The Pivot

"Be 100% sure. Unless of course you are unsure. In which case, make sure to be 100% unsure."

A little sage advice I came up with as my mid-year takeaway. I hope it confuses you. On that note, why don’t I explain myself?

I often have to remind myself that it's ok to be unsure. That a lack of certainty can be just as insightful and valuable as being certain. Of course, one feels a lot better than the other. And so every time uncertainty crept up in my capstone research, I took it as an invitation to be frustrated with myself, instead of seeing the clues for what was to come.

Thankfully I hit a wall. Though my studio research was interesting, I was struggling to translate my findings into one strong and succinct idea. I could not move forward anymore, and so I was forced to stop and look at my uncertainty. It was then that I realized the disconnect that existed between my concept of “decay” and my technique of “structural weaving”. They were not in harmony. They were not telling the same story. They were, in fact, fighting each other (and not in a good way). “Aha”, I realized “my uncertainty was founded”. As panic started to set in, I decided to lean into it. I decided to really question myself and my intentions, instead of worrying about what could unravel.

The first thing that happened, as mentioned above, was that it became completely evident that weaving was not going to be a fitting technique to explore my concept of “decay”. While I still had appetite to use it, I could not root it in, or connect it to my concept. As such, I was forced to ask myself “what technique am I researching”? What technique do I want to research? Pause there.

The other thing that became clear while I sat in my uncertainty, was how attached I felt to the monoprints I had created at the beginning of the term. I had been desperate to find a role for the prints that could support my weavings, but nothing made sense. Now, in this moment, I could see clearly that the monoprints connected well to decay. That they were in fact my artistic expression of decay. Cue lightbulb. “I should be trying to bring these prints to life on cloth using decay!” But how? Rust dyeing? Digital weaving and devore? Then my lovely teacher and mentor added “why don’t you consider scale”? SCALE! Of course. The simplest way to connect everything without adding more.

Devore + Scale + Monoprint.

No joke, I felt as light as a feather with this realization. It just fit. I was sure.