I am finally making some mental progress on figuring out this wall installation I'm working on. I can't show pictures of it yet because it is for a show I'm doing this summer. But, I finally feel some relief today as some puzzle pieces are starting to fall together. My work is obviously small and very detail oriented. So, when you combine it together into a large-scale configuration, it has to be done in such a way that it can be taken in as one larger entity while still allowing the individual pieces to be appreciated. I had good results doing this on an earlier project above our kitchen table. But in this latest installation, I am combining both individual pieces of art with solid colored wood panels. I have about 15 panels grouped together. The overall configuration looks good, but something about it still isn't working. My breakthrough today was realizing that when I am mixing the solid colored blocks with my detailed art pieces, it works much better on a smaller scale (like with a grouping of 5 panels, instead of 15). The solid colored blocks help to offset the art nicely, but they start to take away from it if they are in too big a grouping. (Whereas if I was just combining my art pieces, or, just the solid colored panels, I could make it as big as I wanted because they would have the visual continuity of all being the same thing).
Anyway, that's probably hard to visualize without any photos. But, it always feels good to finally realize why something isn't working after thinking about it for days. Forward movement...
So interesting to learn some of what happens in the minds of creative people.