Finding patterns in patterns
Mixed up chaos brain on a train in Spain
I knew I’d moved on from minimalism1 the moment @textile.mixologist started appearing on my IG FYP. It was unexpected, I must’ve clicked on too many @aceandjig posts and all of a sudden my algo was a whole new vibe. Is this middle age?
But then I started to see it everywhere: the pattern mixing. I know it’s a trend, but it wasn’t really new to me, since I’d already had a decade-plus-long obsession with stripes and mixed pattern art. But it hadn’t permeated everything in my life quite yet.
Until recently, I hadn’t considered that I’m an architect of systems.2 As a lifelong project manager it makes sense: arranging tasks, timelines, calendars, moving things around spreadsheets, dependent tasks… it’s a giant grid of information, a game of Tetris.
Before this realization, I always thought of my brain as a hot mess, and my messy, intertwined, layered art seemed to back this up. However, I’m re-interpreting that hot mess as a chaotic, jumbled up predecessor to organization, like brownie ingredients thrown together in a mixing bowl before they’re baked and cut into nice little squares.
I take everything in, process it, then move it all around and arrange it into a grid, making connections as I go.
Everything has a relationship. Dialogue. Chaos and order. Organized chaos?
The artwork that emerges is dependent on where my mind is in the process of chaos to order. Sometimes I get off the train at the first stop and sometimes I make it all the way to the end of the line.
Other times, drawing allows my brain to relax. The chaotic outpouring is my way of calming the craziness inside my head, or processing the emotions I’m feeling overwhelmed by. I’ve always thought of my crazy tangled drawings as type of art therapy. I draw entanglements to untangle my own thoughts.
In 2020, I did a deep dive into systems and grids. It made total sense that — when my life was complete chaos and the world was shut down from a global pandemic — I began to make code-based art and develop randomized algorithms to dictate my drawings and paintings. The outside world might have been in disarray, but at least I could stay sane by making art. I needed to feel in control of something.
I began tufting wall sculptures. I revisited cross-stitch (another system!). This wasn’t out of the blue, as I’d grown up doing fiber arts: cross-stitch, crochet, knitting, and embroidery, and, of course making friendship bracelets!
Then I discovered visual synthesis. The connection between my electronic music (a system!) and making chaotic, glitchy artwork with a MIDI controller caused a nuclear-level brain explosion. I moved from tufting to weaving (another system… the Jacquard loom was the first computer).
I stocked my bookshelf with books about Bauhaus women weavers and generative algorithms, and I became a Gunta Stölzl stan. Music, computers, glitches, weavings, grids… they’re all related.
As I dug deeper, I recalled the first drawing I ever did that I was not only proud of, but truly enjoyed making. It was a repetitive cube pattern with three colors. I was maybe in 4th or 5th grade.
I searched the depths of my memory for more notable geometry or systemic art-related memories, and recalled my dad taking me to his work when I was very little. He managed a circuit-making facility, and there were always little parts, stickers, cutouts, transfer paper, and other fun things for me to mess around with. I thought it was all so fascinating. I also remember stacks of ledger paper and other printed bookkeeping-like papers, some opened and others still in plastic wrap, but unsure if this memory is from the factory or somewhere else.
Life is funny like this: you can completely forget who you are until it re-emerges decades later and you remember…
I wrote most of this post on vacation, while on the train from Madrid to Granada as I looked out at vineyards in the Spanish countryside, listening to some old Björk tunes and a ‘94 jungle mix. In need of sleep, with over-caffeinated jitters but excited to be traveling, I had chaos brain while writing this. I don’t know how long it will take me to find order, but for now, I’m trying to be in the moment.
I still love minimalism!
To-do lists and GANTT charts are my love language.
There really is something so calming about filling up a sketchbook page with semi-structured details. It’s been a while, but I remember I how good it felt to scribble squares and stripes and not really pay attention to what I was making, more just the “feeling” of it. I used to do this a lot while I was watching TV.