abacus
Abacus is a reflection on the first twelve months of the Pandemic. Twelve rows and twelve columns, each element a marker on a timeline that felt like it had no end. Starting in March 2020, daily drawings of knitting unraveling is how I memorialized the movement of time, some with exact dates or notes on the backs to remember where I was or what was happening [“7/17/2020 desk / Tonka on knitting”]. The focused space and isolation through the pandemic had me thinking on how time moves so differently to each of us, and that experience of time is continually changing, even though in those moments each day felt like an exact repetition of the last. This formation is a follow up to a previous installation titled Unravel, about how we often have to take things apart to put them back together. Abacus is also made from discarded elements of previous artworks and installations. Details drawn over and over—similar to how knitting involves patterns of the same stitch—are woven together again to take on new life.