knittingcommunity

Writing about my artwork, my interests, and knitting always proves to open my eyes as responses and critiques of my ideas roll in - through emails and conversations. My first acknowledgment is always to the failures of my writing. As I regurgitate my ideas in a big knotted mess, I can only hope that the more I write, the clearer my thoughts become. But I also must acknowledge blips in my thinking and my own judgmental nature. I have exceedingly strong opinions, though I like to think that I have the willingness to step outside of my own head and consider the perspective of others.

So here are some things I struggle with, but first I will define some of important notions having to do with the larger discussion. They deal specifically with the idea that knitting (and art-making) is inherently transcendent in nature, and that there are benefits and dangers in this notion.

When I refer to Spirituality, I am talking about something larger than our human selves, some meaning and purpose that lies outside of the physical world in the inexplicable, immaterial world (the supernatural, the sacred). It is something I am more and more aware of the human need for, not because of my own interest in it, but rather because as I enter my 30's I see many of my friends considering the spiritual (whether in organized religion or other places). I am admittedly skeptical of the spiritual. I am a fortunate and committed follower of the Enlightenment, as passe' as it may seem. I suppose you could say that these thoughts, and my impulse to intellectualize art and knitting, are as close as I get to spirituality (or perhaps they act as a stand-in). I think that disclosure is probably quite important and I offer it for those of you who would like to dismiss my opinion. This is your easy-out.

Recent conversations have enlightened me about the confusion between spirituality and notions of Meditation. I think meditation is part of spirituality, but rather it is an act. My hope is that no matter where one's devotion lies, that mediation is a way in which one facilitates thought about the spiritual. In traditional religions, I understand mediation to often be synonymous with prayer. It involves a slowness, a thoughtfulness and a connection, with where ever it is you intend to take your mind. I think for many people knitting becomes a kind of meditation. It mirrors the repetitious nature of chanting, as one repeats the pattern over and over. Its speed is laboriously deliberate, highlighting the fastness of the world that we live in and helping us to slow. It is an act of slowness.

So I have defined my use of spirituality and meditation, and to me they side with emotion over intellect in relation to the nature of human thinking. Emotion is an intuitive sense. It is connected, quite often, to who it is that we see ourselves as. Intellect is about our ability to reason with facts and associations. I think of these faculties as complimentary, perhaps even useless without each other.

My grandfather was a minister. What I respected about him most is that he believed that you honored god by studying the bible - but when you did, you engaged both your emotion and your intellect. To rely on only emotion or only intellect was a failure and could certainly provide you with only half of the story. He studied the bible's origins extensively, understanding the history that surrounded its evolution into the book we know today. He translated the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of his research, gaining a deep understanding of what happens to the meaning of a text when it moves from language to language over a long period of time. He was probably considered a skeptic by some. But he did not believe that his research and intellectual engagement with the history of the bible would destroy his faith. I believe he was empowered by it. And to me, his legacy was a testament to the idea of what it is to be responsible - responsible for what it is that you put into this world - be it material or immaterial.

And although it is on a less-grandiose scale, I feel the same way about knitting. To use knitting (or spinning, as mentioned in the previous entry) to facilitate meditation, and perhaps in tern access spirituality, can be dangerous if knitting is not acknowledged as a physical act. It is a physical act, with a history and a material consequence. Just a few examples:
* Making room for flocks of sheep for the production of wool in Europe changed the landscape forever (in the same way that corn and wheat cleared the American landscape.)
** Knitting was the first elastic fabric - it truly revolutionized the way in which humans cover their bodies.
*** The production of clothing (a bi-product of post-industrial knitting) is crucial when discussing the rights of laborers all over the world.
**** The Luddites, who's hand-knitting skills were replaced by machines, destroyed stocking frames in protest. Current politicians would probably refer to them as terrorists.

So when I get all fired up, it is because I value knitting and knitters, but I fear that as it is absorbed into mass-culture it becomes watered down. I worry that the culture that is sprouting up around it will fade away. I want so much for these little economies of individuals to continue, but not because it is stylish, or cool, or because Urban Outfitters rips it off - but because it is a political act, a reworking of the system and because it is a more sustainable model than the one we have now.
Here are some craft-related inspirations that I think exemplify all that is great about both knitting and DIY culture:
Craftivism
Urban Counterfeiters
Microrevolt
KnitKnit
A Short Collection of Thoughts Collected with the Help of xurban_ collective's _Knit++_, by Ryan Griffis

As knitting becomes more and more absorbed into the mainstream, perpetuated by trendy magazines and articled in the NY Times, I find myself loosing interest in it. My wonder about the process is dulled not by the sheer number of people joining in, or the idea that it is "popular," rather, I am disappointed by newcomers disinterest in what knitting really is. To me, knitting is symbolic of a long history of women and textile. It is a cultural site, where women learn from other women. The production of clothing is a loaded point where economies meet and powers struggle. When we look at our modern, global economy, the industry of textile nearly always sits center-stage in any argument about labor, exploitation and trade. The production of textile is, and always has been an expensive endeavor. And women, historically, have always participated in that production.

