Every one the same, Every one different.
So I return to these little vests.
I worked out a pattern, as I went along. Gradually getting closer to the original, but not quite there yet.
I still don’t know why I am making them, other than for that haptic reward.
I feel I am tickling around the edge of my work at the moment. I am working on the small and attainable because the large scale installation of furniture in my head is impossible without a studio. So I work on the pocket sized.
However, this does have value. I find that other conversations I am having can be interpreted here.
These vests, intended to be all the same, are not. If the original bought item is the norm, my copies are divergent by varying degrees. I’ve knitted using different yarns, and on different needles. I have used different scraps of ribbon according to what is lying about the house. Some have buttons. One has turned into a dress. A couple have keys embroidered. My original intention was to create a perfect pattern and then get other people to help me make loads. But what has happened is I am absolutely fascinated by the small differences that have occurred along the way: I knit while I watch TV so I change stitches a couple of rows too soon or too late. I decrease for arm holes too soon or too late, or by one too many or too few stitches.
I talk about divergence in other fields, with other artists, and end up creating divergence between my fingers. I’m not getting deep and meaningful here. I’m just saying that because I am inherently lazy about the accuracy of my process here, I have created difference. And because I talk about difference, I have drawn a tenuous analogy. I don’t care how tenuous it is. I like it.
