Hireth
Everything changes,
nothing remains the same.
A Narrative of Time, Space, Place and the process of abreaction.
“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us”. (Wilde, 1895)
‘The Fetch’
I woke. You were lying beside me in the double bed,
Prone, your long dark hair fanned out over the downy pillow.
I’d been dreaming we stood on a beach
An ocean away
Watching the waves purl into their troughs and tumble over.
Knit one, purl two, you said. Something
In your voice made me think
Of women knitting by the guillotine.
Your eyes met mine.
The fetch of a wave is the distance it
Travels, you said,
From where it is born at sea to where
It founders to shore.
I must go back to where it all began.
You waded in
Thigh-deep, waist-deep, breast-deep, head-deep
Until you disappeared.
I lay there and thought how glad I was to find you again.
You stirred in the bed and moaning
Something
I heard a footfall.
On the landing, the rasp of a man’s cough.
He put his head around the door.
He had my face.
I woke. You were not there.
(Carson, 2008)
Place and space
Over the last several years I have made, remade, recycled, reclaimed, modelled and constructed work through textiles; namely knitting. My practice has included an exploration of a wide variety of techniques and materials both traditional and non-traditional. Sometimes I follow a prescribed pattern whilst making knitted objects such as blankets and korowai. Often, I don’t. I let the material dictate the method and means in the creation of an object. I like to experiment and break rules with knitting such as using under or oversized needles and using textiles not associated with appropriate knitting practice. This often creates surprises. I can start with an idea, what I want to make but go in a completely different direction, producing something; an object, an artwork that confounds my expectations.
Through my practice of working in textiles and materials, my proposed research seeks to gain access into the relationship between memory, loss and the need to seek comfort through the process of knitting. I am also intending to explore how objects can be said to “hold time” (Bennett, 2015).
In reading around memory and materials in ART-TEXTILES, Jennifer Harris describes textiles as having a central role in contemporary art practice where cloth, thread etc. are “medium and metaphor” (Harris, 2015). Knitted objects because of their physicality, are imprinted with care. Knitting takes dedication, it is a deliberate act and has an intimacy between materials and maker. Objects hold time or time becomes imprinted in and through the object made. Knitting by hand is slow, highly demanding and time consuming. The objects I make are literal and symbolic. Whilst time is suspended, memories are reactivated and create a sense of safety, purposeful control and the familiarity of close family bonds.
I have always been fascinated by the idea of place and time, so my natural inclination is to discover how to project this in the form of space as installation. I love the notion of repetition, pattern creation through constant motion. My current exploration of space uses knitting as my context for producing art works. My practice involves a repeating activity often using a twisted dropped loop stitch to create huge panels out of wool and textiles. I use knitting as a form of crafting narratives around my family, many of whom I never met. The history of my family and the stories remembered through collective consciousness are used to weave a history that could be lost. Patterns, repetition of stitches, woven together form intricate lines that are regulated and link with investigating stories through texture and form. Each looped stitch symbolises the transition of knowledge from generation to generation. It is a repeated story but one that reaches across time, space and place. I am keen to explore the concept of contraction and tautology – forces pulling in different directions: of rhythm and repetition. Chui Shui Chan wrote in his article, Phenomenology of Rhythm in Design, about the very nature of repetition and rhythm by stating;
“Phenomenology of rhythm relates to the quality of repetition and how perceivers observe the results. Rhythm, by definition, is repetition and repetition could automatically create an order to the whole design. Such a created order is the character of rhythmic phenomena. Analytically speaking, rhythm generates some regularity, simplicity, balance, and order of composition that allows the design to develop a nature of consistency. The consistency would make the view easy to understand. In fact, after the rhythmic pattern is recognized, the whole design could be clearly comprehended. Therefore, repetition with similar movement and/or transformation rules would always generate an ordered pattern. Such created patterns could call viewers' visual attention to put more cognitive process for investigating the semantic context of the pattern” (Chan, 2016).
Place and space are used to engage and inform. Identity is directly linked to time, place and space interconnecting the past and the present. Memories are shaped through the contexts they are made and are later remembered. These contexts shape the way I view and remember the past. Images of reference come from family photographs and are used to help make sense of who, what and where we are. This bond makes a connection within diaspora as a recurrent feature of my families’ past and present. Space and time interconnect as family images and ornamentation of photographs through different times and places but often occupying the same spaces. There is a sense of the repetition of family stories and of layering time. History seems to be repeating itself through the collective memories of family.
I have begun to explore interactive relationships where feelings, emotions, attitudes, culture feel like manufactured familial knowledge and history, sense of place identified with everyday actions and construct meanings of belonging. My self-identity in my practice creates a sense of acceptance and attachment used to inform understanding of my current place and allows the possibility for change in the future.
Identities and signs I am creating through collaged imagery. Constructing new meanings about place and non-place. In Brady Wagoner’s work on the cultural identity of remembering, he states that memories are not independent but are part of an activity which rooted in history, social interactions and are reconstructed (Wagoner, 2018). I would argue that these identities are formulated through a relationship with a particular place and space. Time another construct, regulates, defines and bonds together an identity and practices that assist with perception of history. Diaspora can cause trauma and challenge identity. Signs are used to trigger memories which can be complex and intertwine collective memory. Human experiences select and condition where and when we place ourselves.
