This strangely beautiful photo is of a failed experiment, or perhaps better put, exploration. Paper artist extraordinaire Matthew Sporzynski sent it to us in an email chain revealing the mindset of a pure creative:

I spent a bit of the morning deconstructing pulp wine packaging. Seemingly useless result. Though I did stomp the pulp with my feet…

The picture is more interesting than the material.

…(or maybe the discovery is that the material’s best use is in photographs; it sure is beautiful)…

Matthew Sporzynski
Matthew Sporzynski

Like most artists, Matthew follows many trails in service of his work with paper, though some, like the one above, don’t always pan out. Or the information they yield is not immediately useable (though may be down the line…)

Some explorations become downright strange and take him into unexpected worlds:

Matthew Sporzynski
Matthew Sporzynski

I bought the book Methods in Paper Sculpture, from eBay; it turned out to be about making taxidermy forms. The illustration of the pretty horse is actually showing how to make a plaster cast from the carefully skinned body of a dead horse. (You need LOTS of sand — good project for the beach!)

Matthew Sporzynski
Matthew Sporzynski

The chapter heading of Lesson X caught my eye…

Matthew Sporzynski
Matthew Sporzynski

We love knowing some of the explorations and paths — even seeming failures and dead ends — that curiously fuel Matthew’s carefully wrought paper creations…

Matthew Sporzynski
Matthew Sporzynski

…and his creative mindset…

Monica Buck
Monica Buck

Matthew Sporzynski work

Mathew is represented by Rona Represents; check out his work thereAnd here.

 

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2 replies on “The Unpredictable Results of Artistic Explorations

  1. Ohh, that bundle of paper-wheat is so fantastic…

    Seeing the packing pulp shredded up with a cup of water and bowl took me back to childhood, when that kind of fruitless exploration totally dominated my thinking in a wonderful way. My sister and I would spend tireless hours collecting sycamore seedballs and crumbling them in our hands to reveal a little pile of pollen fluff, then bring it over to a pile of fluff we’d been constructing and carefully add our handful. I remember having a pressing sense that doing so felt good and RIGHT, but wtf were we planning on doing with the giant pile of sycamore fluff? Once we’d collected all the seeds we could, we’d just kind of stare at the pile and go our merry way. Sometimes the deconstructions/exploration seems more important than the actual result…

  2. These kinds of explorations are essential, and to my mind, never fruitless. You got into a kind of reverie and flow state, which is a gift.
    It seems like you could have used Mud Pies and Other Recipes, an inspiring book at any age.

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