Desire path textile experiments

I want to start this post by saying that I am really pleased with how these came out, largely because the direction of the pieces literally flipped through my making journey. I wasn't precious about my original idea and I responded to the piece(s) as they evolved through the making journey.

I set out with the intention of interpreting my original desire path photographs using a combination of textiles, including the wool I foraged during my visit to YSP. I was using embroidery and sewing threads as well as the wool, stitched onto sheets of felt.

As I worked on the pieces, I became progressively more unhappy. They seemed uptight, polite and uninspired to me. 

At a certain point in making the largest piece (to be honest I cant quite remember but I think it was tying off threads), I turned it over and really noticed the "back". 

I much preferred it! It looked like a confident, loose and energetic thread sketch of the photograph. 

As I thought on why it worked for me, I realised that it represented qualities, like collaborative chaos and anarchy, that are inherent to the creation of desire paths. The backs are uncontrived, emergent and wild. 

In this way, the "backs" illustrate the photographs so much more beautifully than the front ever did, or could. 

And so now they are the front.