“one has to teach the skill of reading even to those who are no longer illiterate”
“uncultured readers… with a vague knowledge that there is something else here, and enjoying the text like someone eavesdropping at a half-open door, glimpsing only hints of a promising epiphany.”
Umberto Eco, on literature, pages 171 and 219.
Some days I have the confronting feeling that I’m a beginner in something I’ve practiced daily for almost six decades. Then I tell myself to stop being maudlin and self-indulgent, and just get on with it.
- Reading light and shadow
- That Dreadful Man
- Morning List

In my last post (7-Jan-2020) I tried to link books and authors with fabric swatches. That was step one in an experiment.
The previous data viz experiments were generally useful, giving me space and time to think, seeing from different angles, generating some surprises… I decided to look at where I was spending time reading, and to search for rhythms and flows in the mix of reading. Keep mine-ing the existing tool set and stash. The brief developed:
* Start recording time spent reading.
* Repeat the scarf form. This time with weaving.
* Begin simple, with options to elaborate as the process continues. So plain weave. I put a 2 metre warp of black cottolin on the 4-shaft table loom, a straight threading.
The result is a record of four weeks of reading – 30 November to 27 December. Information encoded:
* Length of weaving is proportional to length of reading. Four centimetres = One hour.
* Beginning of day is marked by 5 picks in cotton – white on Sunday, then darkening greys reaching black on Saturday.
* Indicate book by weft – torn fabric strips.
* Most reading was done in my workroom. If outside the house, a supplementary fine coppery weft was added (“sunshine”). If bedtime reading, a supplementary weft of silvery white was used (for the moon).
* When a book or essay was finished (not many were), mark by 5 picks in red cotton.

Detail – Wednesday 18 December 2019
In the morning I read Umberto Eco for 45 minutes. John Berger accompanied me on the bus, and in a cafe waiting for CPR training – a total of 50 minutes and a glint of sunshine. At that time I was reading Jane Hirshfield before sleep – hence the loops of white rayon. I wasn’t taking in much, just trying to find the flow, to get an overall sense, hoping to learn enough to be able to read it again with more understanding. Thirty more minutes, and a total of 8.3 cm.
Classic uses of a data visualisation are discovery (learn something new) and storytelling (communicate ideas). I can’t claim either here. Using standard viz software I would have waited to collect all the data before even starting, then probably run a variety of statistical analyses, experimented with multiple chart types, maybe colour themes and scales, transformations, brought in other data sets for context or comparison… There’s the faintest hint of this in the fringes.
By amazing chance, the number of warp ends was precisely four times the number of days woven. So each piece of fringe is one day. The fringing shown above records the total amount of time recorded reading each day (range from 0.67 to 2.75 hours). At the other end of the scarf the number of books read is shown – from 1 to 4 each day. Note the same information is already encoded in the weaving. This is simply a different chart type.

reading scarf sculpture
So perhaps wearable sculpture.
Wow, this, and the linked posts, was/were a wonderful post, kicking me into a more positive 2020 making mode. I might even try note-taking again, even if I seldom go back to them. I look forward to another year of inspiration and enlightenment from you.
Hi Meg. I’m glad to think this sharing is helpful to others.
I find just the physical act of making notes useful – and for me it has to be physical, on paper. I’m now playing with some ideas about how to make the notes more useful long term. Possibly a post coming soon, if it works out.
Very best wishes for a positive, productive and joyful 2020.
WordPress has eaten my comment on the next post, once again as it has done for a few years now, a comment I was going to print out and ponder further. Perhaps it was too long. 😀 Suffice it to say, typing is one way I think “out loud” and in more or less linear way. Once again a fascinating read, Judy. Now I must jot down some of the ideas I had minutes ago.
Hmm… I wanted to comment on your second comment Meg, but can’t persuade wordpress to put it beneath. Very apt, as the comment was around how useful technology is, until the moment it leaves us in the lurch.