5. A Flawed Work of Art (Part 2)

Hello, lovely Copy+Paste types.

So, where were we? If you've not seen the Flawed Work of Art post below, that's probably a good place to start. As Julie promised, I'm just showing up like that second bus, rattling along, rarely on time, all kinds of chaos on the upper deck) to share my take on the Snow Patrol copy.

*Paste* : Kirsty's project =
To stick with the bus analogy just a little bit longer, it’s been a bumpy old road getting to the finished project this time, and not without its detours and diversions. I started out being hugely inspired by a series of amazing mechanical birds, spotted on the Anthropologie website, which seemed to fit the quote perfectly. I love the idea that the most perfect works of art are created in nature, rather than by people, and really wanted to work with that concept. When you think nature and beauty, one of the most obvious images is a butterfly and….well, I could go on and on here, but let’s just say that there’s a good reason butterfly wings aren’t fixed on with hinges and it’ll be a while before I go back to Maplin. (When the assistant in an electricals shop asks what you’re looking for, ‘butterfly parts’ is rarely, if ever, the right answer.)

Despite the shame and the setback, I still wanted to find something nature-related, and in the end it was a throw-away suggestion from my partner which set me on the right path. His response to all my huffing, head-scratching and forehead-wrinkling was something along the lines of ‘well, the human eye is meant to be the most perfect design in nature, isn’t it?’. Because obviously everyone except me already knew that. Luckily, though, it provided just enough of a spark. The human eye is an amazing piece of work – without it you’d neither be reading this nor, arguably, have any concept of art, flawed or otherwise. And in my case, they come with the flaws built right in – short sight and astigmatism. So, finally, after much deliberation and in honour of nature, know-it-all boyfriends and costly trips to the optician, here you go with my take on A Flawed Work of Art.
To begin with, I researched and drew a diagram of the human eye (the dark grey lines), then added the coloured-line detail to represent the way images are processed by someone with myopia (short sight).

I then embroidered the diagram and flipped it over to make a second image in reverse. A pair of vintage spectacles made the perfect set of miniature picture frames, although I still wonder if I should have left them as they were, sticking to the original tortoiseshell colour, rather than adding a coat of spray paint.

Somehow, though, the fact that I’m not completely happy with or certain about the end result seems especially fitting for this project. When there really is no such thing as perfection in the things we make, it’s all about learning to love the flaws.

As Julie said below, we’d love to see your versions of the project, either linked in the comments or posted to our Flickr group. Having been starved of Internet access for a few weeks, thanks to the demise of my much-loved but overworked laptop (hello, new Mac-book! Hello, enormous unexpected bill!), I’m really looking forward to catching up with projects, blogs and pictures over the next week or so.