Noticing beautiful moments

During my walks, I came across these beautiful fragments of broken tiles. I wasn’t sure why they were scattered in a nature park. A friend suggested they might have been illegally disposed of, or perhaps used to regravel a pathway. Whatever the reason, it felt like an unexpected discovery. Each time I passed through the park, I collected a few pieces, drawn to their shapes; I wish I knew the story behind them.

Hand holding tile fragments — Tile fragments that I picked up durng my walks

Then, just last month, without explanation, most of them disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. When I shared this discovery with my husband, he mentioned that the pieces had been there all along, and it is only this year that I began to notice them. It made me wonder how our attention changes over time and how familiar places can reveal something new when we begin to look differently.

How many things exist quietly around us, waiting until we are ready to see them?

Around the same time, I noticed something else that felt quietly thought-provoking. After the rain, water washed the leaves away from the pavement, yet the cracks in the surface remained. It made me think about impermanence. The pavement appears solid and unchanged, but even the concrete will slowly deteriorate, eventually returning to nature.

These small incidents made me reflect on how quickly things shift. The area beside the park is also facing urbanisation and change, adding another layer to these observations. I began to wonder how I might capture this sense of transition in my artwork.

Translating these moments into art

These moments made me think about fragments, disappearance, and the illusion of permanence. The tiles appeared, then vanished. The leaves washed away, yet the cracks remained. Everything felt temporary, even when it seemed fixed. How would I translate this into art?

Working with Concrete, Resin and Stitch

Wrapped tile fragments

Concrete and resin

Combining wrapped fragments with concrete and resin

Continuing with my exploration of concrete and stitch, I attempted to combine these with the fragments and resin. In this work the concrete reflects human intervention and construction, while the stitch represents nature slowly taking over, and resin represents change.

The initial tests of combining resin and concrete were great but then came the hard part: combining it with thread. And I learnt a few things:

Concrete is porous: I was not able to consistently replicate the initial successful experiments, and after doing some research, I realised concrete is a porous material; I was extremely lucky that it did not seep through the concrete during the my first try.
Experiments may look pretty on their own, but not together: I had the idea of wrapping the found tile fragments with wire or thread. They did look really nice on their own, but when combined with concrete, the fragments became visually lost.
Knowing when to give up on an idea: I worked through many rounds of trying to combine the stitch, concrete, fragments and resin. At the 5th round, I had decided to let go of this idea, even though I really wanted it to work. I will probably revisit it at a later date, but after working on it for over 6 months, I knew that it would just have to live on in my sketchbook for the time being!

Back to the drawing board!

Yes, it’s back to the drawing board. And I decided to make more organic pieces with the concrete, stitch and tiles. Here is what is happening so far, and like the direction that it is going in. I’ll be updating soon to see what’s next!