Puddle Knot, Ceiling Draft

Always starts with a heap. The studio floor after a night’s rain—cords slick, cloth curling at the edges, nothing clean or parallel. You know that hold, when a tarpaulin’s caught too much, starts to belly, threaten collapse? That’s the only true moment, right before someone punches a hole or tugs a corner and all that water finds another path. I wanted to let that spillover shape the work before the patch, before the drying, before rescue. Worked the knots with the fabric still wet, fingers slipping, stitches pulling in the wrong direction. Not to fix—just to see what holds when nothing’s finished. Dragged it off the wall this time, let it hang, sag, test itself where there’s no grid to lean on. Like those street tarps the workers drag sideways when the rain won’t quit—never pretty, but smarter than any blueprint. I think about how the city survives by this: spillover, patched gaps, catch and release. I never trust the wall entirely. Not since the ceiling leaked. Every bowl, every sag, is a parenthesis for what’s about to spill.