Going out in February 2025

Winter can be rough, but I always find a peaceful balance that I don't find in the summer. Cold temperatures bring snow, and snow means a ton of special and limited activities become practicable, such as skiing, driving in the snow, and... shovelling? If you've ever driven in fresh snow, you'll know about that smooth, silent glide that I find so peaceful. I guess just as peaceful as gliding downhill on skis. I don't expect anyone to like shovelling, but it takes me out and helps me blow some steam.

This winter I got to do exactly none of this. I was kept indoor with some extra bone fragments in my ankle. I got to experience the short winter days indoors, unable to balance the suffocating indoor air with the chill winter weather.

Around February, my family campaigned to take me out to the National Gallery of Canada, at the time showing Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction. I was happy just to go out, despite the perils of walking with crutches on ice – these things get very slippery on smooth floors. At the museum, I was about to be reminded how textiles and generative art have many affinities in themes and fabrication.

Anni Albers' study for Six Prayers plays with the concept of weaving and meandering. The final work is displayed in a group of six, as far as I can tell, but alone, the meanderings and the weaving technique becomes the main focus. The randomness of the threads evoke either meandering paths or random walkers, each thread deciding to step in front or disappear under another.

More colourful, Olga de Amaral's Cintas entrelazadas reminded me of those Sankey diagrams, maybe. Each piece of textile connecting to the next one, weaving and trickling down. I really dig this diagramming and data visualization aesthetic. Something about designing and inventing random algorithms for data-visualization evokes the massive data collection done by large corporations.

Marilou Schultz's Replica of a chip, just like generative art, show the impact of the computer on the arts. It seems like weaving as a technique shares quite a bit with computer assisted fabrication. The rigid grid imposed by the medium is not dissimilar to a CNC machine carving out material in rows, or a 3D printer depositing one layer of plastic at a time. Also not dissimilar to writing lines of code to generate patterns.

A large textile wall hanging made from white, black and silver threads. Threads weave in and out creating a random pattern of meandering threads.
Anni Albers. Study for Six Prayers II. 1969. Mixed fibres, metallic and cotton thread.
A large textile wall hanging made from colourful bands of fabric. The bands are woven and twisted together to create a twisted pattern.
Olga de Amaral. Cintas entrelazadas. 1976. Wool and cotton.
Colourful weaving pattern representing a computer chip. The pattern uses natiral coloured threads.
Marilou Schultz. Replica of a chip. 1994. Wool.

Gego's paper weavings such as Tejedura 91/10 also generate some very intricate patterns. Its unclear how much control the artist has through this weaving process. Abandoning total control, just like with generative art, can create compositions that are impossible to predict or precisely influence. I'm not sure why I enjoy this lack of control, but I assume it has to do with how I cope with stress and pressures in my life.

Ruth Asawa's BMC Laundry stamps were a bit of a revelation to me and my pen plotter. I've begun to wonder how I might attach a stamp in place of the servo pen holder.

A sheet filled with an organic grid of laundry stamps in black ink.
Rith Asawa. Untitled (BMC Laundry Stamp). 1948. Ink on paper.
A weaving mad of thin strips of purble, orange and white paper.
Gego. Tejedura 91/10. 1991. Paper and mat board.

I'm over all very grateful for my family to have dragged me out. I'm not sure I would've discovered these artists and artworks otherwise. I'm already looking forward to referencing some of these in future generative projetcs.