woven into fine print

hand-knitted & hand-sewn clothing, from woven into fine print (2015)

I never know whether I should keep this blog completely separate from my online art portfolio, especially when there's considerable overlap in the material, but here's a shot from my first solo exhibition that featured the 4 linen & linen blend pieces I made for my line'n'form series.

I'm primarily a printmaker - I work in intaglio and woodcut relief - but I'm finding that there are so many parallels to be drawn between the processes with which I engage; that there are many similarities to be found between the printmaking and the textile work I do, whether I think of it in terms of "fine art" or as making myself something I would like to have. I hesitate to say "craft" because that carries so much weight, and also because it sounds to me almost inferior by definition to "art", which is something I do not want to endorse, as I think craft exists in its own right apart from art, rather than along a hierarchical continuum, if you will, with it.

On that note, I'm currently reading A Theory of Craft by Howard Risatti. I also really want to read Thinking Through Craft by Glenn Adamson, but it's always borrowed whenever I go to the library. I could put it on hold, but I also have about 10 other books out already, all on the subjects of textiles, art, and craft, so it seems like it'd be in bad taste for me to simply hold onto it when others want to read it also. I recently finished The Craft of Zeus, which talks about the role weaving takes in ancient Greece (and Rome). It explores the way the actual process of weaving was used as a metaphor for politics, how weaving existed within language, both poetic and lay, and other topics I can't remember off the top of my head. There's quite a number of pages that have been marked for revisiting and note-taking before I return it to the library, and I'm now patting myself on the back for getting those book darts on impulse.

One of the things I really want to know is: from what I understand, the Fates spin the weft thread that determines your life (your fate/destiny/whatever you may), weaves it through the (white) warp, and cuts it to finish off your life - whence do the warp threads come? what are they made of/spun from? on that matter, what is the weft spun from? why white? It almost feels as though the warp is determined, beyond the Fates, and represents the web of existence as it is - even the Fates cannot lay their hands on that. What they can do, then, is determine how each person is woven into the fabric of the world, how they are affected by it, how the warp is effected by the person, and how much of those interactions to allow. Hence the weft. I have to do a lot more research on the topic before I can draw any real conclusion about this though. If anyone is knowledgeable about this subject, I would appreciate it a lot if you would guide me in the right direction in terms of reading material (or if anyone has the answer, with or without the research references, that'd be cool too!).