Super Secret Art Project

I'm certain I mentioned this a bit when I was first offered the opportunity to participate in my first real art project, but since the project has a long timeline I had yet to actually get to work on it. Yesterday I finally got some time to sit down and really get to designing so I thought I'd share a little bit of the process. For this commission I've been given all the particulars of the art installation and a scale image of the shape I need to fill. The artist has been very communicative and I've been given free reign to design within those parameters.

The first step for me is to use what I have already made to approximate the shape. So I dig through my finished pieces and begin by laying out several different ones trying to see which designs comes closet to the right degree of curve. I's hard to see in the pictures, but at this point I have three different pieces representing different techniques I wanted to try. I don't plan on using any of these exactly as they are now. Everything will be modified and adjusted so I know I need to work up prototypes first.

These are something I rarely do, prototypes. I like to know where I'm going when I start tatting and I like the finished piece to just be there at the end of my first try, but this is something extremely different and it's worth the extra design steps to make sure the final pieces are gallery or museum ready, I'm not really sure where the final piece is going to be yet. I'll let you know when I do. Since this is a pretty large piece, I don't expect to have the prototype ready for at least a few days which is frustrating as well. I have little patience waiting to see if the design will work.

As expected I have already mucked up several times and have had to adjust my ideas repeatedly. I no longer regret going the prototype route at all. The exhibition isn't until next summer, but I thought getting a jump on it while the shop is a virtual ghost town was a good idea. Normally I would have complained about that this week, but with the cold, it was actually well timed. I'll keep working on this until the shop tears me away which will be soon...hopefully. Then I'll have plenty of time at the start of the year to work on it. It's always back to ghost town in January and February which is still ages from my deadline. I'm kind of ridiculously pleased about the idea of being named in an art exhibit so I'm crossing my fingers that nothing goes awry since there is so much time for it to do so. I'll just put my head down, get the work done  as perfectly as I can and knock on wood periodically. That should work right? right?