Books continue to occupy a large part of my thoughts and with my mind occupied in such a way a trip to Hay-on-Wye seemed more than appropriate. As fortune would have it a good friend had organised such a trip and a fun day was spent perusing the numerous books shops on offer.
Amongst all these shops I found this catalogue for antique picture frames.
Obviously this was originally intended as a functional document intended to give buyers an idea of what they might want to bid on. But what interested me more was the repetition of the empty frame. As I went through this catalogue of empty frames I could not help but feel a sense of absence. The recurring white space seemed to hold the potential to contain something but this is never realised during the publication. Rather I was left to wonder what had been in the frame and what would be there in the future.
I'm aware that I am very much viewing this catalogue through the filter of my own work. As such this feeling of a space waiting to be activated will be more keenly felt by me than by the casual viewer. But nevertheless this is a valid way to respond to these images. Indeed if a similar image were placed in a context that dealt specifically with blank spaces then this sense of potential activation could be accentuated and made the focus of the work rather than a by product. So i will be working on an image that uses the idea of blank picture and see how this can be incorporated into my project. Results to follow soon.
