We have an idea. We have a wall. Now to develop a preparatory sketch.
Julia and I want this work to be interactive with the surface--and with each other.
In our first collaborative mural, in Beit Alliance, we played a game of a kind of "Exquisite corpse," in which we each took turns working on the mural on alternating days, each picking up where the other had laid off, continuing, commenting, altering. We want to take a similar approach in this project as well.
Yet in this case, we are working with the Miffal, and they want to have a sense of what the project will look like.
So the question is, how do you create a sketch of something you want to be interactive and emergent in real time?
I decided to begin by making a visual listing the elements we might wish to include--a kind of vocabulary box, which can be combined in multiple ways. So--watercolors, sketchbook, and photos.
I started by doodling some of the patterns I had noticed on the walls and tiles of the house
Working into these abstract patterns, I began to integrate the historic photo of the Saraphin wedding.
My image was not a one-on-one rendering, but influenced by the fact that the building later housed a school, and served as a shelter for abused teenage girls. So--I found myself focusing on a child in the photo, and perhaps exaggerating the vulnerability of the bride, the way her husband grips her arm.
I then began to try to find imagery to express other elements of the building's history--namely, that it served as a center for disabled children and young adults. Here are a few of the (very quick) sketches:
I still need to find a way to include the building's long years as a school. Debating between images of classroom interaction, or children playing.