Crossing the line
Monday, January 3, 2011 at 02:55PM 
Last night I finished the second 9" by 12" piece in my Kandisky series of 6 (Hooking Point and Line to Plane). The second piece is called Crossing the Line and it is hooked using Red Jack Palette Wools: Bittersweet Red 162; Riv 'n Dale 165; and Nymph Green 155. The background is hooked using my pebbling technique.
My inspiration was Kandinsky's chapter "Line" which understands the line to be the product of a point moving through space. It is the product of movement, a point that has leapt out of its static state into a dynamic moment. The type of line that is produced will depend on forces acting on the point.
The straight line, then, is the movement of the point on its course to infinity. It represents endless movement in a direction, whether it be horizonal, vertical, or diagonal. Horizonal movement represents flatness and coldness. Vertical represents height and warmness. The diagonal represents a combination of these, being both cold and warm in its temperature.
The movement of the lines I have hooked in Crossing the Line represent a collection of free straight lines in an acentric composition (that is: there is no common center where the lines all meet). As such it carries within it advancing and retreating lines so that the collection is tense. The lines have a loose affiliation with the plane behind it, piercing the plane rather than fusing with it. According to Kandisky, "These lines are farthest removed from the point, which claws itself into the plane, since they especially have abandoned the element of rest" (Point and Line to Plane, p. 62).