Touching Distance

Knotted Thinking December 2020 I’ve been thinking about knots recently. Perhaps the idea of tying myself in knots (referring to the number of simultaneous issues, problems or anxieties I feel) has found its way out of my head and into practical studio work. However, it didn’t start in the studio, but rather at home in the garage.

I was joining lengths of rope together, to secure loose boards against the wall. Out of habit, or at least out of a casual recollection of knots that I’d been taught when younger, I attached one length to the other. It was as I pulled the lengths of rope taught, to make sure they would hold firmly and not slip, that I noticed the way that the loops diminished, closed and constricted. The spaces within the overlapping lines and coils of rope disappeared to nothing, to leave, as you would expect, a knot.

I didn’t know the name of the knot I tied. Racking my brain at the time, I came up with the names Reef, Granny, Bowline and Highwayman’s Hitch; the last one being my favourite because of how exciting it sounded to me as a boy. I knew other knots too, but not by name. I found that what I’d tied in the garage was a Fisherman’s Knot, which is perhaps the most straightforward way to attach pieces of rope together using two adjoining overhand knots.

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