Shredding Canvas

My first stroke of inspiration is to shred the canvas into strips. I am a little fearful at first, thinking that it is cruel to just brutally shred the figure paintings. But, I get over it, I must disassociate the material from my imagined preconceptions. Once I get started, I really enjoy the feeling and sound of ripping the canvas. It is easy, and the grid weaving pattern seems naturally to like being torn in long thin strips.



I remove some canvas from the "canvas board" It is just glued onto the cardboard.


Shredding it; this seems to be a process that is built into the canvas material itself, like it was made to tear into the incrementally narrow strips. These ones are about 12 threads wide.


That's one painting. I kind of like this perspective, like it could be an installation right now. I guess one element of process oriented art is there are all the little moments of art along the way, usually only enjoyed by the one making it.


I'm cutting a frame out of another canvas board painting. I like the shape of the chair behind the figure.



I make holes to thread the strips of canvas through.

So this is the result of the first foray into this process. I heave gotten some positive responses to it already, but I am wondering where I can go with it. This will probably be one element in a larger piece, I want to find out what I can do that works along with this structure.