Philip Edward Harding

Rope Work

In 2020, while the world was in lockdown, I built a simple rope making machine and began twisting yarn into rope. I have written several versions of an artist's statement, some of which can be read on a dedicated page so I won't repeat it all here. What I should mention here is that from each rope I made I set aside a four foot long piece for this project. In early 2022 I took them, sorted them roughly by color, and mounted them, or most of them, on the 14 stretched canvas panels shown above and below. I see this set of panels as a single work of 14 panels that can be exhibited in any number of ways. I have since made a few additional stand alone panels using many of the same ropes, including a taller version of the yellow ropes, another set of pastel ropes and a triptych of three 36x48” panels with 183 different blue ropes, but for now I want to keep this set of panels together. In 2022 I exhibited them in the entrance hall of my local library. (See images here). I am currently hoping to find a nice place that can host them on a long term loan, at least until I can find someone interested in buying the set.
Title: Blue Ropes Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Brown Ropes, Autumn colors Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Dark Blue Ropes Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Gray Ropes, Mover's Blanket Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022 Note: I started taking bright colors and covering them over with layers of gray. They remind me of mover's blankets, those thick pads made of recycled fibers that are often gray with random bits of brightly colored fibers throughout.		Detail
Title: Green Ropes, The Forest Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 27.75" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Mixed blues Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Orange-Brown Ropes Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 28.75" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Pastel Ropes, Barbie's World Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Purple Ropes Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Black Ropes, Neon Lights Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 19.75" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Red Ropes, Valentine Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Violet Ropes Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Thin Pastel Ropes Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Title: Yellow Ropes, Sunshine Media: Mixed fiber ropes mounted on stretched canvas Size: 49 x 30" Date: 2022		Detail
Rope Work The following is a series of thoughts on the project that had been printed on a set of eight cards and exhibited with the above panels. 1. The seeds of this project was a tangle of yarn remnants I found in a box several decades ago. After teasing the strands apart I twisted them up by hand into a set of nine cords. I liked the results so much that I began buying up bags of yarn at yard and rummage sales with the intention of making more ropes and cords. These bags then sat on the metaphorical back burner until Covid-19 shut everything down. While sheltering in place I unpacked and sorted the yarn, built a rope making machine and began spinning the yarn into rope until I had so many I had to make something new out of them. 2. The whole time I’ve been making ropes I’ve been unsure if I was making hundreds of small projects, working towards one large project, or would make something in between. Although I find them aesthetically satisfying as individual items I don’t think there is much of a market for beautiful ropes. There is no tradition of beautiful ropes the way there is a tradition of beautiful rugs or blankets. Mounting them on panels is one of several ways I’ve been working with them. I’ve also been creating large curtains of hanging ropes that can divide a room or cover a wall like a tapestry. I’m also exploring the idea of installation projects, creating an environment shaped by ropes. 3. While I’ve been driven largely by the aesthetics of how they look and feel, I’ve also been thinking about their meaning as works of art. The process itself, spinning fibers into rope, feels metaphoric of my spinning mind. In recent years my mind has been spinning over problems ranging from the personal to the global. The scale of problems we all face are immense yet it feels like all I can do is shelter in place, spinning and feeling powerless to do anything. I think making ropes taps into an unconscious need to make connections, to tie things down as it were. And the great variety of ropes seems to resonate with my ideas about diversity, be that cultural, racial or environmental. 4. In ancient Greece and Rome the ideal wife stayed home spinning and weaving while her husband went out conducting business, participating in politics and going off to war. (Think of Penelope weaving while waiting for Odysseus to return from the Trojan War in Homer’s Odyssey.) In one sense spinning and weaving seem like activities of the powerless. But in another sense they are comforting and nurturing arts. They are the arts of domestic industry, of intimacy and the home. Fiber arts clothe the family and cover the walls and furnishings to enrich and insulate the home. 5. I remember learning about the Arts and Crafts Movement at the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. There was a desire to maintain traditions of fine craft in the face of the industrial revolution. Industrial production has a tendency to strip away the art and reduce people to laborers executing the designs of others. My rope making machine lends a sense of industry and manufacturing to my practice but I’ve tried to maintain a sense of fine craft. Every rope is a unique blend of fibers selected for how they look and feel. I’m convinced that anything that can be manufactured can be made with a degree of fine craft and creativity. 6. I am faced with a disconnect between the beauty of my ropes and their potential use. A rope is a tool. It’s meaning, it’s reason for being, is in what can be done with it. A rope can secure, or bind, or pull something to us. A rope can be part of something but it is not generally a thing to be regarded aesthetically in itself. To make a rope beautiful is unexpected and feels a little pointless in a way that an equally beautiful and impractical drawing or painting does not. I have used some around the house as holiday garlands, and imagine how they could be used as elements in a fashionable ensemble but I am mostly drawn to them as things in themselves, as aesthetic objects of art that have value in their own right, whatever use may be made of them. 7. Making a series of unique ropes feels like an affirmation of diversity in the face of monotony and conformity. Industrial agriculture turns complex ecosystems like tropical rain forests into mono culture cash crops. Old growth forests in the west are cut down and replaced with farms of identical trees. But where complex ecosystems are resilient, and full of complex and varied life, mono cultures must be propped up with petrochemicals to keep the pests, and the diversity, out of the system. Even in our complex society diversity is often met with fear and violence. Making a diversity of ropes feels like an affirmation of diversity. The twisted fibers are like strands of DNA from an infinite variety of individual lives and life forms, valuable in themselves, not because they are useful. 8. While I am delighted by the beauty of individual ropes I’m not sure what to do with them. I don’t “need” a beautiful rope. I also love them collectively but I’m not sure what all to do with them that way either. One idea is an installation project that would take the form of a hanging forest of ropes. The diversity of ropes makes me think of the diversity of a natural ecosystem like a rain forest. For now I keep making them because it is a pleasure. I experience a sense of surprise and discovery after an hour or two of blending and winding up culminates in the final winding down that reveals the finished rope. I would like to keep making them even if they have no practical reason for being other than how they look and feel.

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