carlyn yandle
  • blog
  • painting
  • public art
  • sculpture & mixed media
  • exhibitions
  • about
  • contact

Finding new Space in Old Craft of Smocking

9/22/2019

Comments

 
Picture
Material research using found spun polyester fibre, for an artwork resulting from a year's conversation with scientists and scholars. (Carlyn Yandle photos)
About a decade ago I stumbled across Latvian-American mathematician Daina Taimina’s curious crochet abstractions. What's not to love about needlecraft (and needlecrafters) that advances modeling of non-Euclidean geometry?
PictureHyperbolic crochet, by mathematician Daina Taimina. Pic from rixc.org
​I’ve been needling away ever since at the power of domestic materials and methods in making new forms (and new ideas).

Most recently I’ve been fascinated by the sculptural potential of smocking that was once a feature of every little-girl dress before the fantastic elastic plastic age hit.
​
Smocking expands and contracts rigid material and turns area into volume. Best of all, it’s a slow-craft, inwardly-focused, rote activity that is an essential thinking tool for me: when the hands are busy (with something other than the damn iPhone) then the mind is free to wander. And where I've been wandering around these days is space, from the macrocosm to the microcosm.

​For the last year I’ve been meeting regularly with a physicist and an engineer from the particle-accelerator lab at UBC and two scholars in the field of arts, for a project through Emily Carr University that explores the possibilities of 'co-thinking' or 'hybridized thinking’ between artists and scientists.

PictureCircular patterns of the schematics of astrophysics and nuclear medicine are seen in the UBC particle-accelerator building itself.
After I got over the initial shock of being invited to join the dozen research assistants on this project (having barely squeaked through Math 11 and remaining the problem child at my tax accountant's office) I realized that I would not in fact be taxed with fully grasping unfathomable ideas of space-time or the confounding mechanicals inside UBC's cavernous particle-accelerator building. Instead, my role as a facilitating artist includes producing an artwork out of this whole experiment, for a group exhibit later this winter.

​So why not smocking?

PictureMaterial research includes reviewing the history and applications of an ages-old textile technique.
There's something zingy about using the most basic of methods — tying string knots in fabric — as I grapple with concepts like infinity, black holes, space-time, and a contracting universe. As I play with folding 540 square feet of area into volume, making a shape with no beginning nor end, I wonder about the possibility of doing the opposite of Dr. Taimina: making a model that is looking for the math.

The shape that is taking shape is as convoluted as many of our group discussions, and sits in that unsettling space between pattern and chaos, structure and collapse. It's as precarious as Leaning Out of Windows, the name of this four-year co-thinking project, yet tempting enough for the possibility of catching some new views.


Comments





    Get this column by email:

    * indicates required

    RSS Feed

    browse by topic:

