Process: After retriving three lengths of dental floss I saw in the bathroom waste basket this morning, I walked into my studio looking for something to sew it into. I found some slightly abused and faded handmade paper that was folded in places that I wanted to keep to show how it has been shaped over the years. I folded it in half on the long end and in half again on the short side. I opened it up and laid out the dental floss threads on one side of the folded paper. I let them fall in the shape they wanted to fall into on the paper. I used an awl to punch holes along the strand edges to keep the natural shapes. I then took each strand, one at a time, and threaded it into a sewing needle and followed the pattern of holes; I did not knot them on either end. Because I was working on a big dataset for work and needed lots of breaks, I stitched the floss strands one at a time throughout the day. I can see the end product as the cover for a book I could make in the future...although, that is a stitching project I could count for my 100-Days. Right?
Challenge Level: 2
Lessons Learned: I learned that I fairly easily see uses for ordinary things that others might not think of. I’d thought about using discarded dental floss in my artwork before, but had not put my mind into it until I thought of the strands as threads and, because of the thick-thin nature of this particular brand of floss was so appealing, I could imagine the sewn-in floss acting like marks on paper rather than stitches. That is why I put the holes so close together when I made this, so they look like marching ants across the page and the natural-looking path was not my doing so much as it was the will of the strands of floss. They have been elevated into art.
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