The Many Coney Islands of Her Mind

I've been working on this travelling case for the Dowager Marchylove, to hold graphic scores I made using stones from the original Coney Island, and sound poetry by the Dowager

Marchylove.

It'll be winging its way to New York soon, to the Grupat show in Chelsea Art Museum in April.

The most amusing (and embarrassing) part of this project was creating the paper for the outside of the box - an amalgamation of various diagrams of genitals and rectums from an ancient anatomy book. The woman in my local photocopy shop didn't blink an eye though, as I handed her the book and asked to photocopy all the lovely pictures.
I just ran away as fast as I could after paying...
I think the Dowager will enjoy her new travelling case though, and enjoy bringing it on her sound walks.
For more information on the Dowager,check out these photos of her performing with Tony Conrad, or her bio. Below is an excerpt from it:

The Dowager Marchylove erupted full-grown from the forehead of Archbishop Jack Fox in 1997, blossoming into the world like a gleaming ivory flower and bringing with her a bad, bad love for all the dirty sounds. She got her start taking naughty pictures and has since progressed to naughty sounds

Knit your own drugs

Ah, sure why not?
I decided to make a present for a friend who, similar to myself is on mind-blowing amounts of drugs for pain. (That's prescription drugs for all you hopefuls out there...)

So I thought I'd put up the pattern.
For one pill you need two colours of yarn, and suitable needle sizes. I used DK and chunky, with 3.75mm and 4mm dpns respectively.

Cast on 6 stitches.
Join to work in round as follows:
knit into the front and back of each stitch (12sts)
knit 8 rounds
Change colour and knit 8 rounds.
Stuff with some stuffing.
Knit 2 stitches together and repeat all the way round (6sts)
Cut 12" tail of yarn, thread through the remaining stitches and tie off.

I made a pile of them, and made them into a mobile. This will happily cheer up any friends in chronic pain you might know...

Crochet Coral Reef

There is still time to crochet up some corals to contribute to the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef coming to the Science Gallery next month.
Its going to be a massive collection of crocheted corals bringing together mathematics, feminism, and environmental issues.
The crochet coral came about as a model of hyperbolic space, and has grown and been exhibited all over the world.
You can make your own corals and send them in to the Science Gallery to add to the Irish Reef until the 7th of March.Toxic coral.

Even better, get out your plastic rubbish, make it into yarn and crochet with that. Toxic coral goes white because of pollutants, so there will be a toxic reef at the show. Click here for instructions on how to make yarn from plastic bags.

You can here a talk by Margaret Wertheim here. I went up last year to hear her talk and she is very inspiring. And here is the website for the Institute of Figuring, where you can find out much more about the project, and patterns.
I can't wait to see the Irish Reef!

Stone scores

The last couple of days I've been working on a piece for the Dowager Marchylove. Its a travelling case for musical scores from Coney Island. (Thats the original one of course, in Sligo.)

These are some of the graphic scores I've been making, mostly on stones, with some shells.

They will be going into a travelling case made from wood, and then making their way across the Atlantic to that better-known Coney Island, and on to the Chelsea Art Museum for a Grupat exhibition in April.