Embroidered Collage

I thought I knew where I found most of my inspiration - in texture and in materials.  And this may still be true, but Dakota Mitchell framed the question in a different way.  Am I inspired by primarily by what is outside or inside of myself?  I think the answer is pattern, no matter its source.

I tried sketching my shoe, looking for inspiration in external sources and I grew frustrated with the detail.  Even if I had fully developed skills for realism, I think I would have still wanted to concentrate on the pattern that the holes and laces made and let the rest be distorted and abstracted.  I tried sketching a memory of a feeling to check for inspiration from internal sources and was using basic shapes in repetition.  I looked at the images of art provided to select from and realized that the three that I liked best had clear elements of irregular pattern.  The ones with the simple subjects or the greater amount of disorder didn't appeal to me as much.  I remembered what I chose to sketch in Europe, from gothic window tracery to the arrangement of buildings, and how much I enjoyed just building patterns from theory with fly stitch.

My ideas come from finding and developing patterns, albeit in an irregular fashion, whether purely theoretical, built from the materials I'm using, or extrapolated from something I see.  I can't say that I'm suprised by my conclusion, but I never thought about it that way before.  And by thinking about my inspiration in this way, it might change how I approach future pieces. 

I'm definitely interested in what the next four sections of Finding Your Visual Voice will bring.