Knots

To Clifford W. Ashley, author of the Book of Knots, “the simple act of tying a knot is an adventure in unlimited space.”* To work through knots is to exercise a puzzler’s mind. While some knots may be the best for a particular function, others may lack certain qualities to do a good job, and some are, in fact, impossible. There is a correct way to tie each knot. Ashley documents the good, better, and best knots for a function, but my interest is in this idea of a correct form, this “right-ness” and “wrong-ness.” I work through knots in their correct forms, model knots to present a joyful interpretation in a completely unfunctional state, and occasionally dare to create a knot that is subjectively wrong, considering ideas of rule-breaking and subjectivity.

*from Time, August 14, 1922