The tension between the accidental and the controlled is almost always present in the work of George Tscherny. While a considerable amount of discipline and forethought is essential to his style, you can sense Tscherny’s deep respect for the patterns and arrangements that occur naturally. We’ve discussed Tscherny’s flag motif here before, but I thought there must be many more examples of the seemingly casual placement of fabric beyond his luminous display of Alexander Girard’s fabric for Herman Miller in 1954. Sure enough, there are tons, including some where the technique spread into more rigid media, like paper or simulated film.

Tscherny devoted an entire calendar (below) to the exploration of chance vs. control, through a combination of his photography and watercolors. The watercolors echo designs for Lark cigarettes, which capture the tension in a single project: the spontaneity of ink bleed within a carefully composed puzzle-like arrangement.