Observations...

Originally Wendy and I discussed making lace out of found object. She mentioned all the discarded items she sees when out rollerblading. I decided to go for more the organic route and in looking around have found that there isn't much in nature that couldn't be considered some type of "lace". Even the bark and mold on the big trees on campus create a very lace-like web. I went outside yesterday and there were tons of ginkgo leaves all over my car and the street (fig.1). I'm guessing the rain knocked them all out overnight and also made them leave marks on the sidewalk where city pollution or whatever settled over them (fig.2). I've been looking at ginkgo's a lot lately in my own work and love the contrast between the full fan shape and the long, thin stem. They're beautiful layered and even more so seeing how it occurred naturally as opposed to by my own pen. This was very different than the cut leaves I was working on earlier in the week (fig.3).
Bill asked that we consider different ways of defining different types of lace and I think that while process pretty much defines those categories, one if the biggest things is that lace is either structure built up from nothing or structure with elements removed.

fig.1


fig.2


fig.3