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Germaine Koh is one of my favourite installation artists – not that I’m familiar with many installation artists, but I find her work particularly interesting and, well, germane. She is currently part of the How Soon Is Now show at the Vancouver Art Gallery, but I wanted to mention one of her older pieces called Knitwork.
Fascinating! – especially fascinating was my gut reaction of what a waste. Imagine spending years knitting something that no one will ever wear. On the other hand, imagine the meditative benefits of knitting for years without the pressure of ever completing the thing.
She says the piece is about contrasting productive labour and mundane activity, but I can’t help expand that to be a juxtaposition of art and craft. I hate that we distinguish between art and craft, probably because I’ve had one too many people give me that strange pitying look when they find out I knit. Product vs process, hobby vs career, art vs craft…why do we have so many words that polarize these two concepts?
Last weekend I slipped out to Fibres West and tried to restrict my purchases to local vendors and products. I returned with some softer-than-alpaca llama fibre from Wishing Hills Farm and a merino/angora blend from Prince George. I have big ideas for the llama, so stay tuned…
And, my little piglets, so you don’t get bored of this post without any pictures to look at, I thought I would pass on this funny video that’s been going around the interwebs for a few weeks. Now that’s art.
For Christmas, I received a 4oz braid of handpainted bfl. Unfortunately, I’ve since lost the tag so I can’t give credit to the maker.
I finally got around to spinning it up last week and was unsure how I felt about the stripiness. The idea was to knit a baby vest because I didn’t think there would be enough for a whole sweater, and I was worried that the bfl wouldn’t be soft enough. In a burst of energy, I plied, washed, wound, and started knitting with the resulting yarn:
bfl river
Well, I’m still not sure what to make of the candy-striped yarn which has translated into more normal stripes in the vest. But I can report that it’s nice and soft. After all, nobody wants an itchy, cranky baby.
baby vest
finished silk & merino
Finally…the silk and merino has been spun, plied, and washed. I can’t help but ask myself why did I do that? Here are the stats:
- 50/50 silk & merino, carded by moi. Why? Because I wanted to try. +1.5 hours.
- 3 ply. Why? Because I wanted to try. +30% more time.
- sportweight/fingering weight. Why? Because it was for a dear friend…but even though I got the weight right, I was way short on the yardage. +many hours.
Therefore, a series of lessons learned. The yarn is beautiful but just didn’t cut it for Karin’s project. I’ll probably dye it to continue the epic but I won’t be making more 3 ply laceweight anytime soon…
**Update: the yarn will have a home after all, instead of being orphaned to my yarn basket. Karin decided to do the baby cardigan in blue and white stripes!
last minute drying