Images of recollection and remembrance are produced through the act of creating textured installations that explore the internalised history of both family and culture. From nothing comes something of structure, volumes of space that exist in time but are brimming with signs and symbols which capture traces from the past. Space and time interconnect and produce involuntary memories which are both complex and dense. Site and place bring associations and memories and gives another perspective of human experience.
Remembrance
Ever since I was a small child, I’ve been fascinated and intrigued by the small, the insignificant and the often overlooked. I’ve never lost that feeling. It’s like that with memories and this forms a central part of my practice. Memories can flood over me and question reality – shake me up and provide new possibilities. Revealing little glimpses of those memories can assist seeking, embracing and revealing how the small and insignificant can become purposeful, fascinating and overwhelming. I’m captivated by the idea of presence – what we as humans leave behind. We may no longer be physically present, but our “presence” is felt none-the-less. It felt as if I was losing my history, my background, who I was and what made me, me. I needed to encapsulate my family history; pass on the snippets and anecdotes to my children. I thought it was vital to explain the photographs and put names and dates to faces. Almost like a race against time.
My creative output could be summarized as being actively engaging with the past in order to understand the present. Or more simply put, trying to reconstruct the past in order to control the present.
These two photographs started a need, a compulsion to find out as much as I could and profoundly affected my practice. For the last few years I have been working in 2D but my BA (Hons) specialised in sculpture and film as well as Cultural Studies. I have always knitted. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t knit which was strange as my Mother was not a knitter. But my Father, Brother and Sisters all knit – as did my Grandmother Kate. Knitting was not a gender specific occupation but something that had merit and was treasured as a skill. Something that connected us as a family together – a passed heritage of working with our hands. But it was representative of something much more important; it was and is how I remember, stitch and bind together, visual and oral memories that tell stories of the past and the present. Knitting connects and reiterates my family history. Knitting provides a medium for remembering and trying to remember. So much deeper than a creative practice. Knitting and working with textiles has benefits far beyond the need to create. It’s a time when memories flood in; surreptitiously, then overtly. As forms take shape, the shadow, the “presence” of another time and place unconsciously takes over. My knitted pieces are developed instinctually as an emotional response that adapts over time. Each piece has become rather like a gauge, tracking memories, emotions and responses. More than a therapy is an aggressive act of engaging with time and space.
“Properly practised, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn’t hurt the untroubled spirit either.” – Elizabeth Zimmerman (Zimmermann, 1971)
Hireth – a homesickness for a place you can never return to, a place which maybe never was. The nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost place of your past. (Tabios, 2018)
Working originally in collage and sculpture, I began to explore concepts and approaches in my MFA that challenged my familiar practice. Working in textiles had always seemed to be the start of every project I had undertaken. Not in the sense of knitting as a conclusive art work in itself but as a method to help me to hone my ideas and thoughts before embarking on producing “art”. I began to question what I wanted to focus on how and why I was going to explore and express these interests. I suggest that the core of my inquiry will revolve around the how textiles and materials can hold memory and evoke the notion of time: past and present. Pennina Bennett writes,
“If photography captures a split moment, cloth and clothing hold time differently: they retain our imprint over continuous time, for as Peter Stallybrass put it: cloth “receives us” (Stallybrass, 1993). It comes to life with motion, is animated and transformed by the body and its movements – wears at the elbows and with the habitual bend of the knees, tears when we fall. We might even say that cloth is a kind of memory, embodied and material”. (Bennett, 2015)
Through my research I intend to explore the notion of Hireth and question how the process of making, creating and producing, addresses the mechanism of sharing personal memory which crosses all cultures. I also intend to research how knitting has changed from being viewed as a skilled-based profession to one of craft. From a feminist angle, I want to challenge the view that is often held that knitting as craft, is woman’s hobby, not real work.
Through exhibition and critiques, I have noted that often the discussion centres around the object or the result of a knitting project. I am more intrigued and absorbed by the process than what is created. I often acquire wool, yarn, string, for its aesthetic appeal: not to create a garment or object per se. I am an undeniable process knitter. The feel of the material can be rough, smooth, soft, man-made or natural. It is how the material twists, rotates, forms and repeats endlessly that I’m mesmerized by. Time is like the thread that never breaks. Knitting will continue to be where I work out in my mind a pattern that makes sense of my world. It is my safe place. A place where I can embark on a voyage of self-discovery and a way of figuring out what Hireth means to me and to others. Lockhart calls this way of working through memory as “fat” (Craik, 1972). Fat memory is where I am continuing to analyse how time, space and place can form a narrative.
