Getting close to lift off

I am knitting a small cowl from a pattern and from handspun yarn.  And I realize clearly that it would not fit into my "non"definition of an art project for "Suzie's 52".  I'm following a pattern, however loosely.  I'm not making up stuff.  I guess this is a craft.  I ran out of yarn, about 9/10ths of the way through.  I have been thinking about how I will finish.

Since the yard is hand spun, from a batt purchased from an independent vendor several years ago, it is not duplicatable.  The batt was made by the vendor's grandchildren, who were given leave to create some batts by tossing whatever they liked into the drum carder.  It wasn't even labeled with the fiber contents, exactly.  Oh it might have said "wool, angelina" or some such, but no proportions, no measurements, no records.  No duplication possible.

This batt is art.

The handspinning was one of my very earliest attempts.  I can even see where in the single I began to get better.  I believe I plied it back on itself, so that the very beginning was plied with the very end, and the middler parts with other middle parts.  This handspun is not art.  Just like the drawing that children do before they have learned to control their finger motions is not art (usually).

Handspinner's first attempts are often likened to "art yarn".  And we are often told that once we get better we will not be able to reproduce our first feeble attempts.  Some spinner's dislike calling beginner's yarn art yarn, and I agree with this point of view.  My father saved some of my early drawings and some of my first postcards home.  I cannot really draw or write that way any longer.  I write more easily now that I did in first and second grade. I write more clearly, more neatly, more controlled.  I hope that I will continue to improve in my spinning as I have in my penmanship.

Some art, often called primitive, attempts to mimic this early handwriting style, or the picture-making ability of a six-year old.  If you are trying to get that "primitive" or "first grader" look, and you have an idea in mind, an image you want to preserve, a message you want to publicize, an intent that this look will convey, then go for it.  But your very deliberateness, your skill, your craft, your knowledge, removes this from the "beginner" category and into the art category.

Hopefully, you will no longer have someone say about your picture of your dog, Spot, "Nice picture of a cow you have there."  Hopefully, as an artist, people will not have to be primed to say "Tell me about your picture" lest they insult you by mistaking a dog for a cow, or visa versa.

So I have not yet defined "art" for my 52, but I do think I know what it is when I see it.  And I know what I like when I see it, and what I consider just dumb.

Stay tuned, and hopefully, you will know what you like when you see it too.