leading the way

scrolling through instagram the other night, looking at a few new-to-me feeds, I remembered something I read a while back...

"notice what you are noticing"

what I was noticing on that evening in particular was the beautiful work I was seeing in a few different disciplines, most especially pottery and weaving,  that had me entranced

there was an overwhelming simplicity to it; seemingly plain at first glance but with a complexity in texture and materials that I found profoundly beautiful

and I wanted that for my work

in looking and thinking it dawned on me that I could have it, in all the techniques I use, by keeping in mind the one single overriding aspect I saw in all the pieces I had looked at that night

the materials led the way

if every single thing I do follows that tenet I should be able to achieve work that would make my heart sing

immediately a small hank of old rope I had found on the shores of the Yukon River near The Ways in Whitehorse came to mind...

I dug it out and laid it on a piece of plank driftwood 

I had washed the dirt from it on arriving home, revealing a beautiful woven chevron-type pattern laid over a 3/4" thick core

I'm not sure if this would have come from one of the old riverboats, they last ran in the 1950s, but the icy cold waters preserve all manner of things that in warmer climes would have long since rotted away so perhaps it is

regardless of it's original purpose, it now resides on my desk, on it's board, to serve as a visual reminder that it's the materials I need to look to when finding my way

I've always thought of myself as a "process" person but this latest realization has shown me that its the materials that need to take the lead 

and if needed, the process will have to be the one to bend