Hello all and welcome to this odd little project. Honestly, I know I had a lot of fun with this one but it also took place in a very chaotic time. I mean it was the middle of a pandemic and a lot of moving and changes made it sadly very foggy in my mind to remember the finer details of this project. However, I remember the making being the most fun I had had at that point in a long time, a practice that I had begun back in foundation making a swift return and further developed into something I never knew I could make. So I am sure this post will be short and sweet, just know that it is a project I am quite fond of and hopefully will help someone out there who needs something new to do.
Idea Generation
When we were given the brief itself, I was over the moon excited about what I could potentially make. I mean I am an artist who prides themselves on their repetitive making and their use of multiples and here is a project specifically designed for that. So I took what information I could grasp from the initial presentation and began weaving some ideas into what I could create.
Design Theory / Questions of Focus
At this point in the project, we were also tasked with looking into the theoretical elements of design. Asked to question our own process and figure out more understanding as to what we were making and what elements could we pick apart to make strong with more explanation. To be frank, I can’t remember a big chunk of all of this since when it comes to my process of making it tends to result in a cathartic switching off of the brain as I let my hands work to create multiples in a mellow relaxed manner. I couldn’t really question what I was doing as the work itself was more for me than it was for others, especially at this time when everyone felt isolated and separate from the world around them.
Concept Creation
I knew that when it came to the actual concept of what I wanted to make, I knew that whatever it was it would be this ever-expanding force of obsession. Due to my way of thinking about repetitive processes, I wanted to make this project focus on what I could create through this natural rhythm that I had adapted and made my own. I found myself drawn to the topics of mutations and chains and I guess in this state of letting the making speak for itself, I took that as a literal sign to make chains and see what repetition could come from this.
Chain Experimentation – Material
As I mainly worked with fibre and wanted to get a good understanding of what I could make, I decided to pool all of my string-like materials together and figure out what chain links would look like when given a different material to be bound by. Each link itself is comprised of straws that have been looped to create a singular shape but before being formed they are repetitively bound by string. I did have a lot of fun experimenting with different material qualities, and I am reminded why I let the joy of repetition in this project take over. Other modules that ran alongside this project were forged in hellfire and made me sick to my stomach with stress and the only relief I would feel is when I was able to turn my brain off and make. All in all, as much as I either loved or hated each material there was no way that it would surpass my overwhelming love for both string and wool due to their easy-to-handle qualities as well as their diverse spectrum of colour that makes the potential for end products limitless in what I can create with them. Therefore, I decided that whatever I chose to make for the final product it would be primarily made from either wool or string.
Final Piece Plan
When it came to what I wanted to make for the final piece, I knew I wanted it to be this large net. Honestly, at this stage of the project, the other modules had run me through the wringer and practically drained me of all my passion to even attempt to make a narrative to run alongside this project. This is a shame since looking back I’m sure it would have been fun to play with a looping narrative of some kind but alas it was never done. That is why I kept it simple and made a net since I at least wanted to come out of this product with something that brought me joy as the end results of other modules only bring back memories of spite and rage. With that in mind, I made sure that the colours used within the net itself would be colours that would spark joy in me (Yellow being the classic embodiment of joy and purple being a colour that will always make me happy).
Final Piece Creation
In conclusion, even though I can barely remember this project I still look at this net and smile. I often wonder if I didn’t have those other life-sucking modules alongside this project, how big would this net have possibly been? I mean I gave myself the limit of a 16×16 sheet of links but I am extremely confident that I could have made a 100×100 sheet and would have loved every second of it. I hope that another opportunity to make repetitively like this arises in the future cause mark my words I may not be able to make a net again, but I am damn sure that I will make something so large that it touches the sky (or at least the ceiling, I don’t want to set the bar too high as who knows what the future holds).
Samuel Mathias 