Published By The London Review Of Books, 8 November 2012

Published by the London Review of Books, 8 November 2012

In Anne Carson’s six translations of Ibykos, the mode of fidelity to the source text varies not according to the closeness of cross-lingual synonyms but according to the spirit of the translation. It is an extreme example of a translator bringing herself and her own ideas into a text, and also an effective one—if her goal is not to replicate Ibykos but to play with his work.

(cp. 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei [Eliot Weinberger, Octavio Paz]; Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird [Wallace Stevens])

But yet it seems to me that translating from one tongue into another, unless it be from those queens of tongues, Greek and Latin, is like viewing Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although you see the pictures, they are covered with threads that obscure them so that the smoothness and the gloss of the fabric are lost.

Don Quixote, Part 2: (trans Water Starkie)

Oh, but Don Quixote, did no one teach you to marvel at the back of those tapestries, and see them as their own piece of art?

Another really cool art-writing-translation project.

And this is the point where I have to accept that I need to write out the next page of pattern. (The orange T is theta, the dark red T is Tau).

Differences achieved by slipping knitwise/purlwise for an SSK decrease, for anyone who has ever wondered. Top left is traditional SSK - both stitches slipped knitwise. Top right is SSK with both stitches slipped purlwise. Bottom left is first stitch slipped purlwise and second slipped knitwise. Bottom right is first stitch slipped knitwise and second slipped purlwise. You can see that the traditional SSK gives the smoothest line. But that might not always be the best style for a pattern. If you're working something that emphasises corners and angles, try one of the other three. SSK with knitwise then purlwise completely hides the second stitch being decreased so it gives a simple step pattern in the decrease. The other two allow a leg of the second stitch to show through so could work with designs where you want to emphasise complexity or a 2-1 rib design, etc.

These are works in progress of a fellow artist and classicist, Sam. I love her work. My own work seeks to obscure the original classical texts to leave only an aesthetic object, it overlays the original text with the stories of it's translation and reception. Sam's work inhabits the text, blurs the boundary between narrator, translator, artist, and character, and brings a sense of grim reality to the myths. What could Philomel say to Procne to tell her what had happened? How she felt? Sam's work gives a voice to these largely silent women who have been abused both by the narrative, and by society's treatment of their narrative. These fictional women, who represent the stories of so many real women, and their ignored lives. tl;dr: this is all kinds of awesome.