Movement Caused by Rational Numbers

More photos on flickr

`Nous sommes tous de lopins et d`une contexture si informe et diverse, que chaque piece, chaque momant, faict son jeu. Et se trouve autant de difference de nous a nous mesmes, que de nous a autruy`.

We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit , each moment, plays its own game. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.

Michel de Montaigne.

These toys are used by Claire, a lovely lady. She has the constant flow and fluidity of movement that comes with dance training. When visiting ,we were introduced to these toys that are used to communicate with children in her therapy practice. I still have a functional and enjoyable relationship with all sorts of toys, some as props for my practice and some of a purely whimsical nature. As soon as the toys emerged from the tin where they lived, I was enchanted. The world should play more .

Perhaps every one is every thing.

Cada um de nos e varidos, e muintos, e uma prolixidade de si mesmos. Por isso aquele que despreza o ambiente nao e o mesmo que dele se alegra ou padece. Na vasta colonia do nosso ser ha gente de muitas especies, pesando e sentindo diferentemente.

Each of us is several, is many, is a profusion of selves. So that the self who distains his surroundingsis not the same as the self who suffers or takes joy in them. In the vast colony of our being are many species of people who think and feel in different ways.

Fernando Pessoa.

Solstice ,The Moon and a Dog.

Meg, alias Cheesely

From the front of the CD

In my workroom studio

All wrapped up.

I have been really busy and happy recently. The tree is surrounded in presents, waiting for the big event. I love Christmas, any excuse for a party. I have no belief in any organised religion, trying not to think of life in concepts of right or wrong. It is something I try to express in my work, an expansive evenness. Ultimately expressed as an isotropic universe.

Although, most unlike the privileged and subordanate thinking of Platonic philosophy that has informed so much of our Western thinking.

But any festival that lights up the long cold Welsh /British winter has got to be celebated long and hard.

It is also the time of the winter solstice. A celebration of the longest night of the year. After Chanuka and before Christmas. This year for solsitce my dear friends Helen and Pete have given me an amazing C.D. by a composer called `Moondog`. I have only heard one other C.D of his work and am impressed. A unique and complicated characture, who wrote amoungst many other works, a nine hour piece called `Cosmos`. Scored for one thousand musicians and singers, it has yet to be heard. Sounds like a fabulous idea, a work of infinite genius. Any one out there need something to do? Imagine the vastness and the volume.

The stunning Lab crossed retriever in the top picture, is Meg. (Who is knick- named Cheesely because she shows all her teeth in a huge cheesey grin when she see you.) She is an old dogfriend of mine, and came to visit for the day during the week. Sadly, Cheesely is really ill. It was a lovely day, but, even though we will have to say goodbye to her, shes doing really well at the moment. Even managed to chase a cat.

Dog love, Moondog ,dog friends.

Happy festive season to you all .

Ascetic Observances and Infinite Points

I love the woven mathematics involved in the seat of this peacock chair. Exactly the same principle of the spirograph toy I love to use in diagramatical drawings. A definition of the infinite , is to examine any point on a parabolic curve (made from straight lines), and find that there is no curve, only a sucssesion of straight lines that decrease in length. The same principle as the` how long is a piece of string `conundrum.

Infinite seating.

I Heard a programme on the radio, about Pythagoras this week. Now , there was a thinker . Or was there? There is no definite proof he ever existed. Supposedly born around 570 B.C., he left no mark or written word. But, his attributed teachings influenced Plato to such an extent as to be the foundation of all Western philosophy.

Famous for his geometric genius and for his teachings of sacred geometry I was delighted to learn about the records of a man who was a mathemetitian , scientist and mystic, but had no notion of the three being seperate. The men and women that joined the cult formed around his teachings believed that geometry , numbers, ratios, harmonics and proportions were the same thing as music, light and cosmology. That religion and science are inseperable.

He was perhaps, the first philosopher to associate music with mathematics, as he taught of the transference of musical notes into mathematical equation, and through the ` harmony of the spheres`, showed how the universe produces a symphony.

Now, I realise where Holst got his inspiration from.

Here is a link to other pictures on Flickr.

