Rain Drips
Unexpectedly, Raindrips ended up being a bit of a turning point for me. I broke through my tendency to adhere more strictly to my original design, and overcame the overwhelming urge to stick to the plan. I explored what else the picture and I had to offer and ended up making something I’m much happier with as a result.
Original Photograph
The original photograph was taken in Slussen, Stockholm at the end of February 2022. We were getting ready to cross the street when I spotted the person next to us. They had deviated from the usual Stockholm uniform I had grown accustom to seeing. That’s not to say that everyone wears the same thing, but there certainly tends to be a particular look to people in Stockholm when it comes to fashion (in my opinion). The contrast between the expensive Hestra gloves and the white carrier-bag also stood out to me. I also love the two tones of the three of colours, the two purples in the coat, the orange of the skirt and gloves and the white of the gloves and the boots.
I had one of those really enjoyable and truly good photo days, which resulted in me capturing a wonderful handful of photographs that I genuinely like. I plan to use some of them (displayed below) in my upcoming works and projects.
Designing the piece
I love the color of this person's outfit; it’s what originally drew me to photograph them in the first place, so it made complete sense to use these colours in the piece to accentuate them further. The first designs featured the colors reversed from top to bottom for a bit of extra interest. However, as you may see below, the purple blended in too much with the ground and you lost the impact of it, so I switched them round. I also considered stitching lines to help bring the person to the forefront. After studying the photo more, I noticed the small puddles and damp spots on the ground from a previous rain shower, and thus "Raindrips" was born.
Process
I’ve begun to realize that my creative process is a battle of love and hate. For the majority of pieces, I spend 90% of the time feeling despair as I work on them, and it isn’t until the final 10% that I either come to terms with it or change my mind and end up quite liking it. I’m sure I’m not alone in that feeling.
This piece was no exception until I decided to embrace the despair. As I neared the end, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it felt boring and predictable. The raindrops were smaller than I had planned, and despite my best efforts to add some elements of interest with the occasional big raindrop, (applying the groundbreaking theory of "not all raindrops are the same size") it still didn’t feel complete or near to what I had hoped for it’s impact.
Internally I started to battle with my inner monologue and I wondered, do I risk ruining my own work? The piece honestly didn’t look that bad so far, just bland. I was still feeling nervous around the permanence of any decision I made when it came to embroidering on photos, but part of me was also excited at the thought of destroying my own creation; proper l'appel du vide, the call of the void vibes.
After already making the holes for the raindrops below the gloves, a spark of inspiration hit, and after all, this was my artwork, and if I wanted to change it, I could. So I did.
Wow, so brave.
I trialed a few different approaches to get the thread to loop and lay nicely, ensuring the previous holes could not be seen, before finally settling on the end result.
Taking the piece out now I feel much more joy looking at it and love the deviation from the original design. I also learned to trust my intuition more and feel more comfortable making adjustments.
B x