Reading The Bird Artist means a simultaenous re-reading of The Shipping News. Not literally re-reading, but re-visiting, re-plotting, re-living. E Annie Proulx's book was a central thread of a design project some years ago, of narrating by knots, and through this process of a re-working of a work it becomes almost pathologically ingested, as part of one's self. At one stage there was a total seamlessness between The Shipping News and my methodology of design, a hybrid had formed. And as part of this an eidetic placefulness developed, even now, at the slightest mention of Newfoundland, it is all suddenly there again, augmented by a past friendship with a native of Halifax, whose accent was richly twisted, rolling and imbricated, marvellous to listen to. The project was fixated on the concept of the monument, and it had become, appropriately, buried in the sands of time.
Exhuming words from the past ...
Knots are thickenings, fastenings, aides-memoire. A knot is a hard part in an otherwise soft material, a concentration, a gnarly bit. A knot can join two things, be a sign of unity: tying the knot. Knots can give strength, hold something in, keep it in place. A knot in a handkerchief is a reminder of something, and has come to symbolise the act of remembering. Knots vary greatly in their symbolism, as anyone who has read Proulx's The Shipping News will testify. Referring to the Ashley Book of Knots, the author uses the knot descriptions to enrich the narrative. Knots are decorative, with entire textiles worked in knots through the art of macramé. Knots are also used in orientation, as in the knotted navigational charts of Pacific Islanders, where knots indicate seamarks and other clues to wayfinding.
Knots are tricky things, they confound and perplex ...
The correct tying of a knot is critical to its efficacy. Any change in direction might mean disaster: "In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knot, there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible.... Make only one change in the 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result." (The Ashley Book of Knots in Proulx 1993). Orientation is important in monuments too ... the monument to Captain Robert Falcon Scott, leader of the first British expedition to the South Pole, contrasts with the other figurative statues in Christchurch, in that it is pointing northwards. This means the light falls directly onto the face of the statue (the sun shines from the north in the Southern Hemisphere), and the play of chiaroscuro is not as great as on those statues which face east or west. However, the orientation of Scott is highly symbolic and critical to the monument's effectiveness. Scott and his companions perished on their homeward journey, heading north. The Scott memorial immortalises this unfinished northward journey, and underscores the significance of the orientation of monuments.
And so on, where the analogy of the knot is central, driving a process of divining and designing ...
Exhuming words from the past ...
Knots are thickenings, fastenings, aides-memoire. A knot is a hard part in an otherwise soft material, a concentration, a gnarly bit. A knot can join two things, be a sign of unity: tying the knot. Knots can give strength, hold something in, keep it in place. A knot in a handkerchief is a reminder of something, and has come to symbolise the act of remembering. Knots vary greatly in their symbolism, as anyone who has read Proulx's The Shipping News will testify. Referring to the Ashley Book of Knots, the author uses the knot descriptions to enrich the narrative. Knots are decorative, with entire textiles worked in knots through the art of macramé. Knots are also used in orientation, as in the knotted navigational charts of Pacific Islanders, where knots indicate seamarks and other clues to wayfinding.
Knots are tricky things, they confound and perplex ...
The correct tying of a knot is critical to its efficacy. Any change in direction might mean disaster: "In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knot, there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible.... Make only one change in the 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result." (The Ashley Book of Knots in Proulx 1993). Orientation is important in monuments too ... the monument to Captain Robert Falcon Scott, leader of the first British expedition to the South Pole, contrasts with the other figurative statues in Christchurch, in that it is pointing northwards. This means the light falls directly onto the face of the statue (the sun shines from the north in the Southern Hemisphere), and the play of chiaroscuro is not as great as on those statues which face east or west. However, the orientation of Scott is highly symbolic and critical to the monument's effectiveness. Scott and his companions perished on their homeward journey, heading north. The Scott memorial immortalises this unfinished northward journey, and underscores the significance of the orientation of monuments.
And so on, where the analogy of the knot is central, driving a process of divining and designing ...
"Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have."
Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1918
The Shipping News' knots, and The Bird Artist's birds, both evoke that melancholy longing ... the elusive completion of a collection, yet the not wanting to. Proulx's Quoyle and Norman's Fabian Vas stand nearly a century apart, yet both are within a certain timelessness, amongs the threads and snags of what time is, what place is, or to cite Kevin Lynch's now cliched title 'what time is this place?" Resonances ricochet back and forth, in that ambience of place, in the concern with the thingness of things, of knots, of birds, of drawing - ink, paper, paint, of Quoyle writing for the newspaper the Gammy Bird. Time compresses into a mere wisp, and turns upon itself...
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