kthread » spider

after the morning rain

Kristen Taylor — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:30:24 +0000

As we corner in on a long weekend, the rains have increased to their usual frequency for this time of year, bringing out spiders,

and reviving plants I watched wilting earlier in the week.

Here’s to a few days framed with sun, as we turn toward restorative summer—

b is for bokeh

Kristen Taylor — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:15:02 +0000

Why are there so very many spider webs on kthread?

This is how my day begins—with morning webs draped across cacti like necklaces tossed off by flappers, the many strands tangled after a night’s revelry (certainly explains the dew),

or hovering like white noise,

catching stray new light as though a cornet,

and often working from underneath, the spiders tool coded strands,

attentive only to the attached lines, while I am easily distracted by the circular and hexagonal bokeh that imprint the air like softened measures from celestas…

examining life

Kristen Taylor — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:45:49 +0000

Last night, I watched eight philosphers riff on meaning in the film Examined Life playing at the Miami Beach Cinematheque on Espanola Way. Likely I’ll frequent this ongoing film festival and the crêpe place next door, where my fabulous friend Dianna and I discussed the film, and deliberations, community spaces, and the transient realities of Miami.

This morning, I woke hoping to find the purple, diaphanous dress of my dreams (where is that sewing machine?) in the closet to match these Janus-like water hyacinths that bloom in the ponds around the magic cottage in April and August.

Last year, I compared these to a data visualization using the Many Eyes tool; this year, upon closer examination, even the stems seem to sparkle—stunning the closer you lean in (see the larger version here).

From one stem, the petals face in many directions (Janus was the god of doors and beginnings) like the stance scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah takes in the film and his work that the cosmopolitan citizen understands multiple ideologies and ways of sorting the world as equally valid.

And in our continuing coverage of spider web season, here’s a new web for your Saturday—

silvery spinnings

Kristen Taylor — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:10:44 +0000

I woke this morning to find a wonderful comment from Steven on Wednesday’s spider web post (he ponders about webs and diffraction in a post on his blog), and somehow I found my camera in my hand this afternoon to find dreamy blurs behind new webs—

peering closer in at the yellow markings on the spinner, who looks to be starting with a single circular area, I wondered if all webs begin as circles…

Nearby, another elegant spinner flashed with silver precision in the sun, and I blinked, trying to decipher what was spun and what was spinning, a point of reflection for the weekend ahead and the patterns I hope to weave…

p.s. these are even better in larger detail; click the image to go to the Flickr page for each—

the fastening points

Kristen Taylor — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:59:20 +0000

I looked out the kitchen window this morning, put my hand on the sill to steady myself. My heart beat quickly as I slipped silently outside, moving shyly.

The sun lit the strands stretching to anchor the webs—I have begun looking for the fastening points, the fancy work at the edges,

the taut lines apart from a web proper.

Against the deep blue, the whole web starts to shimmer and tries on one color after another,

and small, new points dot the inner, the outer, and above on this day celebrating the Earth…

still seeking bokeh

Kristen Taylor — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:40:31 +0000

“How did you get into photography?” Jessica asked this weekend while we were exploring South Florida’s curious culinary landmarks.

I bought a camera on eBay, I told her, opened the box, attached the lens, and went outside. The first thing I saw was a spider’s web, and I developed that first image of the first roll in a dark room later that week as part of a photography workshop.

Soon after, kthread was born, in May of 2004 (I started blogging later, so we celebrate those anniversaries in January). That first spider image became the background of the first kthread, a conceptual Flash site where a spider figures heavily in the navigation. More details on kthread design and cyberfeminism in the colophon.

Another spider hovers in the current header image of this blog, and the universe continues to place webs in my path.

With so much still to learn about photography, I’ve found webs difficult to capture (perhaps it’s the challenge I enjoy so)—the strands are too slender for the camera’s viewfinder, and it all dissolves into a beautiful blur.

(Read the rest after the jump.)

Late afternoon sun often throws webs into focus, though, and Ziggy-zaggy (yes, that should explain my profile image and Halloween costume) patterns dazzle while the spider continues her work, climbing up to patch a section,

back down to command the center of her strung architecture.

Behind and beyond the web, I now attempt to make the background into colored bokeh circles (swimming to the right in the image below).

Even from the side, as I stealthily draw closer to a still and silent web,

it begins to dance, gifting light,

industriously sending vibrating lines of work down, up, and out—