Stellify 4 / EPC Edition #19 / WIP
Seems like a little while since I posted some Print Club news, I guess to some extent I've been playing catch up with my practice, whilst trying to simultaneously bed in my eCommerce store. There's a lot to think about at the moment! ! Which is good of course...
I've been working on a new set of sculptural drawings, which I think are going to generate something of value, hoping so anyway. It’s a series of works that encompass a more angular feel, with crisp folds and coloured panels, that are redolent of origami, and folded paper structures. I've been progressing this strand over the past 4 weeks or so, and feel as though there's something of interest here.
The original drawings are highly complex stellated models, which I haven't yet been able to find a way into that satisfies the criteria I'm trying to achieve. But I have begun to realise that I can deconstruct the drawings, removing maybe 70 or 80% of the data in any one frame, and end up with some really poetic smaller studies, that I think may then work well as a conjoined longer image, forming some kind of folding edition with multiple panels. There are a lot of thoughts and ideas in play here that I hope to be able to resolve in some way, or at least make some kind of new composite to move the ideas forward a little.
Thoughts include, in no particular order, the idea of the scroll painting, in which the image is revealed as the scroll is unrolled, and in so doing narrates or presents some kind of tableau or journey as the images are revealed. The format seems to me to be a rather beautiful way of integrating the element of time into a 2d work on paper. This piece won't be that long, but it may begin to feel as though there is some motion or transit between the panels from one end to the other.
I like the idea of the folding screen. So for this piece, I think I will be using some kind of taped seams, with a multi panel set up, so that the work can be either displayed flat, with some sense of its modularity, or partially folded, and displayed freestanding, in much the same way that a Japanese paper screen might divide a space incorporating an inked or printed image into a space. In my case, the division will be at mantlepiece or tabletop scale, at least in this first instance. Just writing that has made me realise that it could also, potentially, be realised at a far larger scale, and actually free stand in a room. Not sure if that will ever happen!
So for now, I'm posting a teaser image of just one of the 240 odd images I’ve sequenced, which may give some hint of the direction of travel, if not the final destination just yet.
It won't surprise you to know that I have literally no idea what the final piece will reveal when it's produced, so at the moment the final iteration remains just as much of a mystery to me as it does to you. As is often the case, I'm using the idea of creating a large number of potential components, so that I can work up a fast moving edit of the final piece, at scale, without having to stop and create any further source material. It's a method that I hope brings some dynamism back into a process that can be quite ponderous in the early stages.
Empty nesting
My younger boy has moved out to university halls, so we're empty nesting here. After some 21 years of sharing the space with kids pretty much every day, I can't help but feel that this is a really significant moment in all of our lives, and one that will certainly reshape the way I work here. In many ways, I'm looking forward to it. He's studying locally, so I can still enjoy catching up with him for a coffee or beer, and no doubt we'll both benefit from the extra autonomy it will naturally produce. There is inevitably a tinge of sadness that it really does mark the end of the childhood phase of our time together, but ultimately it's all for the good I think.
Snowdonia
I’m just back from a beautiful early autumn weekend in the Snowdonia National Park, just over the border in Wales. We did a couple of days walking in largely fabulous weather, neither too hot nor too wet, and really enjoyed the extraordinary mountain views, and the abundance of nature, of course.
I'm increasingly minded to experiment with the integration of some more natural components within the work, in a more overt way than simply referencing the mathematical nature of growth patterns, etc. But I remain unsure as to how these two quite disparate components can be melded together successfully. Reading that as I write it, it's immediately clear that seeking success in that sense is a big part of the problem! I probably just need to loosen up and see where the idea leads in practice. So it may well be the case that future editions may begin to incorporate something a little more overtly natural, whether that be a sun print, or seed pods, or just earth taken from the ground, I'm not sure.
Spotify Playlist
Finally, for today, I thought I'd send over a short playlist of sounds. I tend to have music on when I'm editing the work, less so when I'm making the original drawings, but as things come together I quite like to up the tempo, and kind of zone into some kind of rhythm, that may drive the pace of the edit.
Link here for the Spotify playlist >
As such, I thought you might be interested to hear a playlist, to get some sense of what it might sound like here whilst I'm editing the images. I'll flesh out this idea as we move ahead, and offer up some different lists as we go. I have a pretty eclectic set of genres that I listen to, but for today, I'm going to share some fairly upbeat electronica with you. I hope you enjoy it! You may well already have heard it all before of course, it's not particularly obscure. Apologies in advance if this selection isn't for you. Maybe the next set will be!
Thanks for your interest, as ever...
With best regards,
Chuck Elliott
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Image credits and links. All images are copyright by their respective owners and used here for reference purposes only.
Chinese Landscape at The Met
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/clpg/hd_clpg.htm
Cranes in flight and at rest - Folding Korean Screen
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cranes_in_flight_and_at_rest.Embroidery.Folding_Screen.Korean_Empire._Mus%C3%A9e_Guimet.JPG
Gold leaf Japanese wall panel with cranes
https://www.pinterest.nz/amp/pin/451485931374374055/
Ma Yüan - Handscroll - The Four Sages of Shangshan
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/handscroll-the-four-sages-of-shang-shan-ma-y%C3%BCan-chinese/xwHOwbpXgDj1uA?hl=en
Silk Road - Robert Kushner
https://www.robertkushnerstudio.com/about-silk-road
