Improvisational Art – A Pleasant Necessity
It’s only been recently that I have considered myself to be an artist, even though when I think back over my life I was always creating something in some manner. Until the last few years I never considered taking more time and actually trying to do something I always saw as a silly dream. Then, life took a turn that has really given me no choice but to take this path and for that I am most grateful, (even if still a little bewildered at how I ended up here.)
That said, building an artistic practice is a slow burn and building a portfolio takes time. As such, although the career that acted as a gilded cage has afforded me some leeway in some savings, I do still need to try and make a living. So, amongst the proliferation of non art related bits and bobs and odd jobs that I pick up on a weekly basis (which if I am totally honest, although precarious, does suit my spirit better than the corporate world) there is a need to try and find a way to convert my creativity quickly into some ready money!
So it is with this need to try and support my more ambitious endeavours that I have come to the idea of performing some upcycling experiments in the hope that people may like them enough to buy them on the basis that as well as being a fun exercise in improvisational art and an exercise of my creativity (which almost always ends up giving me a conceptual art idea to add to the list), they are also functional and useful to some extent.
One or two of the ideas I have for some of the stuff I have found around and abouts are quite conceptual, they may well end up in the portfolio. On the whole however, most are and will be fun experiments in seeing something in a charity shop and envisaging what it could be, with some intervention.
For instance, my first purchase was a wire frame that it took some time to work out what it was. I suspect it was an egg holder in its previous life. It’s well on its way to becoming an artisanal stained glass style lamp. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of it before I started, but here are some progress photos for you to get the idea.
I knew this thing had potential when I saw it, it did take me a day or two to work out what I was going to do with it but when I did the next question was how to do it. This is something I often came across in my past career as well as now, getting to that big idea. I am not good at following instructions or listening to the advice of others, so off we go trying to work out when the epoxy would be in the best state to stretch across the frame. It was a guess (that fortunately was correct) that the not quite cured epoxy would effectively stick to the frame. If that theory hadn’t worked, it would have been back to square one with a bang.
I plan to run a lamp cord around and have a bulb hang in the middle and it still needs something done with the middle – I’m thinking of very light grey to invoke the waterfall and water further – the frame inside could probably be filled in more efficiently than the helter-skelter section so im thinking on that at the moment. I may still come undone by the physics of how bulbs and cords work but we’ll see.
Something I did come across this week which I had no issues envisioning was what many will probably see as a very tacky tourist item from a sunny land but I immediately saw some potential here for a quick and cheap novelty sale with a bit of black paint and gold leaf/paint to touch up the details and a clay base, this will be a very cool lamp too!
There’s unlikely to be much profit in this one but I just love cats, so I’ll enjoy this whatever the outcome, I’ll just have to make sure I actually put it for sale rather than keep it myself.
I will update again when I’m done with this, along with other things that are currently being worked upon but I thought that these upcycle experiments would be a nice addition to my studio updates on my conceptual and felt work. I have always been someone who can’t just stick to one thing be it thought, job or beer so it’s fitting to talk about it here too.
More updates as these lamps evolve and if you enjoy these behind the scenes experiments I’d love to hear from you.
If you would like to check my current portfolio of felt works and commissions – check it out HERE
Check the other stories behind my practice and my art HERE