Learning Shoestrings

2022​​

Learning to tie shoestrings is a milestone in each of our lives, with success remembered into adulthood.

 

As a kid, you get to explore the whole interesting magic of this “string” stuff, the way it flexes, curves, and suddenly becomes a knot, or a tangle. Your fingers learn planning, dexterity, and sequential patterns. When you finally get the skill, it feels like you suddenly grew up a bit. Exultation! Who could forget?

 

This sculpture reaches for some of the memories of exploring shoestrings. Making loops and twists toward a goal, each end of the shoestring is doing something different. A tied shoestring suggests symmetry, but the two string ends have done very different things in becoming the prized knot.

 

The piece is thus intentionally asymmetric. The movement of one string end affects the movement of the other, trading momentum through complex but different rotations. The aglets on the string ends trace out their unique paths, while sharing a paired dance.

 

As adults, what new learning experience can we each find to match that early, magical learning moment?