Text: Knotted Thinking

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.

Thinking about knots over recent weeks has led me to read into their origins, links to mathematics and to their various uses in outdoor pursuits, but it’s been the aesthetic forms, woven ropes and the beautifully descriptive names that have interested me most.

The Fisherman’s Knot is also known as the English, Halibut or the Waterman’s Knot. There is the Albright, the Alpine Butterfly Bend, the Ashley Bend, the Blood Knot, the Carrick Bend, the Figure Eight Bend, the Flat Overhand Bend, the Hunter’s Bend, the Quick Hitch, the Sheet Bend, the Slim Beauty, the Square Knot, the Surgeon’s Join, the Water Knot and the beautiful Zeppelin Bend and these are just the common ways to secure two pieces of rope or webbing together, ignoring completely the vast array of knots able to be tied with a single line.

There was something mesmerising about the forms of these knots, these methods of joining lengths of rope that kept me looking at diagrams and test-tying them with rough nylon coils. Likewise, the terminology associated with tying them fascinated me; a verb list, instructing makers to link and to weave.

To strap, to thread, to join, to interlock, and to extend. The words point toward a careful organisation of the working lines; preparing them to be tight and secure.

I’ve also been thinking about the phrase ‘touching distance’ a lot, for this project of course, but equally because of the fluctuating, difficult, anxiety-inducing times that we live in. The phrase was part of the work I was beginning to make prior to lockdowns at the very start of 2020, but given the changed and changing world that we find ourselves in, there is more to it now. I realise it’s maybe a slight stretch, but for me there is a parallel between knot tying and our experiences of lockdowns.

Scanning from one figure image of tying instruction to the next, the lines of rope overlap as the knots are formed. The size of the loops diminishes at the final stage, when specific lengths are pulled taught. At this moment when the knots are tightened, bights and bends, crossing points and elbows are no longer separate but they begin to intertwine and touch. The knot formed, it’s as if each part is close and related to every other part; rope touching rope, touching rope. Holding fast.

An embrace.

Like most people, I miss loved ones. Along with countless other people, I’ve found my connections with friends and family changed. The essence of my connection remains; we communicate digitally and our lives are still woven together in various ways. But, following guidelines and restrictions, medical and scientific evidence, like everyone else, we are paused on the second-to-last diagram.

The lengths of cord are not yet pulled, the restrictions remain; there is no security, no tight embrace. As I write, in December 2020, this is true, but there may be an end in sight and the possibility of linking and weaving with one another again may be almost within touching distance.