This is the last day, and I'm still not quite convinced I know what the end is. For the time being I'm leaving it knitted, though I'm going back to considering the half-unravelled idea. I always imagined that I would display it hung on the wall, but I think I'm more likely to show it as a sculptural object. It's still quite animal-like to me.
Thanks, Andrew and Mette for your comments. Not sure about leaving it half-knitted – there's something maybe about completion, coming to the end of the month and the texture of the finished piece holding all the process that went into it. I've been documenting with photos every day, have some video documentation too.
It's an interesting question, whether the unravelling or the knitting is more important. I would say I want neither to be more important than the other – for me this is partly about an endless, cyclical process (or the endlessness of time), and making it last a month is more just a way of giving the piece some boundaries. (But also it's in some way about a synaesthetic way of sensing time – like the way when I was little I used to think of a day as being the size of our kitchen door.) One thing I'm interested in is whether it's possible to create an artefact that has the same kind of ephemerality as performance, an object that is always becoming. That's where the tension between leaving it finished or undoing it comes in – it could be that it ends up only existing as what it has been. One of my next projects will be something similar, but continuing until the yarn becomes completely unworkable/broken…
I've noticed today how, especially in the middle, the yarn has begun to re-spin itself, after it split – almost as if it too is self-regenerating. Something about the always-becoming object getting a life of its own?
One thing I've noticed is that the yarn isn't as worn at either end as it is in the middle – over the first 3 or 4 rows it's still quite soft and springy, it's only around row 8 that it starts to get really twisted and stiffer. I'm not sure why that is, since all of it has been knitted and unravelled in the same way. At the other end as well, it's a little bit less twisted.
I'd like to find some way of also documenting the effects of the process on my body – but because this is a small piece, they're barely visible as callouses or hard skin – more just the soreness I feel when I push the point of the needle with my right index finger.
I haven't yet decided what happens with this piece at the end of the month – should I unravel it finally and leave just the crinkled yarn as the trace, or keep it in its final knitted form? At the moment I'm thinking it will stay knitted – I'd like to show it alongside images of all its previous incarnations.
Most days the knitting is a kind of meditative break in my day – it takes a little over half an hour and has its own rhythm. (The time has got a bit longer as the yarn has got harder to work – I have to redo a stitch every so often when the yarn's got split, and unravelling takes a bit longer because the yarn gets caught.)
I'm guessing that part of the reason for the interesting curling and twisting that's happening is not just that the yarn is stretched, but also that it's gradually incorporating sweat and grease from my fingers, and probably some dirt – a couple of times I've done the knitting on the train, or in a coffee bar if I'm meeting someone. This is part of the point of the piece for me – it contains its history, even though it keeps being unmade and remade.