Uncommon Experiments in Communication

Inspired by a workshop at the Oriel Myrddin gallery a couple of weeks ago, I have been drawing in home made sketch books. These are photos of two of the results. There are some photographs of details on Flickr.

I attended another workshop at the gallery on Saturday. This was a whole different kettle of fish. It was a short story writing exercise, and a very new creative discipline for me.

I enjoy words. It is an essential part of my practice to play with vocabulary. The language of science is an inspiation to me . But finding your own language from another source of inspiration was a real challenge.

The workshop was led by writer Dan Anthony, who adapted a very popular teen series on the television called `Tracey Beaker `. His love of books and the language in them was infectious, and I enjoyed the pasages he read to us.It was fun to analyise the impressions the exerts made, we were encouraged to give our own critique.

I struggled with composing my own story. I felt more exposed by my own ideas, than in any other creative media I have tried. It was even more complicated than painting! I was a little surprised at the result of my writing, and a little embarassed. It was extremely interesting to be so far out of my own comfort zone. Having said that it was a most enjoyable day, and we celebrated our fiction debuts with mince pies and mulled wine in the gallery shop afterwards. But, it took me ages to be able to speak again. How strange.

Lucky Number Thirteen.

I have mentioned that I am member number thirteen of Fibre Art Wales. They are a most pro-active and energetic bunch of creative lovelies. The newest show I am involved with is``Fibre Voices`, at the Ceredigion musuem, Aberystwyth (thats Aber- ist- with, with as in pith).

I like being in a group. I am quite gregarious, communication and participation are research for my practice. It`s all about interconnection.The standard of work from the other members is fantastic and inspirational.

I am truely `made up` to be accepted as this years new recrute. ` Made up`, more London slang? You can take the girl out of London, But you can`t take London out of the girl. I have just been down to the Big Smoke for a family visit as well. Pictures, as usual on Flickr. A visit to see my nephews always injects colour and energy into my life.

Back to the show at the museum. It is beautifully hung with an escalating narrative in the relationship between each piece. The room is light, even on a rainy December afternoon, and friendly. I arrived a little late for the talk on December 4th, but was just in time to be able to talk about my own piece.

Being a new member,this was a great opportunity to look at some of the other members practices. I had to borrow Jakes camera to take some pictures, as I forgot mine. I will post the rest of the photos on Flickr when I retreive them.

Thanks to all concerned, especially Alison, for all her hard work.

While speaking about`The fabric of the Universe`, I refered to the Issac Newton quote ` ... standing on the shoulders of giants...` applying it to the history of textile. From the discovery of natural fibres for binding, the industrial and creative history of the human use of textile is dramatic and magical, steeped in legend, suffering and achievement.

Germaine Greer recently reffered to aspects of decorative textile as `heroic pointlessness...`in an article from the guardian newspaper. Stupid Moo. Creativity is not about what appears to be superficial, or on the surface, physically or mentally. Its a spiritual journey, which is a complicated pattern of deconstruction and assembly. But, I expect she knows that , Greer always tries to be a bit contraversial.

Standard Model Insomnia

Ceiling in the Camden Centre, London

Large Hadron Collider ,Cern

Celing St. Pancras Station.London.

I see geometry and it sees me.
I wonder how many other poor (tierd) soles lie awake at night and consider the standard model. The current full moon in Cancer, keeps me awake with deep thoughts and a strange stomach. That reminds me of the Joni Mitchell song that begins

`Born with the moon in Cancer,

Choose her a name that she`ll answer to...`

I am not a follower of the Zodiac, but I believe in everything.

Speculating in the wee small hours, If the Hadron collider does its stuff , the missing gaps in the currently accepted table of sub atomic particles will be completed . First ,hopefully with observations of evidence to support super symetry theory. Then perhaps a place for dark matter, Higgs energy and the Higgs boson. Then maybe, maybe, maybe, String Theory... huzzah huzzah my favorite. Real Science crochet. If not then what.

The search must go on, for an explanation, for a description, for reasons. You can search for science or for God, you will find what you are looking for. When you decide you have found it , I suppose. Otherwise, we must consider the infinite nature of all things.

How long is a piece of string?

The Visible Condition

Soon to be the man.

