Why “Spin, Weave, and Cut?”
Invented to describe my creative practice (and give this site a name), S/W/C describes a kind of visual-verbal DJ’ing – a notion initially prompted after seeing the documentary “Scratch” in 2001(articulated in the virtual pages of thedetroiter.com here).
Spin = revolution and continuity;
Weave = intersect and integrate;
Cut = samples from which to juxtapose.
From the music DJs sample to the raw ingredients used by a chef to the very particles composing us, the new emerges from fragments of the existing reassembled and remixed in different configurations. Consider the way spiders weave webs and storytellers weave tales – or yarns – and Arachne’s fateful duel of threads with Athena. Whether in a double helix or two turntables or the warp and weft of a loom – creation is a recombinant process, splicing together and weaving into a new tapestry. I appropriated and remixed the name from the Three Fates of Greek mythology, these intertwined figures beyond the gods who spin, measure, and cut the threads of our lives. (This is taken up in part in “Threads: A Spinning Fable.”)
For some time now, I’ve wanted to have a visualization of these three words and what they represent. Thanks to my dad – award winning physics teacher, hall of fame tennis coach, and once every 10 years or so, creator of a spot on logo design – I now have one! He took the various threads I used to describe it and realized it through the use of a continuous line (until it’s cut!) that also references the spinning, weaving, and cutting of a basketball point guard. Thanks, dad!
A scan of my dad’s original sketch for the S/W/C logo design.