Step pattern - 2025 03 04

 

Pen and ink, ink wash on paper - 5 1/2" x 5 1/2"

The last time I worked with Celtic knots I was extricating myself from an abusive domestic situation. I was ending an eighteen year marriage to an emotionally abusive husband. I have been triggered by the current situation in the US and global geopolitics, especially Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s fight for sovereignty. Puzzling out the Celtic knot and step patterns helps me transcend a state of traumatic brain injury and shift my creative problem solving back into recovering the agency, autonomy and empowerment I possess.

The step pattern provides structure and infinite variation in expression. The basic structure of the step pattern is a grid subdivided by a pre-determined number. In the case of this drawing, I was experimenting with the grid subdivided into increments of five. This resulted in the step pattern based on five shapes.

In this drawing the grid has been laid out by hand. There is an organic variance in the tracing of the lines, my hand is not a machine. Similarly, tracing the shapes in the step pattern is also hand-drawn. The edges are not precisely equi-distant. Rather, the shape edges maintain a margin between the edge of the shape and the grid line. The shape emerges from the gridlines as determined by the mathematics of the step pattern. Each shape is similar to any other shape based on the same number, but no shape is exactly the same. Each shape has it’s own dimensions in relation to the grid that gave it dimension.

The colouring of the step pattern started with the pens I had on hand as I sat listening to music at an open mic evening. It happened that I had a collection of blue and violet pens. I started colouring the negative space around the step shapes with those pens. When I stepped back from the drawing, I realized I was symbolically drawing the colours of the resistance, the blue of Democratic values and the purple that indicates populations that are mixed between Democratic and right-wing values. I added shades of green to bring in the values of ecology and environmentalism. So the overall drawing is a space of inclusion to unify these different, but harmonious sets of values, worldviews that are not so distant as we might think. 

Ink washes were mixed across violet, prussian blue and sap green to tint the step shapes. The water in the ink wash dissolved some of the pen ink, creating blurred lines between the shapes and the ground and also across the colour spectrum. The washed out colours created new tints and shades across the pattern edges. I used the ink wash to surround the step pattern with a unifying field, a sense of belonging together within the space of these various degrees and intensity of values and worldview. I used a straw to blow out the puddles of ink wash in the border to send extensions of colour beyond the container, reaching out to the wider world.

This is a tiny drawing from a field notebook. It is easy to carry around with me or to put up on the wall. It is a combination of the chant of the rhythmic repetition of the step pattern and the abstract expression of the ink wash and colour scheme blurring lines and creating organic emergence across the structure.

I look at this drawing and my mind conjures meaning from its perturbation to my field of perception. I see all the good people on this planet right now striving to create a safe home for their children and a thriving community to sustain them. 

We are not alone. We are resourceful and resilient. We hold more in common than we might imagine. We can imagine a better world for the good of all concerned.