April 23, 2012

I am a rock, I am an island


Part of a sculpture - knitted fishing line gathered into a type of bindle, in which lies collected rocks and stones from various Swedish Islands - Gotland, Fårö, Venn; limestone from the quarry on the outskirts of Malmö; coloured pieces of glass that have washed ashore at Matakatia Bay in New Zealand.

This is the first 'bindle' I have made, knitted with the finest fishing line I could find - perhaps it was too fine, I was forced to knit it using wooden kebab skewers instead of knitting needles. The line shimmers and flickers in the early morning sunlight, while it hangs in my bedroom window due to a lack of studio space.

More are being made, and using the thickest fishing line I could find, I will encase a large limestone rock and use it with a pulley system, which reminds me of sailing and boats, to be a counter weight to the smaller, more delicate bindles of stones and pebbles, which will hang in the air and slowly rotate, as hanging things are wont to do.

I vaguely rambled to my friend Claire about it:

                       Florence:
but now i think i might suspend them with pulleysreminds me of boats                        Claire:I'm not sure they gave me an associationI was just struck by the mesh...and strange silkiness of the rock  Florence: to me they relate to islands
  like the islands that were thoght to exist but were actually mirages
hence the shimmery fishing line
  and the rocks within and i wanted them to be like baskets or specimen collections
  and they deal with loneliness too
like how i think of islands and boats being self contained entities
  alone in the sea
  and i like the idea of suspension
  how it relates to balance
  and also the word
  suspence
  tension
  waiting
  Claire:Its poetic
  I saw something more akin to strange fisherman like practices
 Which May seem unnecessary but which one doesn't question since
Fishermen and the practice of fishing as generally free of the unnecessary and all about purpose...

There are always more things to think about. And one does start to feel like a fisherman repairing his nets in the winter, and it gives you time to think about how the work will look, and how it will function, and what it means. The ideas about it and around grow as the work does.

No comments:

Post a Comment