Plastic and Yarn

Today was an utterly dreary day: I woke up to a snowy landscape, 2 or 3 inches covering everything; pretty in December, not in mid-April. Not only that, it continued to snow lightly for a few hours and was so cold––the temperature stayed in the 30s––that the snow didn't retreat much during the day. I didn't have the heart to photograph the poor daffodils under snow, so instead here are images that I shot a couple of days ago.




On my daily walks, I pass an area in the woods that is crisscrossed with plastic tubing, going from tree to tree for sap collection. The lines are embodied light in a still-bare landscape, playing a kind of hide and seek through the woods. The way the tubing moves through space, defining it, making it more clear, reminded me of the work of Fred Sandback,

Fred Sandback, Untitled (Sculptural Study, Six-part construction), ca 1977, black acrylic yarn

Fred Sandback, Untitled (Eighteen-part Leaning Construction)[detail], 1988, white and yellow acrylic yarn

Sandback worked with the simplest of materials––acrylic yarn––to make us aware of volume, yet with no mass. Space is a poetic presence, an idea, quietly engaging our senses.

(The Sandback images are from the David Zwirner Gallery website, where you can see more of his work.)