After this year’s Beyond The Fringe show I wasn’t sure where to put Pearl. Thankfully Floyd offered to put her in his Des Montes Art Gallery.
It’s very exciting to have an art piece in a gallery!
Here’s part of a mural Floyd painted on the front of the gallery.
Somehow I forgot to blog about this news and it’s pretty exciting. Last year I was asked to submit a photo of my Green Man to Chokecherries.
“The SOMOS Annual anthology is a compilation of the writers, storytellers and local artists who have performed and shared their artistic talent over the previous years. Featured contributors have included such notables as Robert Bly, Martin Prechtel, Erin Bad Hand, Rudolfo Anaya, Mirabai Starr, Larry Bell, and Charles Strong, Natalie Goldberg, Mike Farrell, and Sean Murphy.”
I was thrilled to be included in the 2009 edition!
Abbey and I are collaborating with our friend Floyd. He’s a local artist and owner of Des Montes Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden (Facebook link).
Floyd creates large wire sculptures out of recycled materials. He made this lifesize ram.
Sieben is helping show the size. He’s also trying to lick the horns.
Floyd uses rebar to build the frame of his sculptures and then wraps them in recycled wire from farms. He often puts a skull inside the sculpture. Thus the ram has a ram skull. We’re going to leave the horns exposed.
A close up of the bottom and tail:
Abbey and I are going to knit and crochet all over it. We plan to debut this piece at this year’s Taos Wool Festival.
The Portal is a fiber art piece about transformation. The dimensions are H 39″ L 30 1/2″ D 1 1/2″.
The majority of the piece is neddle felted though the inner part of the waterfall is crocheted yarn handsewn down. I handspun several yarns for this piece. Glass beads are embroidered throughout.
The figure is entering the portal. Where is she going? To another dimension? Another reality? Is she dying and going back into The Void? The answer is purposely left vague so the viewer will decide. I left her nude because I feel if someone is going through a spiritual portal she leaves her clothes behind.
Clear beads coming out of the opening represent the magic in the Portal. But colorful beads are sewn on the ground and the cavern behind the waterfall showing us that there is magic in this reality as well.
I should address the vagina issue. Everyone who commented on The Portal told me it looked like a vagina. And I mean everyone. At first I thought it a fluke but then the feedback was so consistent that I had to look at the piece afresh. I never intended it to be a giant vagina though I can see what people mean.
To me the figure is going back into The Void and into the Goddess so I suppose the vagina inference is apt.
This piece is based on the El Salto waterfall in Taos. I blogged about the magical experience here.
The frame was custom made by a local woodworker. I love how his work compliments the piece.
I gave this piece to my friend Helen since she’s the one who brought me to the ice waterfall.
Just One More Row is made entirely with recycled materials. Essentially it is a Bucky fourth generation skeleton covered in knitting from recycled sweaters.
The skeleton is 5’6″ and is anatomically correct. This is the model that medical students learn anatomy on. If the skeleton comes out of the factory flawed they are sold as seconds. The fourth generation model is technically the lowest quality but is perfect for Halloween decoration or, as in my case, artwork.
Pearl, the skeleton, is knitting a DNA scarf. The scarf is unfinished and the yarn is coming from her tailbone.
This represents a paradox-does our DNA create our destiny or does our destiny create our DNA and who we are?
At the same time the piece is whimsical; it is a full size knitted skeleton after all. The piece captures both the seriousness and silliness of life. The title of Just One More Row captures this whimsy; it is a phrase often said by knitters to stall for a few more minutes of craft time.
The random stripes in the knit fabric echo the DNA pattern in the scarf.
A photo of me with my creation:
Just One More Row was featured in this year’s Beyond The Fringe art show.
I drove my art to the gallery this morning. What’s that in my car?
My knit skeleton! The best way to transport her was riding up front up in the passenger seat. (The Portal was in the back.)
As I was loading her into the car I decided to name her Pearl. I’m quite amused by the pun and by the sight of a knit skeleton in a car seat with a seatbelt.
The reception is tomorrow night! More pictures soon!
I’ve finished knitting on the skeleton and today was the day to reassemble it. The head went back on first.
The hip bones and leg joints were a bit tricky but they’re back together. The arms attached easily.
The skeleton is knitting a DNA scarf. I found a free DNA pattern online but it was complex. Or maybe it was my dyslexia. I followed the pattern but it in no way resembled DNA. I was perplexed and stuck. Abbey volunteered to knit it for me. What a true friend!
Since my Bucky skeleton is a forth generation model it has some imperfections. For the most part this is ok because it doesn’t have to be perfect. But I ran into some problems with the rib cage. Some of the ribs were fused together in spots. To fix this I grabbed a keyhole saw and starting sawing them apart.
It was a little nerve wracking doing this. What if one of the ribs broke-how would I fix it? Thankfully the ribs survived.
The upper left corner you can see where I sawed the ribs apart. The lower right shows some still fused together.
Knitting the Bucky skull was an interesting challenge. I removed the skull from the body. The top part comes off and I used that to my advantage-I was able to tie the eye sockets down. Please excuse the blurry first photo. I wanted to show off the beginning stage.
I slowly sculpted the knitting around the bone curves.
Most of the time I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just knitting and guessing and holding it up to the bones to see if it fits. I sew bits of the knitting down as I’m going to insure a snug fit.
The finished skull.
I debated over whether to knit the teeth and finally decided to leave them bare. They’re the one part on the skeleton that we see when we’re alive so why cover them up now?
The green yarn is just holding the knitting in place until I glue it down. The majority of the knitting will not be glued. But in a few spots like the jawbone and hip bones I’ll need to use glue to hold down the knitting.
The rib cage, sternum and clavicles are done.
These ribs took forever! It was difficult getting my hands inside the rib cage to seam everything up. But they’re done and I’ve moved onto to knitting fingers now.