I have reached a point in my investigation where I want to study the notion of “flow” in terms of narrative and social history. I have begun to explore how knitting is relegated to the notion of “womans’ craft”. The work is regarded as hobby and side-lined as a serious form of art. I want to present my work as an exploration into the purpose and meaning of creating objects and my compulsive need to create meaning through memory. I am starting to consider how time in processed and how recollection is associated with rhythm and repetition. Recent psychological research has led me to read the work of Freud (Freud, 1917) and Jung (Jung, 1963) around loss and remembering. Freud wrote on melancholia, a similar notion to hireth),
“In one set of cases it is evident that melancholia too may be the reaction of the loss of a loved object. Where the exciting causes are different one can recognize that there is a loss of a more ideal kind. The object has not perhaps actually died, but has been lost as an object of love”. (Freud, 1917)
Can my art or more importantly, the process of producing art as performance be the practice whereby I answer more fundamental questions. What is the meaning of my work and how can I present my work to an audience who haven’t the same experiences as myself? Art is therefore a vehicle for dialogue: an open discussion on memory, time, space and place.
I am more entranced by the process of production than the finished article. Recently I have progressed from completing knitted pieces to studying the mechanisms and the process used to create the pieces. I have used photography as a method of documentation and a way of tracking the evolution of my work. I have used my Fathers’ Jumper in a number of installation pieces which centres around protection and embracing loss. I am embarking on a project that sees the Jumper being “retired”. I have documented visually dismantling a jacket made from similar wool and propose to reknit a new Jumper in the style of the original. I will ask; can objects replace and hold the same memories or create new memories?
Artist influences
On drawing on my current practice, I have been investigating the work of a number of artists (mainly women), who work/ed in textiles including Louise Bourgeois.
“Clothing is . . . an exercise in memory. It makes me explore the past: how did I feel when I wore that. They are like signposts in the search for the past.” (Jerry Gorovoy, 1997).
I am currently working on a project that involves disassembling a jacket made of similar wool to Dad’s Jumper, reassembling and creating a mirror image of this with the wool. It is about control and moving from the past to the present succulently. It is an attempt to make sense of the past and the present in order to make hireth less dominent in my practice.
I intend to continue to create installations and textile collages mainly through recycling and upcycling which deal with themes of fear, the burden of the past and the loss of control I sometimes feel. I would say that these feelings often arise around the sense of being apart from and disparate from my homeland.
However, the example above fulfils little in the sense of installation and of holding place and space. The following quote from Yang sums up what I am trying to achieve in my Another area of exploration for my practice concerns how knitting can be used as a feminist tool for tackling sexism head on. Genger’s epic knitted pieces can never be described as “woman’s craft” in the very scale of the work shown. I am interested in pursuing how and why the social boundaries imposed on textile workers, women, denigrated the skill of knitting and why it is important to challenge and confront expectations. I want to also want to reframe my knitted pieces as public and challenge through scale and space. Like the knitting bombers, I want to graffiti galleries, open spaces and more importantly perceptions of audiences around traditional feminine crafts.
In conclusion, I am challenging myself to look outwards rather than inwards. I intend to answer questions by posing more questions. I also want to seek more feedback through participation and through exhibiting my work to a larger audience. With that thought in mind, I am taking an exhibition of work to Cornwall, UK in 2019. It has been five years since I have been back in the UK, fifteen years since I last saw Cornwall. How will my notion of Hireth change when I am back in my homeland? How has the experience of living on the other side of the world changed my perception of Cornwall and how will my work be viewed by contemporary Cornwall? I can expect the unexpected and am keen to explore this next chapter of my practice. In an article in The Guardian, journalist Debbie Lawson writes;
“Strange things are occurring in the westernmost corner of our island. A snow-covered mountain range has taken over an old school building, a sinister parliament of stuffed rooks is about to land and there's a bearded man sitting in an empty greenhouse in the middle of a park, blowing up balloons. This is Cornwall, Jim, but not as we know it.” (Lawson, 2006)
Hireth today, gone tomorrow.
Knitting Litany
Most agitated hands be my salvation.
Most restless eye, look only here.
Most anxious heart, trust in the singular fact:
Something can come from nothing
The miracle turns on every stitch:
With every whispered row,
Leaves, waves, flowers, and stars
Drop from my fingertips
In this, the crest of the wave, my heart
Rises up and drops as I roll the wave
Row after row I make the wave,
Rising and dropping stitch after stitch:
There is no end to the waves
To the world in my hands:
Cockleshell, wolf’s claw, wasp nest, bear’s paw,
Apple leaf, lamb’s lettuce, pine tree, gull wing,
Honeycomb, cloud and mountain, four sisters,
Frost flowers, summer fountain, hyacinth,
Sycamore, granite laurel, lynx eye,
Drooping elm, wheat germ, cakes and waffle,
Clover leaf, blue bell, bell rib, banana tree,
Ant egg, rosebud, terrapin, butterfly,
Barley ear, beehive, lady’s lace and willow bed,
Per omnia soecula soeculorum.
These are the prayers I say these days.
A simple co-creator, I trust in simple decorum.
Wanting something to come of nothing,
I make only slight demands:
Let starfish, berries, and foxglove
Fall now from my hands
(Wade, 1990)