More Meditation... When Is A Series Not A Series?

I showed you the first of these pieces yesterday, 'Meditation In Purple And Gold', here.  It's interesting, working in this way, creating 'rules' for myself to follow...though they are not rules as such, more like limitations.  In this particular series, the basis of the limitations are simple.  Use three fabrics.  Use three pieces of the most important fabric (the purple and gold).  The rules, of course, are made to be broken... the first piece in the series has four fabrics, and I think might be the better for it.  So...guidelines, not rules.

The three pieces are very small; I've been working with these colours, and this was my way of using up the scrap.   The first piece is 14" by 7.5" , the second, , 9" square, the third, 5.25" square (all approx).

Two of the three fabrics were inherited  from my friend, the late Lynn Bunis (still miss you, Lynn x ), the third a large scale turquoise poppy print which I bought on a whim.  The darker turquoise with all the different colours in it, was a fabric I couldn't really see how to use, a semi abstract, large scale beach theme, with shells and fish .  Cut up, though, and used more or less at random, the inherent meaning of the shapes on the cloth is lost, and it becomes a mixture of colours and shapes that are interesting, pleasing to the eye, but much more difficult to decipher.  THe purple fabric is a stylised spiral pattern with occasional dots.

Now, though, I have to make more decisions.  I've run out of the darker turquoise fabric.  I considered cannibalising it from one of the unfinished tops I made to start with...but that doesn't feel like a good option, even although one of them isn't yet spoken for.  So I can't continue this series with these fabrics.  In addition, I've got small amounts of the purple and turquoise poppy fabric, though parts of the latter have strong yellow elements, which I've been cutting around, so not as much fabric available as you might think.  I think in this case, I'll continue with this theme, and substitute a third fabric, continuing under the same guidelines as before.  

Is it a series?  Mmmm... if a series is a cohesive body of work, then yes, arguably, it's a series.  But I'm not convinced.  I actually think that this little body of work is a series of sketches, a way for me to explore what working in a series might mean for me, and how to approach it.  This is, in many ways, most unlike me; I tend to turn up and work with what comes to hand.  I'm not good at the structured, make a sketchbook, research etc approach as seen in an art school near you... but these little pieces have given me a direction to move in.  I'll continue to make them until the fabric runs out... and then I'll make the series that is waiting to be made.  

When is a series not a series?  When it's a preparation for Something Bigger.