Sculpture Studio Spring 2010

Project 1: Process

Intention Statement
“1,000 minutes of circulation”

In this piece, I explored the process of circulation. Circulation can be defined as movement to and fro around something, or the continuous motion by which blood travels through all parts of the body under the action of the heart. By using a very simple material, thread, I was able to examine both definitions of this concept. The process of wrapping became extremely laborious as I unwound the rigid, machine-made, dense spool of thread and created a soft, organic, and delicate ball around my two fingers. My process was simple; I tightly wound the thread around my fingers until I began to cut off my circulation-until I could feel my heartbeat in my hand. I would then slide my fingers out of the loop and change directions, continuing to create a sphere. I ended when the spool was empty, and when all the thread had been circulated from spool to ball. This repetitive process became very meditative, as I focused on my heartbeat and on the unwinding and winding of the thread.

Each thread ball takes me around 20 minutes to create. This was 20 minutes that I was unable to use my hands for anything else- 20 minutes that I had to focus on the process of unwinding and winding. My hands became the tool that allowed me to take a mechanical process, winding thread, and return it to its roots, spinning: Spinning is an ancient art, in which fibers were twisted together to form yarn. These fibers were spun by hand, using simple tools, or even just by using your hand and thigh. They were then fastened to a stone, which was repeatedly twirled around until the yarn was sufficiently twisted. This organic, time consuming process continued for thousands of years until the “Spinning Jenny” was created in the late 18th century. This machine dramatically decreased the amount of manual labor needed to produce yarn. Due to severe industrialization and reliance on the machine, yarn is now produced at rates of over 40 meters per second. (1) In this piece I wanted to return to the extremely laborious process of winding thread. I spent over 1,000 minutes (approx. 17 hours) creating 50 balls of thread: a machine could have done this in a few seconds.

These thread balls are not unique, nor are they particularly aesthetically pleasing or intriguing. They are, however, a visual representation of the amount of repetitive labor and time that it takes to create things by hand. They represent a countercultural passage from machine back to man, and in doing so they highlight my process of circulation. This process could have been further emphasized, and may have been more effective, if I had the time and resources to create 100, 200, or even 1,000 thread balls. While I think the small pile that 50 balls creates is effective, I’m not sure if it is powerful enough in size to express the time that goes into creating things by hand. The final product could possibly have been strengthened if the balls were accompanied by a timed video of me creating every ball to further emphasize the repetitive labor.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_(textiles)