The Art of Decomposition

Wikipedia: "Decomposition (or rotting) is the process by which organic substances are broken down into simpler forms of matter."

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Still thinking about wabi-sabi... today's thought about one of the values of wabi-sabi is that nothing is permanent - EVERYTHING wears down. Everything eventually fades into oblivion. It's all susceptible to the effects of weathering and human treatment. Natural elements, sun, wind, rain, heat, cold, turn things to rust, stain, shrinking, fading, warping, etc. But even through this process of dematerialization they still have undiminished poise and strength of character – you can feel it.
(Concept based on Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, & Philosophers" by Leonard Koren.

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My first real experience with this was in college, a long long time ago... The student center had just installed 4 new copy machines that could reduce images!!! (Yes, that's how long ago this was.) It was new and exciting. I had a series of copies of photo booth pictures that I played with on the copy machines. I shrunk them, of course, but I also photocopied an image, then photocopied the photocopy, and on and on. With each copy the image would break down, become simpler – but the essence was still there. It was a very interesting process. (I'll have to take some photos of the product that came out of that event... I do still have it... for a later posting)

So present day... I've started using the photos of some of my metal work, and cropping out unnecessary details. That in itself was very interesting. Then I started altering the details in PhotoShop. Then I took a filtered image and applied the filter repeatedly, just like I did with the photo copies in college. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. I'll have to get back to you on what I think is going on when I figure it out!

Any thoughts?

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