Material Combination
‘Behind all seen things lies something vaster: everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than itself.’ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Combining construction materials with materials traditionally associated with feminine or domestic activities such as sewing, weaving or crocheting, creates tensions and sharpens the focus on the space between these materials and on the form they are making. As with the rest of my work, I intend to achieve visual balance between materials and empty space, but also to reach a sense of parity between each material’s function and contribution within the created form.
With this in mind, each element occupies the space that its properties (malleability, elasticity, strength, etc…) and specifications (weight & dimensions) allows, whilst giving the other materials the ‘scope’ to realise their full potential (stretch out, twist, bend, support, etc…). Nothing is superfluous and all roles are of symmetrical value in the construction of the form.
Over the last two years after exploring PLA, which enabled me to divide the space into smaller sections, I decided to incorporate string work in my forms. Weaving, knitting or crocheting are labours that best measure duration whilst effectively restoring time into spatial form. By that I mean that the regularity of the weaves or repeated patterns is quite an accurate way of calibrating the passing of time and as the labour progresses, the weaves take more and more space. These weaves become a transcript of duration where space and time are quite literally intimately interwoven. I see these weaves as metaphors for a spacetime dimension where the strings are connections between past, present and future, allowing a way back and forth.
Frederique Jones 