Process

A few days ago I tried a little experiment with one of the cards I've recently made. I colour photocopied it, as well as photographed it and printed it on photo and plain papers, cotton and silk. Below is the original fabric piece on the left and the photo onto cotton with handstitch added, on the right. While both are fabric with stitch and very similiar at a glance, I prefer the silk and velvet original with actual fringe because of the feel and the initial piece seems more valid somehow because that particular combination of fabrics and stitch didn't exist before I made it and the second version couldn't have been made the way it was without the first. Yet isn't that the way art builds on itself? One thing I've noticed in doing this series of cards is how variations crept in - whether pinked tree edges and colours of fabric or the addition of borders. And some of the time the differences emerging arose from something unexpected, as in the card below, where inexplicably some of the metallic cotton melted under the iron (even though I have other cards with the same material that did not melt) and I liked the look and added fabric behind it, leaving a border on the bottom edge.

On the next card that I made, it felt natural to include a border, although it's not pictured, here:

Yet even without using the same basic design and varying it as I have with these cards, whatever I make is part of an ongoing process and it's interesting to make connections and notice shifts.