Drafts on drafts on drafts, drilling, measuring (always measure twice), burning, hacksawing, sanding, polishing... a lot of technical work preceded and surrounded the creative parts of art making.
Early painting stages: working on the "pain" layer and the "healing" layers first because I planned on having those hang in the middle and working both forwards and backwards from there.
Then I spent days going back and forth between the studio and the workshops painting, sanding, engraving, adding holes, adding opacity, and building up the layers both aesthetically and conceptually.
Although everything was conceptually decided beforehand, there was a lot of improvisation in the making. I found that with this newfound "artistic style" of mine, working with paint and engravings on acrylic, I am constantly learning new ways to manipulate the materials and new ways to convey messages. If I'm completely honest, I feel like I've always been in the exploratory phase of art, and never in the expert era of it. Learning with my hands and my eyes makes me incredibly happy, independent of the end result.
However fun improvisation may be, there comes a point where practicality must come first. I set aside my paints and built a frame for a test-hang, finished making the fixings and made everything necessary for installing the work in the gallery.
Install days were stressful - to say the least. Curating a group of works in a new space is challenging, yet sometimes the challenging bit is the people and not so much the artworks. I learned how to pick my battles, to prioritize communication and understanding, and to value flexibility and kindness. In the end, the Lethaby Gallery looked marvelous and the artworks spoke to each other in interesting ways.
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