Progress/Process GAIN

GAIN has seen plenty of iterations so far. The concept is: sanative gain through making. Productivity, ownership, processing and inventory. Here, hand-stitching is vital but slow, and it can only truly manifest when seen to a critical point. It's a question of accumulation, focus and obstinancy - so the stitching coaleses or fragments at an advanced juncture. It is difficult to identify or predict the thing until it well becomes an indication of itself. Hence, abandonment is part of the process. And if not honest, then nothing.

Working into a panel of cut-down cotton bed sheet recovered for free at an antique shop in Goulburn, an hour out of Canberra, two motifs have resurfaced over the course of this process so far, embroidered text and the operatorless but toothed mandible. The text is derived from personal notes, thoughts, ideas, rejected poetry submissions, and content that feels enough to render. The meaning is subjective, really, a process of reflection and the selective investment of time, seen only by the way it goes. But my hope is that its production is recognisable as a means to generate more or less or both as psychologically needed.

The jaws are adrift. Driverless, smiling or gritting, they were drawn years ago as a ways into blind contour drawing. You draw the outline of a subject without looking at the page, often with a continuous pencil stroke. But there's a lot I don't know about them. I don't know why they are here, really - their cheeky dislocation. Perhaps the embroidered text, jumping from subject to observation, is dislocated too. Plotted out and mended shut, they bear a mass, more death than life, but reflexive and critical.

As I type, the golden hour I took these images in has passed. A Jetstar Airbus A320neo from Launceston cruises over at 37,000 ft, 425 kts.