Wallace Koopmans Artlog

While having an idea is great, if you are going to share it with others at some instant you have to put it out there.  Well I have an idea and that is to create some images that are comprised entirely of buttons.  The idea of going straight into some monumental work without figuring out how it will all come together is not likely to come close to my vision.   To start off I thought I would do a small scale piece.  So what did I learn?  I need to work on a larger scale.  Each button is like a pixel and the more pixels the more detail.  The other thing is that perhaps I was a bit too subtle with the button in relation to the background.  No not any particular button but the button that is made from the other buttons.  “Fascinating” you say yes “Fastening” I say.

I have thousands of buttons that I want to use to create some paintings, that part is great.  What isn’t great is that I am hindered by the lack of a subject.  I’ve thought about how we have become so disconnected from our clothes and their manufacture.  I was reminded of this while looking at an old photography of my grandmother darning a sock.  I’ve considered also the history of textiles and it’s relationship to women, but am I right to tackle that?   I do have one image in mind that I will likely do to help develop how I will use the buttons and the amount of effort required, which I suspect will be considerable.