Mind my Nails

Tiffany Oben is the only person I know who spent an hour on the empty plinth in Trafalgar square in London. As part of the Anthony Gormley project` One and Other`, Tiff, went up as a woman and came down a man. An Initiation right in a London stylee. A Cold and exposeive way of investigating the subjectivity of the outward apperance of gender.

Not having anything to do with the human condition running through in my head most of the time, it took a bit of explanation and disscussion to understand what was going on and why. I`m still not one hundred per cent. But I admire her intellegence and her courage in taking a BA on, as well as being a mother to three and coping admirably with her, er... unique partner(!)

Round at Laura, (her sister in laws) home in the woods , we helped out with another part of her brief. To find volunteers and ask them to suggest to gender opposites, from which she can transform from one to the other. The volounteer had to dress and undress Tiff without assistance or objection from the model. Lauras genius challenged Tiff with two` towny chavs `.

The evening was chav-tastic fun. I`m still not convinsed by the `subjectivity of gender` thing. It is a huge topic. But the execution of this project is immaculte, original and engaging.

Tiff emerges as a perfect blank canvas for characture examination, with RADA standard acting abilities. Good luck to her with the rest of the brief. I am trying to think of a couple of lightly suspects for another event.

.Gravitational Waves Disturbing Entangled Pairs

Spool of thread about one foot tall.

More observartions of line and fluidity.

The local footie pitch in Abergwilli flooded out. Eight feet by twenty four feet is the official size of the football goal. Covered in a material that obviously, judgeing by the state of the pitch , cannot contain its liquid content. Water polo? Too cold to swim.

The other photos are of work in progress on the `Invisible Cover/ Quilt/ Blanket`. I haven`t decided on a title yet. Inspired by sciences discovery of the meta-material, made of nano fibres that can bend the path of photons, rendering solid matter in its path invisible.

So far, I read they can only opperate on one frequency of electromagnetism at a time. (One colour). But its the beginning of something scientificly significant. Hopefully, so will the crochet! But the nylon overlocking thread the piece is made from is so fine, I am using a no. 4 hook, but it is taking its time to grow. More pictures on Flickr.

I am working in a traditional blanket pattern, three trebles in a two chain gap. I lost the end of the row quite early on, so continued in a spiral. This has given it an undulating surface with fluid qualities and an etherial and airy quality.

Crochet on.

An Infinite Length of Anything

I love the way these two images oscilate when you gently nudge the page up and down. The `op art` illusion style of Bridget Riley, verses the dubious nature of the scientific certainty.

I`m not entirley sure what it is that this blog entry is trying to deduce. I have a head full of thoughts, that haven`t really sorted themselves out into related matter yet. M`be this , writing the blog ,will help.

I have had some very interesting input this week from re- watching television replayed on the i-player.

Doctor Who, for the first time subverted the human laws of causality, and changed the line of time.

He becomes demented with the ostrasized state that his uniqueness dictates and flips out, changeing the events already written by history. In this episode, humans contaminated by a martian water infection, become overtaken and abundant with flowing leathal water.

Water in its liquid form, takes the shape of its container, in this case humans. But when water overtakes the constraints of this container and requires no boundaries to define its existance, there is no end to the infinite deluge.

Time, without constraint, is also dimensionless and infinite.

Another exellent program, ( Horizon BBC2 18th November), enigmatically titled `How Long Is a Piece of String?` also deduced that the ultimate measurent of any thing in the most extreme circumstances, is infinite.

So, I am thinking about ; lines, rules or constraints, boundaries or lack of them, about the singular nature of the infinite, about theories of interconnection.

`I chatter, chatter as I flow to join the brimming river,

for men may come and men may go,

but I go on forever`.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1881.

`When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come`.

Leonardo da Vinci.

Between the blogs message.

Quiltarchtect, Bird-in-the-House, Bethel of Bethania, Shibori Girl: Your blogs are spiritual inspiration to my soul. If it wasn`t for the internet how would we all keep such elivated company? Thank you X

Magritte, or is it?

