Find Your Spark

Find Your Spark

This commission was probably my favourite make of 2020.  It brought me back to my love of creating structure freehand, drawing with yarn and sculpting shape and form by using a mixture of macramé and weaving. In this piece both of these techniques work in harmony together, decoratively but also functionally, to hold the textile together.


During a brief phone call with Tanya (a super talented jeweller – check out tanyaireland.com) she laid out an idea she wanted her piece to capture. The following are some of lines I scribbled down during the conversation: “... Follow your dreams…your spark…take the path you want…whatever it may be, do what you want in life, do what you love. “ Everything she spoke of really resonated with me. It was, in many ways, a dream commission.  I put across the idea of creating pathways through the piece, as representations of travelling through life, as my starting point. We discussed a neutral colour palette, maybe a splash of colour or gold, but otherwise left it to be decided what worked best as the piece took shape.

The wood!! I have had this piece of wood for a long time. It was such a fun piece, I had been holding onto for the perfect project. I knew this was it. Having such a statement piece of wood, I wanted to ensure I used it to the full.  
I wanted to make sure I made use of the big hook by making it a part of the piece. I did this through weaving a web and then bringing it back together with the main textile.  The web represented a safety web, metaphorically in life a safe place that you have to leave and find pathways from to find your dream.  The pathways travel from there through the textile.  

     
The piece is divided up into different sections, shapes, sizes and textures, with woven pathways weaving in and out throughout.The textures represent life’s different challenges, the rough, the bumps, the mundane, the steady, the waves- the journey though it all on a pathway that entwines through the textile.  You have to travel through and embrace life, follow your dream through whatever it may throw at you and find that spark. Along the path I've woven tiny glimmers of gold as the journey itself being part of that dream and not just an end goal. The bottom left of the piece drapes and hangs and contains a section fully woven in gold - The spark.

 

 I loved making this piece and was so happy with the final outcome. The process of creating it was true to me as an artist and the meaning behind it really resonated with me -in a way it brought me back my spark of creativity.

I can’t wait to further this style of work this year and dive into some personal projects exploring process and creating pieces that I love.

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