Taking Time

It has been a week now since my return from holiday. Taken this time to catch up with the emails and enquiries etc for work.

The piece above has I think come to an end.

The idea of this piece was to explore my deep interest in Wabi-Sabi. To embody this as much as possible with this being the reason the piece has taken so long to finish.

It is well worth researching for anyone interested in seeing and thinking from a different angle.

I spend a huge amount of time contemplating over this and other philosophies and have finally yielded that this is the path my work will develop in, perhaps not say solely, as I have a very eclectic mind and tend to work on different projects from contemporary to pure on a daily basis.

This for me though is part of the working in the "here and now" and not forcing what I do just so that I can make money.

Of course I have to answer the phone and fulfil orders but other than this I make what I feel I want to make at the time. However by taking time an initial idea can develop at its own pace and often the piece will change from my initial idea for the better.

The lessons learned from making such a piece and the processes involved often teach me more techniques than I had initially envisaged in making of the piece.

Again I have explore impermanence, and the idea that perfection is held within imperfection. The natural order of things are just so for a reason so who am I to work against this.

On looking for a base texture the initial idea came from my pet dogs nose, as in the picture I took below while in the back garden having a cup of tea. On top of this was placed a second texture found while out walking in my local woodland. Dead branches covered in lichen seemed a natural process/ material to use for the top/final texture to impart a foundation of impermanence, the natural colours also being far to involved to emulate through painting techniques.

After all why bother when nature does it far better than I ever could.

The algae being a natural process of decaying materials and the absorption of structures both natural and man made back into nature/nothingness. However while we may perceived once the item has decayed it appears to absorb into "nothingness" in reality its form has merely changed and is recycled back into another entity, never being destroyed, just continually changing.

I have included below the development of the piece through its various processes.

I am not sure it is finished. Time will tell. It will be left on a shelf for me to observe and over time any more work required will become evident.