Hey, lookie here, its Magritte, the Belgian surrealist! Or is it?
No reflection ? I don`t recall Magritte ever being accused of Vampirism. What could be the cause ?Perhaps he was travelling at the speed of light towards a mirror.
`c` is the speed of light, the maximum speed at which information can be transmitted. Humans receive information as effect, according to the laws of causality, dictated by linear time.
At the speed of light information would be sent and received at the same time, eradicating the causal relationship between the mirrors reflection and its reception. No need for blood sucking then.
Light travels along the curve of space time. The faster light travels the lesser the curve, until at `c`
there is no distance between its emission and reception. No information to reflect. Hypothetical, I think, because nothing can travel at the speed of light . But invisible all the same.

Culinary Crochet across the Cosmos

Mandarine Fancy. Really gacky.

I have seen a lot of crocheted cakes in pictures, and in my sister in laws beautiful kitchen. But, rarely so tasteless (!) and gaudy as these offerings. It was an unusual pleasure to finish something so quickley. The two pieces of science crochet I am working on now are at a very uninteresting stage of being medium large, extremely repetitive and not inspiring. So these lovelies are light crochet relief .

I have found bloging the non event of things growing slowly quite difficult. Maybe its time for some strange interim pictures for the records. I may have to get help.

I am a cake fan. That is true. I love cake. But, there are on average 120 calories in a slice of cake, and that is the same as a glass of wine. One whole cake, say Victoria sponge with jam filling, or a Battenburg slab, is the equivalent calories to one bottle of wine! I say with equal measures of pride and shame I have consumed them both, and on the rarest of occasions together.

One last John Cale quote because I have finished the book now. This is from right near the end,

`Loops are what people are interested in now a days...but what I like about looping is not what everybody else likes...`

I think I know what you mean, John.

Cosmos and Tapestry

John Cale was chosen to represent Wales at the Venice Biannale this year.
These photos were snapped at a forum and discussion with the artist at the Ammanford Miners Theatre, before the openning of the biannale, and half way through the creation of his piece.

He is a charismatic man.

Post art world fuss , I am reading `What`s Welsh for Zen`, his autobiography. It is a compelling read, with untold big names and excessive rock and roll life style. He has a stroke of genius about him, with more than a dash of the self obsessed eye of a whirlwind.
The artwork by Dave Mckean, is fantasticly gothic and brooding, very suitable. I am a great admirer of his work in Gaimans ` Sandman` graphic novels.

One quote that struck me, is when talking post collaboration with Brian Eno, and trying to work with Lou Reed again,

`Collaboration is like stealing ideas from the Cosmos`.

For sure , working with a collaborator can be truely inspiring. Some ideas just appear from the ether, and become , without you even realising what it is you both are creating.

John Cale also used some surprising textile metaphor , at the beginning of a performance on a 1982 Later with Jules Holland.

He refers to ...`a change of texture`... and `a different tapestry`...

Small area of nebulosity

Artists impression of the accretion disc, (looking it up as we speak), around a Black Hole.

`How It Is`, Miroslaw Balka currently at the Tate modern

Mysterious apparition on all hallows eve, with its own companion star.

Apart from discovering the fact that it is (fan fare...) National Sausage week, the most exciting thing that has happened to me today, is to find that they have installed a Black Hole into the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London.

It`s huge and lined with a special light absorbing fabric, It has the potential to be a moment of spiritual epiphany for the brave who enter. Unfortunatley, one reporter found it to be full of phillistines with cameras and mobile phones, defeating the `hole `object (ha ha ?).

The artist crypticly says its about` everything and nothing`... which brings me to a fever pitch of excitment. Theories of interconnection , conjour not only collective concious memories of the darkest spaces of human misery that constantly reappear in the history of our people, but multiply within the entity to show that there is release in the relative oblivion of something to vast to comprehend. Would you find comfort inside , or do our inhetent insecurities and fear pervade all other sensory experience.

To see the Black Hole of Carmarthen click here. There are lots of photos of it on my web site and through my photo stream on flickr.

Ya doodle ay aaaayyyeee...

Found a link to a free down load for Bing Crosby and The Andrew Sisters Yodelin Ghost
Get ready for a Jazzy Hallow`een! :D

Deep Simplicity.

There is something pensive about this picture. High in the sky buffeted by the breeze , but trapped with string invisible to the eye. Triumphant to be up there, but trapped even so. They appear to be discussing the problem with each other.

