Unraveling (Or, Pilgrim’s Progress)

I’m making rapid conceptual progress on Pilgrimage. I’ve changed it considerably since yesterday.

I was really struggling with the center panels of Pilgrimage, which are about wandering. I couldn’t seem to figure out how to reconcile the idea of the inner struggle and transformation with an external journey and external challenge – at least, not in a way that satisfied me. So I had a long back and forth with ChatGPT (which is very good at brainstorming) and together we arrived at the concept of a different-but-same series, Unraveling.

Unraveling starts and ends at the same place as Pilgrimage – the screaming head to start, and the serene head at the end. However, it’s now about the deliberate choice to unravel the self you are in order to transform into something and someone new.

I also decided to make Unraveling much more weaverly. Pilgrimage was basically going to use the jacquard as a low-resolution printer, which is certainly doable but which is probably the least interesting use of a jacquard loom. (If you’re going to print it, print it.) I like the use of the medium much better in Unraveling.

But perhaps I should actually show you what I’m thinking!

Instead of a flat image of a face shattering, Unraveling opens with a face screaming, with portions of the face slashed and frayed to reveal magenta threads underneath. (The fabric is woven in double weave, one layer for the face and a loose, gauzy bottom layer of magenta cloth.)

In the next panel, the face lifts a hand and starts deliberately unraveling itself, pulling threads out to decompose itself into a tangle of magenta threads. It doesn’t look exactly like this, but you can get the rough idea:

This unraveling of the face isn’t a photo, though – instead, the fabric in the face is literally cut and unraveled, revealing a loosely woven magenta layer of cloth underneath, also partially unraveled.

In the next panel, the face has been unraveled completely into a mass of disorganized magenta threads, with just the suggestion of a face. The way I’m visualizing it inside my head doesn’t look much like this representation, but you can kinda get the idea.

Then, in the next panel, you see the face reweaving itself, thread by thread, integrating the frayed magenta threads into finished cloth. (No visual for this one yet.)

And then, at the end, you see the completely rewoven face, now with the magenta integrated and the face calm.

I like this story arc. I think I’m going to make it into a piece that is about 14 x 70″, which will fit into most exhibition size limits, and enable me to do five square panels 14″ x 14″. I wouldn’t mind making the panels a little wider, but for practical reasons 13-14″ is a good size. It would only require one module width on my TC-2 (14.5″), which makes warping faster, wastes less work, and allows me to weave something else on the rest of the loom.

While this work is emphatically not created by ChatGPT, it has been an essential part of the development process. It’s basically been the very patient person who’s willing to listen to you babble all day long about your project, offer suggestions, and not take it personally when you ignore all of them and go off on a totally different tangent. (My friends are patient, but they’re not that patient. Actually, neither am I.)

What I’ve found about working with AI is that it isn’t a replacement for a human being – it’s an amplifier. If you don’t think of it as an all-powerful, always-right being, but instead as a thought partner to brainstorm with and bounce ideas off, and to create the sketches you don’t have the skills to make, it can be a very powerful tool. It’s not a replacement for human judgment or creativity, but it can amplify what you do with them.

Anyway, I’m quite pleased with how Unraveling (nee Pilgrimage) is going, and I’m looking forward to refining the design and getting it ready to sample on the loom (once I get back).