| THE DRIP |
Fucked It… Fixed It! | Series
Fucked it… fixed it is basically my creative philosophy.
Not because I set out to make a mess of things, obviously.
Although, let’s be honest, the studio gods do enjoy a bit of drama.
It’s more that sometimes the thing that goes wrong is the exact thing that pushes the work somewhere better.
A dodgy mark. A colour that misbehaves. A stitch that wanders off.
A bit of overspray that absolutely did not ask permission before dripping down the jacket.
That kind of thing.
I once had an art teacher who said she didn’t believe in happy accidents.
Which is fair enough. Everyone’s allowed to be wrong.
Because I do believe in them. Or maybe I believe in something slightly stranger than that.
Maybe it’s not the accident itself. Maybe it’s my internal universe, also known as my subconscious, nudging me in a direction that feels more true to me. More aligned with the way I actually make things. More connected to the odd little map I seem to carry around inside myself.
As my friend and Red Thread Redux collaboratrix Amanda Starr says, it’s “your map — your internal map of how you operate.”
And honestly, that feels right.
Recently, I’ve been working on a wearable art commission for my dear friend Kirsty.
I knew the feeling I wanted. I knew the general direction. But I was not happy with the font I’d used for the lettering. It just wasn’t sitting right. It didn’t feel like the jacket yet.
So I sprayed over it.
Simple enough.
Except then I had what we might politely call an overspray and drip issue.
Very glamorous. Very professional. Very much not part of the original plan.
But instead of chucking a tantrum, or pretending I meant to do it all along, I leaned into it.
I made some heart templates.
I started spraying into larger areas of the jacket than I’d planned.
I followed the mess.
And that accident changed the whole piece.
The hearts gave it more rhythm. The spray gave it more movement. The larger areas pulled everything together. The jacket suddenly had better cohesion, more attitude, and more of its own strange little heartbeat.
I’m much happier with it now than I was before.
That’s the bit I love.
The thing I thought had gone wrong became the thing that made it better.
Serendipity is one of those lovely words that sounds much more elegant than “well, that was unexpected.” It means those accidental events, collisions, meetings and wrong turns that aren’t planned or intended, but somehow lead you somewhere interesting.
And I think there’s a lot to be said for that in creativity.
You can plan. You can sketch. You can have the neat little idea in your head.
But then the paint drips.
The fabric pulls.
The lettering looks wrong.
The jacket has other ideas.
And sometimes, if you stop fighting the mistake long enough to listen, it will show you where the work actually wants to go.
That’s Fucked It… Fix It!