So, consider the difference between invisible, illusion and dissapearence. Martin Creed, artist and creator of the `Lights going on and off` winner of the Turner prize in 2001 (again thinking how to express nothing), said

`Without the viewer there is nothing`.

I think Schrodinger and his cat would like to talk to you about this. For bad physics Schrodinger jokes.

I am listening to the radio whilst writing this , and I wish there was a clip of what I have just heard, on `you tube` to paste here.

It was Bing Crosby and the Andrews sisters singing...

(Yodel), Ya doodle I aaaayyyyy, ya doodle I aaayyyyy.

Theres a yodel in the air, but there ain`t nobody there...

It must be a ghost, a yodelin` ghost.

(You can apparently down load an MP3, wish I knew how.)

Now thats invisible.

One last thing, I heard the best quote from Alan de Bouton,

`The thing we waste most of is out lives`.

Drawn in, Metered Out.

What a wonderful day.

Today was the annual Big Draw event at the Oriel Myrddin gallery in Carmarthen, where I sometimes work. The education officer at the gallery spent ages cutting and prepareing card and paper in various sizes, for a book making workshop. It was really well attended. Kids, adults and even teenagers (!) made sketch books in all sizes with such quirkey and original designs.

I was helping out, but ofcourse, was instantly sucked into a vortex of cutting and glueing. Drawing is a great leveller, and totally consuming. Each person in a creative bubble. Every one that came to the event enjoyed every minute. Thank you all.

Although I have been crocheting since I was nine, I started to crochet as part of my degree, to give a third dimension to diagrams and line drawings . I needed something that would grow in a similar way to a drawing, but with form and substance. Taking the line from the page and substituting the pencil for a hook , I could begin to explore interactive aspects of mark making, and give physical depth to repitition and pattern.

Through out world history , there are myths and legends that use line as a metaphor for lifes duration. Astral travellers speak of a silver thread and a golden bowl. Gwenivere woven magic into the scabbard of Arthurs sword `Excalibur` as protection, and Greek mythology has heroines like Penelope and Arachne, who wove the threads of time into fabrics that dictated their destinies. My favorite are the three fates, Clothio who spins the line , Lachesis who measures, and Atropos who finally cuts the length.

Their line in our hands.

Multiple Connections in Spacetime

Artists in a Wormhole

Another artists impression of a wormhole

`Science is seeing what everyone has seen, but no one has thought`.

Szent-Gyorgyi, Hungarian bio-chemist who isolated vitamin c. So, I think is art.

Tactile Wormhole Bosch.

More images of the `Wormhole` at Tactilebosch here. The piece was originally devised as part of the `Loopholes` exhibition Jake and I did earlier on this year. We were given an alcove space to use at the `Auxesis` show at Tactilebosch, a gallery in Llandaff, Cardiff . More info about the gallery and the show here

The gallery is run on what appears to be a friendly and chaotic, ad hoc basis. But don`t be fooled, the show was well organised.

The artists are given complete control of installing their own work, so we spent some time blacking out the space that was once part of a huge victorian industrial laundry, and turning it into a dark shrine for the projection. I`m glad Jake is better at ladders than me. We were delighted with the outcome of the installation, I overheard one of the crowd mutter,`Awesome...` Whoever you were thankyou.

Meet Me on the Anti-Horizon

Tactile White Hole

Detail

Exit from the White Hole

`Auxesis` is the name of three shows being held at `Tactilebosch`, Landaff, Cardiff. We were setting up the `Wormhole` installation to be part of the opening show on Saturday 10th October. Typically I forgot the relevent DVD , but found beautiful and strong results by experimenting with another DVD left in the player. That sent me off into a whirl of white hole research.

Research informs me that there is an hypothetical entity that has a valid solution within the theory of general relativity, named by the late great physicist John Wheeler a`Wormhole`. Otherwise known as the Einstein -Rosen bridge. Fundamental to intra-universal travel this topological feature theoreticly connects a `black hole` from the relevent moment in space time to a feature known as a `white hole` in another area of space time in the same universe. Because humans live with the effects of causality and linear time, and space time does not, wormholes hypotheticly exist contrary to the second law of thermodynamics. On discovering the formation of a Wormhole,a space traveller would be hindered by the instantaneous dissapation of the passage , leaving him or her confronted with the singularity at the centre of the black hole that he or she had entered , and ofcourse no way out.

