Here is my first finished little cloud. It's as big as two small balls of crochet cotton will yield, about 17x12cm. It casts lovely lacy shadows and spins in the breeze. I'm very pleased and want to make more.
I've started another cloud which I intend to be bigger, and more dispersed than this small ash cloud. I crocheted the first sphere while listening to a fascinating talk by Andy Lowe at the Waikato Museum about his experiences of installing Michael Parekowhai's incredible bronze sculptures at the Venice Bienale .
Micheal's huge bronzes weigh tonnes, literally. There was a piquant contrast between hearing about his heavy bulls and grand pianos being hoisted out of the Grand Canal and into the Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore versus the airy, almost weightless little cloud bubble taking shape in my hands as I listened. Of course packing, transporting and installing such crushable delicate pieces will bring their own technical challenges where ever they end up being shown, but I doubt block and tackle will be needed.
2 comments:
Before I read the post, my first thought was that the top image was computer-generated: I have a friend who creates artworks from mathematical functions that generate fractals, which she represents graphically and then sometimes amends and/or combines, and this ash-cloud image looks very much as though it could have started from one of those functions.
I hope you won't feel insulted by such a comparison; I prefer to think of it as a sign of the close relationship between the phenomenal world and the mathematics that underpins it.
Not insulted at all! Crochet has proved uniquely valuable for mathematic modelling that can otherwise only be done by computers (see the hyperbolic crochet institutes work).
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