I have been taking “lesser works”, Foundlings that I am not happy with, and “decommissioning” them. The success of an assemblage is difficult to judge and this judgement does seem to change over time so I have to be very thoughtful about what I am about to do. Once disassembled, they are lost.
Sometimes the decommissioning is about adding to a Foundling or perhaps embedding it in a larger work. This new direction can easily breathe new life into a piece. At other times, disassembling affords me the ability to use ingredients that might be better used in a new way.
In this Foundling, the box, bone and brass plate with the round holes have been in an incomplete state in my studio for years. The carriage step, the pendulum-like piece hanging down, has been waiting even longer to be used. Only when disassembled and reassembled with the new ingredients, did this piece literally and figuratively, finally come together.
In this process certain things are becoming clear: I am getting much more skilled at my craft, both with the use of tools and how I “engineer” these Foundlings; I have a much higher level of satisfaction with these new pieces; and I seem to have a clearer idea on how to create a work of art in the first place... but the path is still not a direct one.