I love Cosmology.

Multiscale Celestial Patterning

It is reported in certain communities that `Red sky in the morning, Shepherds warning.` For us early bird arty types, red sky in the morning is just beautiful. A dramatic sky is dynamic and powerful.

sing here

Doesn`t matter what language or creed or race, colour of the day today is SUNRISE. Goooooood morning.

PS. That`s every morning.

Cultivated Meditation

Portrate Panorama.

Over 300 `Pods`

I love the Panarama facilcity on my camera. It gives not just an extended width or height , but that elegant curve to the images. The lower picture is of `Event Horizon`, an installation at the Rhondda Heritage park, up in the valleys of mid Wales. It`s a beautiful light gallery at the top of the visitors centre.

This is my first exhibition with the group `Fibre Art Wales`. Its good to be part of a group, isolation doesn`t occur naturally, everything is part of something. Humans are inclined to be a social and gregarious group. Although, there are the loan wolves to every pack , we generally need company. I find inspiration comes particularly from interaction. I am very rarely struck by `idea lightening` in solitude. The broader the parameters of my research, the more confident I become in the theories of interconnection that are found in Cosmology and Astrophysics, and taught by the Dalai Lama.

I am fortunate to have a strange and wonderfull and eclectic bunch of friends, all with their own individual take on things.They are all constant inspiration to me. The top panorama picture is Jake in his studio.

`There is a growing interest amoung the scientific community in Buddhist philosophical thought. I am optomistic that over the next few decades there will be a great change in our world view both from the material and spiritual perspectives`.

Dalai Lama

`Dangerous Saracen Magic...`

...a quote from William of Malmesbury, an ancient English historian and monk, refering to the new and alien Eastern counting system that introduced the Zero. In early Christian philosophical values, if God was the infinite, the everything; then nothing, insinuating the absence of God must be the Devil. The introduction of this foreign ,sinister and dangerous abscence, was indeed the work of Satan himself.

No Chair ?


Chair

On the Increase.
Size update 133 cms

Well, suspend your disbelief and it sort of works. Covers in a crochet mist, more than excludeing from the picture. Peculiar how uninteresting these images are. Sort of nowhere in their developement of invisibility.

`Nothing will become of nothing.` As King Lear said. Well, Ihope so...

Lastly, `The less anything is the less we know it: how invisible, unintelligible a thing is nothing.`

Thank you John Donne.

Follow this link for something very beautiful.

Future Sailors?

A game of lights and crosses on the ceiling.

Dolly Parton said (We love Dolly...) ` If you want to see a rainbow, you gotta put with the rain.`

Prisms Dolly, are the antithesis to your pretty little idiom. ( Smug.) I have a faceted hanging drop shape in my window. Putting aside the inverted snobbery of it being hippy tatt, I love the tiny oblongs of the spectrum that visit my studio on sunny days. I want hundreds of them in a giant hexagonal glass room, and mirrors on the floor to reflect the purest natural joy of little flying coloured lights surrounding you. Ah, infinite science bliss.

Still reading The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, I have come to the troubled genius A.A. Michelson. Investigating the existance of aether, the stuff between the stars, he and his partner experimented with lights and mirrors to determine the exact speed of light using an invention called the interferometer. Love that word.

The chapter begins with this quote.

`There are no land marks in space; one portion of space is exactly like every other portion, so that we cannot tell where we are. We are as it were on an unruffelled sea, without stars , compass, surroundings, wind or tide, and we cannot tell in which direction we are going. We have no log which we can cast out to take a dead reconning by; we may compute our rate of motion with respect to the neighbouring bodies, but we do not know how these bodies are moving in space.`

James Clerk Maxwell, Matter and Motion ,1920

Science states now, that there is no ether, no empty space or unfilled vacuum. The Space of our universe is filled with the cosmic microwave background at the least. Has that made any difference to anything? Future sailors is a Mighty Boosh lyric