Studio work: New Series

Amsterdam: Patterned bicycle skirt; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2013

A funny thing happened over the holidays: a new series took over me. I'm feeling rather invaded by this as-yet-unknown work. What I know so far is that it has its own playlist (a first for me) and reading list. Both lists are expanding as I ponder them. The new series is about a certain "feel." Pretty soon, it will have its own flavours, even though the new work will be purely visual.

How did this come to be? I'm certain that finishing a whack of pressing deadlines and giving myself time to work on and complete personal projects had a lot to do with it. Since early December I had been gathering images that had a certain feel and shared some of them in two Visual Research posts (Dec 9 & 11). My mind was at rest and I was removed from my usual studio routine. On December 31, I hand-wrote letters to seven friends and on New Year's Day I realized that a new body of work wanted to be made when the soundtrack epiphany came to me just before a hike with friends. Later that day the reading list started to form. I have no idea where this series is leading me, but I am along for the ride and am hanging on for dear life. All I know is that this series is starting from a very different place compared to most of my previous series.