BREATHING MATTER
The term "matter" is a reminder of the physical as something that has weight and volume or a tangible presence. Thus, "matter" as distinct from mind and spirit, is a broad word that applies to anything perceived, or known to be occupying space. This creates an interesting dynamic with the connotation of "breathing" as a temporal, fleeting, ephemeral, intangible process. Additionally, the word "matter" reminds us of "material" as it is linked to fabric, textiles and threads or fibres. Uniting these two conceptions; "breathing" and "matter", brings to mind the materiality of breath and breathing as a medium in its own right.
The inwards-outwards passage of breath provides a symbolic reflection on weaving gestures, which also depend on constant rhythms and the entanglement of seemingly binary forces; the outwards giving horizontal weft and the inwards receiving vertical warp.
Like the primary brushstroke of a painting, the moment of inserting the first weft encompasses both unity and capacity for variation; the one and the many. The first thread, as the primordial breath, is drawn from an entangled bobbin of yarn
– separating itself from entwined chaos and weaving a new universe of interlacing threads. Filled with metamorphic and transformative potential, it is as if each length of thread is a breathing exhale filled with metamorphic and transformative potential.
Thus, weaving is not similair to breathing. Weaving is breathing.
This notion manifests itself in vague verticals attempting to transmit the construction of a weaving, horizontal traces which suggest the active weaving weft, or curving and swaying undulations refusing to settle as neither vertical nor horizontal yet not immune to gravity’s pull. At times the weft is absent which exposes the warp threads to ethereal domains of shifting atmospheres or movements. In their vulnerability and susceptibility, threads are given the space to become or to even be undone – obscuring the boundary between beginning and ending.
