Words Found Today

I ran across two words today that could be used in reference to the shocking statements made by the man in the lead to become the Republican candidate.

Paralogism–a piece of illogical or fallacious reasoning, esp. one that appears superficially logical or that the reasoner believes to be logical.

Paracosm–a detailed imaginary world involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations.

How can a man who wants to be the President of my country claim to want less government while attempting to make laws to restrict health care for women?


Mix of Stuff 16 February 2012

Today I was asked to make a red target icon that doesn’t look like the target used by Target. I googled archery targets to get a notion of what might be visually expected. I didn’t remember that the center of a target could be yellow.

Whenever I perform searches for work projects, I often receive hits that are of personal interest. Today I found arrows at the Museum of Anthropology, the University of Missouri. I made several series based on weapons, so I’m always delighted to see lovely artifacts that also have a dark edge to them. I especially like sharp pointy objects.

Arrows1Arrows2

According to the site the artifacts are Javanese target arrows. The description states that the shafts are made of bamboo, a material that I have used quite often in my work. I found that it was a bit difficult obtaining the surface that I wanted until I hit on using heat. Beware though, bamboo can catch fire from the inside. Before you know it, your piece can be aflame.

I chose to use bamboo because it is a prolific grower, its cultural myths, and its use in a variety of rituals.

After I finished the icon job, I went out to water a newly planted hellebore. I noticed that the bottlebrush in the courtyard apparently doesn’t like its location. It is thrusting out from the house and in doing so appears to be using a bunny ornament as a support.

Weight

When I went back to proofing the database of thousands of words, I found a couple of interest–

antemeridian
of, relating to, or taking place in the morning

antefix
carved ornament at the eaves of a tile roof concealing the joints between tiles


Possible Stitches for Fabric

I loom knit a bit and have been thinking about knitting flat fabric for use in some mixed media pieces. I had the idea of flat stitching rows then repeating a flat stitch 5 times on each peg, followed with rows of flat stitches. I was hoping for an I-cord grid. The I-cord element has a bit of a twist which I’m keen on. Probably the result of operator error, but It may not be a problem when using rope. I like the second swatch which is a combination of knit with purl I-cords.

Flat I-cordKnit Purl I-cord


I read about a mock crochet technique on the Guppy Girl blog. I liked the openness of the stitch and decided to make some test swatches using the idea of three forward, back two, repeat… using purl, knit, flat, and e-wrap stitches. For lack of a better description, I named them lace (purl lace) and assigned each stitch and its counterpart (purl) a number.

1. Purl Lace
2. Purl
3. Knit Lace
4. Knit
5. Flat Lace
6. Flat
7. E-Wrap Lace
8. E-Wrap

There are eight stitches with eight combinations, 64 unique swatches. Even though some of the stiches are directional, I decided to treat stitch combinations with the same numbers (1,2 and 2,1) as duplicates. Since the front and back of the knitted pieces are not often the same I anticipated some additional choices.

These are the combinations–11 is Purl Lace with Purl Lace, 45 is Knit with Flat Lace, 56 is Flat Lace with Flat…
Table

I made 36 swatches in the following combinations. From the 36 I selected a few to develop.
Swatches Made

Here are some images of the swatches I am considering using. I did a rather loopy cast on so it was clear to me which was the front top.

11 Purl Lace with Purl Lace; 33 Knit Lace with Knit Lace

1133


55 Flat Lace with Flat Lace; 57 Flat Lace with E-Wrap Lace
5557


77 E-Wrap Lace with E-Wrap Lace; 17 Purl Lace, E-Wrap Lace
7717


The swatches were to give me a notion of possible stitch combinations I could use to make fabric from three types of rope–4-ply cotton, coconut fiber, and jute. After I decide on the stitch combinations, I will need to make a loom to accommodate the thickness of the rope.

Rope

I am in the process of making some larger swatches knitted in cotton and jute twine. To keep the twine from becoming too tight, I placed a piece of dowel on the peg as it was wrapped and knitted off.

