I have been carving away in the woodwork room creating different wooden shapes. I have tried to make these wooden structures interesting, and have used simple geometric shapes. Also there has been a large incorporation of thick hemp decking rope, making the two sole materials in this exploration wood and rope. I don’t want to add any more materials as I pleased with the combination of the two and don’t want to over complicate the piece with more materials. However I have considered burning the wood as a third kind of material in a sense but still keeping with wood.
With the rope, as I enjoy the material and its dexterity in usage, I have found that the process of using it is very calming and process driven. Laying the rope down and coiling it round in circles is a very methodical and repetitive process that I seem to keep doing… With the SNIP piece I made last year my focus was primarily on intricate rope knots and was also very methodical, but simple motions of wrapping the rope around itself has become something of a habit, or at least something that I keep doing.
As for the wooden structures, I find them visually aesthetic and find them wonderful to the touch. The cone like shapes, large at the bottom and coming to a point makes them interesting to physically interact with. Also they work well with the coils of rope, sitting in the centre of the circular patterns of rope.
Previously I may have stated my objection to viewer physical interaction with the work, as I didn’t want to tailor a piece specifically for that purpose. But observing the rope on my studio floor and repeatedly walking across the rope covered floor I find it to be a resemblance to a Japanese Zen Buddhist garden, with the rope patterned like the pebbles and rocks in the Zen gardens racked into circular flowing patterns. So the idea of covering an area with spirals of rope integrated among reductive shapes and allowing a viewer to walk across the area, even to do so bare foot would be a simple and none distracting way to give the viewer a more in-depth experience.
The base of the larger cone has been carved out in order for the cone to sit flat with the rope underneath, and also to coil the rope around without any gap or overlap. this can be seen in the 1st photo of this post and in the previous sketches of the intended design
