Almost everything I make is undone at least once.
I unpick constantly. My first round is rarely the version that stays. Stitches come out. Sections are rebuilt. Materials are tested, rejected, and tested again.
This isn’t a phase of the work I’m trying to move through. It is the work.
Learning through experimentation has become less about getting it right, and more about paying attention to where things resist. The process is iterative by necessity. Textile work does not reward certainty. It responds to pressure, tension, fatigue, light, and time.
Why experimentation matters
Experimentation allows the work to remain flexible long enough to reveal its limits.
Rather than beginning with a fixed outcome, I work by testing structure, density, and behaviour. Materials set constraints early. Those constraints shape the direction of the piece.
When working with reclaimed or previously used textiles, this becomes even more pronounced. Fabric arrives with memory. It carries wear, stress points, and past function. Experimentation becomes a way of listening closely before committing.
Sampling as practice
Most of my experiments never become finished works.
They exist as unpicked sections, altered edges, abandoned starts, and tests made simply to understand behaviour. Sampling is not preparation for the work. It is how the work clarifies itself.
A large portion of my problem solving happens away from the studio. In winter especially, when daylight is limited and I struggle to work under artificial light, decisions are made elsewhere. Lying in bed. Thinking through structure. Replaying sequences. Resolving what needs to change next.
Those decisions eventually make their way into a notebook.
I write takeaways and plans. I rarely return to them. As time passes, the notes become less legible, both physically and conceptually. Still, the act of writing matters. The learning embeds itself whether or not it is referenced again.
What failures teach
One experiment that stands out involved perforating fabric.
The holes were too large. The structure failed. There was no fixing it. I started again from scratch.
The immediate feeling was irritation, paired with the loss of material. Not panic, but a sharp awareness of time and resource. While it is rare that fabric becomes unusable in my practice, it often becomes not immediately usable.
Those pieces are stored. Sometimes for weeks. Sometimes for years.
They wait until their next purpose becomes clear.
That delay has become part of the learning. Not all failures need resolution right away. Some materials need distance before they can re-enter the work honestly.
Tracking decisions
I track my process imperfectly.
I rely on memory, repetition, and physical cues rather than formal documentation. The work holds the record. My hands remember what my notes forget.
Learning through experimentation rarely announces itself. It shows up in decisions made earlier, tests approached more carefully, and risks that become informed rather than reactive.
How tests become a body of work
Over time, experiments stop feeling separate from finished pieces.
Current explorations with knots and macramé began as small tests. They are not studies for something else. They are the work, still becoming.
What has changed is not the presence of uncertainty, but my relationship to it.
Experimentation is no longer something that happens before the real work begins. It is the structure that allows the work to remain responsive.
Learning through experimentation is how this practice grows. Through revision, restraint, and materials that are allowed to take their time.
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