Although these works have been a long time in the making (they stem from my history with tapestry weaving which I learnt at West Dean College, Chichester in England back in 2004) they are still very new and experimental to me. I'm still getting used to how the wool reacts to the design and how much I have to stretch it when measuring the lengths before I cut and join it. And I usually have to tweak it in some way after I've installed it onto the gallery wall before I'm happy with the result. It might just be a untwisting of a strand because I hooked it onto the nail wrong or it might be that I have to tighten the tension of a few strands because they are a bit too slack.
So, with this work my approach to making it differed slightly. I knew that I wasn't going to be the one to install it and I wasn't going to be able to have control over what the final work was to look like. The gallery would. This meant that I had to make sure the tension was right and that I labelled all the bundles of strands correctly and that I included clear instructions on how to install. It's not a difficult task to install by any means, it's just a little fiddly and time-consuming.
I also played around with the design for this one. Combining a typical zig-zag knitting-inspired pattern in the background with a simple abstract square design. Melding the home-craft with the art theory. Which I feel, all my work does through choice of materials combined with my usual choice of minimal or abstract design. However, this time not only does the material reference the home-craft but so does part of the design. I'm still in two minds if this work is successful or not but I do like it and I think it's pushed me into new design directions that will find their way into future "woolie wall works".
3 Red Woolie Squares (2011) was exhibited in the group exhibition LARGER THAN LIFE at
feastonart gallery, Orbost, Victoria (18 March - 21 April 2011).