A portrait taken by Jane where I am slightly obscured by the ongoing, never-ending, cascading knitted fishing line project which has now taken on so many possible exhibiting forms I can't remember them all. It is like a security blanket in some ways, something to work on as a way to just to keep working. It is filled up with scores of ideas both related to the work itself and of other works, as I sit and think and knit, plugging away at it.
In swedish 'att plugga' means to study. I like that.
All these ideas have accumulated within this knitted mass, and have lost their original form - instead morphing into the texture of the knit, becoming transparent, a tangled mess of lines of thought and streams of consciousness. Sort of how I am writing about it now.
Sometimes the futility of the whole thing gets me down. I don't even what it is meant to be anymore! I jokingly (not so jokingly) cry to anyone within earshot. First it was to be stretched between the floor and ceiling, then laid out like a wobbly rug on the ground, anchored by some small island like objects. Then it was a wave, a waterfall, a galaxy - a hammock, a camp bed, a curtain. Just now I think of it as a sort of wrap - like the suitcases you see at the baggage claim swaddled in Gladwrap.
As a thing in itself it is aesthetically pleasing, and tempting to touch. And it's malleability is it's strongest asset. The longer I work at it, more manifestations will emerge. This is as much about the process as the end result.
I fret too much about the end result.
"To be installed in a manner which expresses the amount of ideas that were thought of during the making of this large knitted beast."
A working title.
Or
"All of my ideas from the past 2 years are tangled up in here somewhere."
A prop. I feel an artists book in the works. The various forms of the knitted fishing line project in a long accordion book. Apropos Ed Ruscha or some such. Black and white.
I should just let it grow as long as it needs to. The practice is being maintained, and it provides me with time to wonder about what is going on, what I want to be doing. It is relaxing. Right now it feels like I am finally admitting all I want to do is knit a seemingly endless train of fishing line, without really knowing why.
I am constantly reminded of the Mainland Cheese ads from New Zealand - (not the one where they replace musicians with cheese, "Chubby Chedder! The Brie Gees!" but the "Good things take time" one. As in cheese.)
I wonder why I always try to be so serious in my art practice, when in general I am really quite silly. (re: cheese ad. I spend a lot of time knitting and thinking of more cheese musicians.) A recurring thought as I knit, and one I believe more firmly in with each stitch, is that Art is too serious.
It will be finished at some point - and the best thing will be deciding it is finished due to some occurrence in my life: an outside influence will decide its conclusion. And then, holding all my ideas, I will decide how it will be. At least in it's first incarnation.
It is my 27th birthday on Sunday.