Creation Story by Kate Tupper

I begin with an investigation into something indescribable. It’s a feeling of nostalgia from the most beautiful, raw, truthful moment. As a creator, I try to catch these ‘memories’ and build them into something tangible. I take the fuzzy thoughts and concepts and form them together. Patterns reveal themselves and this evolves into questions.

Story board

Story board

I do research. Like any of the sciences, this is the fun, exciting part, full of discoveries and magic. Life brings me gifts in this process through people, images, and experiences. Recording and translating data is slow. I sketch and 3D investigations start. I build small projects that test the boundaries of the design. If you know two of the angles of a triangle you can find the third angle. By identifying and classifying facts I grow closer to my answers. 

Chain guard

Chain guard

I search for the truth until I find a connection to the feeling and it becomes a real object through the use of texture, lines, curves, colours, and depth. Every day in the studio I work towards this truth, shaping it from cardboard and then steel. Sometimes it’s torture; a compulsion to build this thing regardless of the painful pressure in my hands. I feel sick about the investment of money and time. Self doubt. Everyday I create and tear it all apart, not physically anymore, but in my mind.

Frame detail

Frame detail

And still I build, and the promise of a new project fills me up in a way that food, substances, and love cannot. And I continue to try and remember, or is it discover, what the truth is that I so badly need to share with you. A message from beyond what's already here. I have to create. I could say that I saw it in a dream, but I was awake.

All the naked parts

All the naked parts