    All
    Abstract Painting
    Activism
    Additive
    Aesthetics
    AgentC Gallery
    Alison Woodward
    Aluminum
    Appropriation
    Architecture
    Arleigh Wood
    Art
    Art Discourse
    Art History
    Artist
    Artist Residency
    Artist Statement
    Art School
    Art Show
    Art Spiegelman
    Assemblage
    Author
    Banksy
    Bauhaus
    Beauty
    Betsy Greer
    Big Data
    Billy Patko
    Blogs
    Blog Tour
    Bob Krieger
    Books
    Bruce MacKinnon
    Building
    Bull Kelp
    Business
    Buttons
    Carlyn Yandle
    Caroline Eriksson
    Cartoon
    Ceca Georgieva
    Challenge
    Children
    Christmas
    Cindy Sherman
    Cirque Du Soleil
    City Planning
    Cityspace Gallery
    Clay Yandle
    Climate Change
    Cluster
    Cob
    Cob Oven
    Collaboration
    Collage
    Colonialism
    Color
    Colour
    Commission
    Community
    Composition
    Conceptual Art
    Connie Sabo
    Construction
    Craft
    Craft Blogs
    Craftivism
    Crafts
    Craftsmanship
    Creative Process
    Critique
    Crochet
    Cross-stitch
    Cultural Hub
    Cultural Studies
    Culture
    Culture Jamming
    Culturejammingc9d75664fd
    Cycling
    Dafen Village
    Dallas-duobaitis
    Dance
    Data-graphic
    Dear Human
    Deep Craft
    Denim
    Denyse Thomasos
    Design
    Display
    Distraction
    Doilies
    Doily
    Domestic
    Domestic Interventions
    Douglas-coupland
    Draw Down
    Drawing
    DSquared2
    Dude-chilling-park
    Dyeing
    Eastend
    Eastside Culture Crawl
    Ecuad
    Editorial
    Edward Burtynsky
    Eggbeater Creative
    Embroidery
    Emily Blincoe
    Emily Carr University
    Environment
    Environmental Art
    Exhibit
    Exhibition
    Experimentation
    Exploration
    Expression
    Fabric
    Fabricating
    Facebook
    Failure
    Fashion
    Festival
    Fiber
    Fiber Arts
    Fibre
    Fibre Arts
    Film
    Flow
    Foraging
    Form
    Found Materials
    Found Objects
    Fractal
    Free Store
    Gallery
    Gallery-row
    Garden
    Garment
    Gentrification
    Gingerbread
    Globalization
    Glue
    Graffiti
    Granny Square
    Granville-island
    Green Space
    Grid
    Guanajuato
    Guerrilla Art
    Guerrilla Girls
    Halloween
    Handwork
    Haywood Bandstand
    Health
    Hideki-kuwajima
    Homelessness
    Hot Art Wet City
    Hybrid Thinking
    Ian Reid
    Ian Wallace
    Ideas
    Images
    Industrial Design
    Industry
    Innovation
    Inspiration
    Instagram
    Installation
    Intervention
    Invention
    Irena Werning
    Janet Wang
    Jeans
    Joel Bakan
    Joseph Beuys
    Joseph-wu
    Journalism
    Judith Scott
    Kim Piper Werker
    Kimsooja
    Knitting
    Knots
    Knotting
    Kyoto
    Landon Mackenzie
    Landscape
    Leanne Prain
    Lecture
    Liz Magor
    Log Cabin
    LOoW
    Lost Painting
    Lumiere Festival
    Lynda Barry
    Macrame
    Maker
    Making
    Malcolm Gladwell
    Male Gaze
    Maquette
    Marie Kondo
    Marketing
    Mark Lewis
    Martha Rosler
    Mathematics
    Maya
    Media
    Meditative
    Metalworker
    Mister Rogers
    Mixed Media
    Monique Motut-Firth
    Monte Clark
    Mosaic
    Motivation
    Mt. Pleasant Community Centre
    Mud Girls
    Mural
    Natalie Jeremijenko
    Nature
    Needlework
    Neon
    Net
    Network
    Networking
    Neuroplasticity
    New Forms Festival
    Newspapers
    Nick Cave
    Noah Goodis
    North Vancouver
    Omer Arbel
    Openings
    Organization
    #overthinking
    Paint
    Painting
    Paper
    Pattern
    Pechakucha
    Pecha Kucha
    Perception
    Performance
    Performance Art
    Photography
    Playing
    Political Art
    Polly-apfelbaum
    Pompidou
    Poodle
    Port Coquitlam
    Portrait
    Process
    Production
    Project
    Protest
    Psychedelic
    Public Art
    Qr Code
    Quilt
    Quilting
    Rachael Ashe
    Rachel Lafo
    Raw Materials
    Recycle
    Research
    Retreat
    Rhonda Weppler
    Richard-tetrault
    Richmond Art Gallery
    Right Brain
    Rondle-west
    Rug
    Ryan-mcelhinney
    Safe Supply
    Safety
    Sarah-gee-miller
    Saskatchewan
    Scale
    Sculpture
    Seaweed
    Semiotics
    Sewing
    Sharon Kallis
    Shawn Hunt
    Shigeru Ban
    Sketchup
    Smocking
    Social Engagement
    Social-engagement
    Social History
    Social Justice
    Social Media
    South-granville
    Stitching
    Storage
    Street Art
    Studio
    Styrophobe
    Subversive Stitch
    Surrealism
    Surrey
    Tagging
    Technology
    Terry Fox Theatre
    Textile
    Thrift Stores
    TJ Watt
    TO DO
    Tools
    Toronto Design Offsite
    Toybits
    Trash
    Trash Art
    Trevor Mahovsky
    Typography
    Tyvek
    Upcycling
    Urban Design
    Use Object
    Use Objects
    Vancouver
    Vancouver Art Gallery
    Vancouver International Airport
    Video
    Visual Field
    Visual-field
    Visual Language
    Wallace Stegner House
    Wall Hanging
    Weaving
    William Morris
    Wood
    Wool
    Work Wraps
    Writing
    Yarn Bombing
    YVR
    Zaha Hadid
    Zendoodle

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.