final project: progress and experimentation

I have been beavering away, over the past couple of weeks, experimenting and exploring for my final project.  The raw material is plain, old, paper.  I'm presently using old history essays, copies of learned journal articles, library lists and archive catalogue references, from my days as a part-time MA student and researcher.  This is for the exploratory stage.  I have been in touch with my long-time former place of work and hope to receive from them, soon, a decent sized bundle of old documents which I had a hand in producing.  I will use these for the final construction.  Most of what I used to deal with never went further than A4 printer or photocopier - not much reached 'proper' print-for-publication quality.  So I'm concentrating on using that kind of paper for my art-work.

I'm still not sure what the final piece will be.  I started off thinking about Cornelia Parker and the idea of, quite literally throwing the scraps of my old paper-based life to the winds, in some kind of explosion of hanging threads and pieces.  I haven't entirely given up on that yet, but I think there are other ways, too, of using the paper in ways which preserve the essence of its 'paperiness', while removing or obscuring the text, and creating distinct forms, rather than an amorphous 'cloud' of fragments.

So while my ideas mature and settle, I've been playing, trying things out and wandering the web, and the libraries, thinking about ways in which I can use my paper to represent, or to convey, in some way, the sense of liberation I have felt at leaving behind the old world of the written and printed word, in favour of creativity in textiles, art, music and much else besides.

I have made quite a lot of paper, with results improving over time as my equipment, and technique, improved.  I've also made some passable papier mache articles - mainly bowls in various shapes and sizes.

I've tried weaving with torn strips of printed, and hand-made, paper.  This produces some interesting visual effects and textural depth.

 And following on from my earlier attempts at knitting with paper strips,

I've tried using the strips in other ways - rolling them up into a bundle or ball (this piece done with strips cut from hand-made paper, extremely fragile to handle in this state.

I've produced some further pieces of strip work - piling the paper strips up in a heap,

or coiled loosely in one of the pier macho bowls - it looks a bit like printed spaghetti, with tantalising glimpses of words and phrases, but nothing which makes any sense.

Or making rings, like extremely loose chain-mail

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And I've tried stitching lengths of narrow strip together, pulling the strips into curved shapes which begin to curl up a little like simple canoes.

Where this will lead, I do not yet know.  But it feels quite good to be making and doing, experimentation wil lead to new ideas, and is a good way of testing out what can be done, and what I'll feel happy about concentrating on for a few weeks to make the final piece.    We have a tutorial session on 16th April, when we're expected to bring in all our work so far, and present a coherent plan for the final stages.  So there's still rather a lot to be done, and decisions to be made.