MAZE01
©2012 Craig Ashby
7.75” x 9.375”
Collage

Here is MAZE01. First in the MAZE series and a delightful success. Once again, just like all the pieces I create, some fail and some succeed and others fall into that middle category of passable.

My mind wanted to create a piece reminiscent of Vaughan Oliver’s and Nigel Grierson’s work as 23 Envelope. More of that Cocteau Twins Heaven or Las Vegas aesthetic that has scarred me as much as Africa. I think I nail it quite nicely.

The plotter cutter took some time to learn. I instantly knew this series would lend itself to learning how to use the machine. Understanding how it works. How it fails and succeeds. All the little nuances needed to be learned for me to apply it to more ambitious pieces in the future. Ideas that are evolving in my head due to simple work like this. It’s all about the learning curve.

So I think in these first ten I have figured out many of the foibles of both myself and the machine in relation to this series. The next ten will be about mitigating the problems I have found. Limiting the imperfection. Gaining more patience and learning how to breathe and exist while creating.

One of the first issues I have to deal with is how to stop the blade from tearing the edges of  the clay coated papers. Maybe a polyurethane coat of both sides of the paper. Maybe it could help thicken the paper and prevent the lighter weight papers from crinkling.

My only misgiving about this concerns the initial idea for these pieces. My original ambition was to coat each square in gel medium. Building up a heavy layer. Then washing the paper from the back, a method I had done in the past, so that only the ink and gel medium are left. Then embedding those clear “skins” in lucite.

I know it’s overwrought and over thought, but somehow I don’t want to do anything that could prevent me from doing this in the future. Thoughts, anyone?