CottonJute Twine


More Netflix and Code Template

When I am working, I listen to films and series that contain loads of dialog. This evolved from listening to DVD commentaries of films that I had already viewed. Commentaries are a great way to have access to the filmmaking process, how decisions were made, and their results.

Recently I listened to the first season of Land Girls which was based on the Women’s Land Army in Britain during World War II. When I view films about historic events, I always wonder about their accuracy. After viewing them, I perform a google search to learn a bit more about the time and events.

When I searched for “Land Girls” I found that during the Second World War, women joined the Women’s Land Army. They replaced farm workers who were serving in the war, which is akin to those who replaced factory workers. The factory workers I knew about, but hadn’t thought about farm workers. Odd since I grew up in a farming community in the Mid West.

About the Code Technique Used–
In the third episode an over zealous, perhaps mad sergeant, used a code template to expose a presumed collaborator. The code template was a card with openings laid over a letter exposing hidden information. The individual attempting to find a coded message in some text, could look for specific types of words and numbers, and presume the combination to be a message.

I gave this a go using a paragraph from Richard Preston’s The Demon in the Freezer , a book that happened to still be on my desk from a previous post.

An image of the original text is followed by a quick Photoshop code template and an image of the code template over the original text.

Text

Code Template

Code Template Over Text

The arbitrary selection of words has nothing to do with anything. Interpretation mistakes can be made. This is often the case with works of art. Folks come to the work with their ideas and experiences. Their interpretation can be completely wrong, forcing something onto the work that isn’t there.


Next Stop Wonderland and Books

I am addicted to Netflix streaming. Recently I listened to Next Stop Wonderland a film I viewed several years ago. I remembered liking the film for the dialog and the Bossa Nova sound track.

The dialog has some interesting notions–

“quietness without loneliness”

“contemplate something beautiful”

“…it’s important to have some daily ritual in your life that gives it a sense of consistency.”

Reading has always been an important part of my life. I like to start the day reading something to set my day. At the close of the day I enjoy reading something as well.

One of my favorite scenes in Next Stop Wonderland occurs in a bookshop. Erin, the central character, drops a book; it falls to the floor open and face down. She picks it up and is about to close it when the book seller says,

“Don’t close it. You should never close a book until you’ve read something from it… just a sentence or a word, it can be very, very revealing…”

I love books–reading them, thinking about them, the way they feel in my hands, the way they smell. When I was young I was taught to respect books. The book should not appear to have been read. Then something happened. First I started dog-earing the top of the pages to mark text in the upper half and the bottom of the pages for text in the bottom half. Then a double fold made if the text I wanted to remember was on both sides of a page.

Now I use books somewhat like a sketchbook. The books that I like quite a lot have dog-eared pages, highlighting, and underlining. And then there is my obsessive note taking, jotting down ideas, and making sketches in the white space.

Stack of Books

This is a small stack of books that I liked very much when I first read them and when I reread them. Actually I liked them so much, I gave them as gifts. The stack includes work by Joe Coomer, Percival Everett, Brian Morton, Abigail Thomas, Margaret Atwood, and Richard Preston.

Pocketful
Joe Coomer
Pocketful of Names

Erasure
Percival Everett
Erasure

Evening
Brian Morton
Starting Out in the Evening



When I was preparing the links I realized that nearly all of the books have descriptions of an artmaking process. The exception is Richard Preston’s The Demon in the Freezer.


Proofing: Database of Words for SLPs

I am in the process of proofing a database of words for a couple of projects for speech language pathologists. Today I ran across a couple of words that I wasn’t sure were in fact words.

The letter combinations seemed like perfectly acceptable spellings, but something seemed amiss. Turns out they are in fact words and a bit connected as well.

The words I questioned as being such are, stoup and roods. Stoup is a basin that contains holy water and a rood is a crucifix or a painting of such. Coincidence, serendipitous that both words are religious objects used in rituals?

Free to Choose

Free to Choose is part of my Cleanse Your Palate series. Each glass is bound with wool, has a word in code, and is filled with clove soap. The holey rock rosaries are braided and knotted with “Forgive Yourself” in code.