Vancouver-based creative force Omer Arbel and Monte Clark teamed up to embrace the power of happy accidents (Carlyn Yandle photo) Last week Monte Clark gave four of us some insight into how an experiment by Omer Arbel went awry and ended up as a dazzling installation in his newish Monte Clark Gallery.
The heavy, glittering swags appear as silver-dipped coral or precious Crown hardware retrieved after a palace inferno. The hardened bits of chaos are a dazzling example of why failure is vital in the push for new ideas and materials.
"Failure is a constant companion," says Vancouver-based creative force Arbel, in Vancouver Magazine.
It was the perfect preface for my '3 artworks a day for five days' challenge that bounced over to me on Facebook.
Risk is essential in my work but I don't have Arbel's creative empire to absorb expensive failures, so I turned to stuff lying around the house (a.k.a. Found Domestic Materials) in my thrice-daily experiments. The way I see it, the materials used below were already deemed waste, so if the tests didn't work out, so what? At least no new materials were harmed in the making.
The heavy, glittering swags appear as silver-dipped coral or precious Crown hardware retrieved after a palace inferno. The hardened bits of chaos are a dazzling example of why failure is vital in the push for new ideas and materials.
"Failure is a constant companion," says Vancouver-based creative force Arbel, in Vancouver Magazine.
It was the perfect preface for my '3 artworks a day for five days' challenge that bounced over to me on Facebook.
Risk is essential in my work but I don't have Arbel's creative empire to absorb expensive failures, so I turned to stuff lying around the house (a.k.a. Found Domestic Materials) in my thrice-daily experiments. The way I see it, the materials used below were already deemed waste, so if the tests didn't work out, so what? At least no new materials were harmed in the making.
Paint chips as log cabin quilt block (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Day 2:
"Toybits": cluster of plastic toy fragments. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Reorganizing broken toys with kids II (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Day 3:
Day 1:
Re-organizing broken toy bits with kids (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Playing with typography, New York Times Style Magazine (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Reworking one coffee bag (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Collages of mid-century women's magazines (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Collages of mid-century women's magazines (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Day 4:
Collages of mid-century women's magazines (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Grid collage from New York Times Style magazine (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Grid collage from New York Times Style magazine (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Exhausted from doing grid collage using NYT magazine (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Day 5:
Broken toy amalgam inspired by morning newspaper (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Idea for a feature wall or screen, using inserts from wine bottle wood crates (Carlyn Yandle photo)
'Girl with Hole in her Head' possible title of random wire-as-drawing play (Carlyn Yandle photo)
