Silken Twine
A Spliced Connector Group exhibition at Artsy.net.
Curated by Linda Tharp
From the curatorial statement:
Joy & Woe are woven fine,
A Clothing for the Soul divine;
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
-William Blake, from “Auguries of Innocence”
Twine is made of two strands, twisted in opposite directions and then twisted together to create a strong cord. Each separate strand is an extended helix, one turning left and the other right, which are then bound together by being wound together. The word twine itself evokes both twinned and twain: two together, but also two inalterably split.
In Blake’s verse, two extremes of human experience – joy and sorrow – are bound together in a weaving of such fineness and lightness as to create a fabric to clothe the soul. This paradox evokes the inextricable bond between love and loss, presence and absence, joy and woe. Grief is the stationary warp of the fabric, and joy the mobile, silken weft. Love carries with it the prospect of loss, longing attaches to a glimmer of joy.
Find the full statement here.
