gave me the framework to allude to a pattern without it actually being repetitive in any way. It simultaneously gave the drawing limits while also giving it complete freedom to go where it may. In this way, the drawing itself is coherent with my ideas about a piece that is both art and design: organic and yet methodical.

In some ways this has deviated slightly from the initial idea of the workshop: the initial concept was to create drawings that were inspired and informed by flat-pack furniture instructions, and using the instructions themselves to directly guide a drawing. While I have kept the visual language of the flat-pack furniture instructions, I found that the process of drawing organically within a framework supported the idea of 'designed art' or an 'art design' far more than using the instructions to make a drawing.

The dimensions also allude to a piece of wallpaper and subsequently a design, while the free, hand-drawn element of the piece also suggests that it could be a stand alone piece of art in itself. I feel the contradictory nature of this piece echoes the issues that seem to surround art and design as individual practices and areas: they are terms which are linked up until a certain point in creative study and then they are divided and kept separate.

And here we find our link to House Proud: I noted in a previous blog post that Kate Jesson has curated an exhibition that contains examples of art and design in a context that encourages them to be seen as equal, linked and bound. Hopefully, my piece of work in response to this exhibition will only strengthen this idea.