Mass Culture is already often feminized. If we think of how flower painting of the 19th century was lowered into the decorative world after women started to participate, we see that there is a link between women, the notion of mass culture and negative connotations. But this is not what worries me about knitting and spinning. If underlying the label of "mass culture" we find rigorous practice and an examination of practice within the large context, then knitting and spinning are not just part of mass culture (or in my mind, fluff). In my world, and practice, context is everything. Nothing exists in a vacuum and everything is political. People need to understand the context (and it is a big one) of textile to represent it in such a way that it is valued, and not just fluff.

One way I do see success in the rise of knitting and spinning is in the explosion of DIY culture and new economies. Many knitters do knit for fun or relaxation. But as the unneeded scarves and mittens pile up, many knitters decide to sell them on websites like cut-x-paste and etsy. These knitters and clothing-makers participation in a grassroots economy (whether they know it or not), plays a small part in subverting abusive textile production that is part of the global economic reality. For example, Mary Jane in middle america makes a scarf. She posts it on etsy. Nancy Sue in Vermont, still ticked off about how Wal-mart moved into town needs a scarf, but main street is shut down. She has two choices: Wal-mart or online shopping. If Nancy Sue is politically minded (or even just really stylish) she may choose to go to a site like etsy and support her new friend Mary Jane. These gestures seem small, but they are huge. The DIY trend, still seeming unharnessed, gives makers and consumers power.

But where the DIY market fails is in value. Many makers are creating objects for fun so their mark up is rarely a business decision. If every item seen on sites like etsy were accounting for material, design process and labor - my suspicion is that the prices would be much higher. Instead, I suspect most makers create for fun and then think... Why not sell? They lower their prices to compete with retailers who have their wares produced in far off places with undisclosed labor practices. Some makers are thinking creatively about material and saving cost by recycling, but even that can not make up for the gap in labor.

So here I get to the article that really set me off-- or turned me off-- "The New Spinners: The Yarn is the Least of It" from the January 19th issue of New York Times. And although many passaged turned my stomach, what was most offensive was this: "We can all go to Wal-Mart and buy a sweater," Ms. Klepper, 47, said. "I'm not spinning because I need clothes." The article examines the act of spinning (and in some ways knitting) as experiencing a rapid rise in popularity. But these spinners are not spinning to make yarn that will eventual be made into a garment or functional object. Rather, "many spinners say they have no intention of making anything at all. They churn out skeins of wool, cotton or more exotic fibers like alpaca or camel, and pile up skeins, in their varied colors and textures, for display. Or they give them away to friends and relatives. It is the calming, rhythmic and even meditative effects of spinning that have won many people over." So here it is-- the utter arrogance of our collective self-worth as American, wound together in a nice, little, leisurely package. We live in such privilege and wealth that one of the most historically painstaking tasks of creating thread, typically bore by women, is now subverted into a moment of relaxation. It seems a strange twist that the laborious weight our ancestral mothers carried is now reclaimed not as part of our heritage, or an act to bring light to global labor practice, but rather it is akin to a walk on the beach. The machine that named the "spinster", that marked so many women as a failure, is now embraced by privileged women as medicine for the mind-- what was a trap before is now a escape.

And yes, we can all go to Wal-mart to buy a sweater, but some of us choose not to. So for those of you who are "making" to relax, and the "stuff" is piling up-- this is supposed to light a fire under your ass. Stop going to Wal-mart and start selling your yarn. This world does not need anymore useless shit-- but somebody might need a sweater to stay warm this winter.

Here is an excerpt from my thesis... An what I think so many people are missing, when they could be exploiting it, calling attention to it, breaking it down to reveal the position people view this work from. Rather I see people reinforcing it, leaving it as dangerous as it was before.

"The idea of the “loving hands at home”, or the potential for sentimentality that melds with an object, has a specific attachment to the feminine. A woman’s ability to bear produces a perceived, cultural aura which surrounds objects created by women, whether it is a child or a sweater. The act of birthing (reproduction) becomes confused with the act of producing (manufacturing) and both are then assumed to impart emotion or even a spell upon the objects women create. Notions of embedded spirituality, magic and sentimentality can be observed as they are imposed on all different kinds of things made by women: from food, to cloth, to art. As Laura Mulvey states in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, woman is “tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.” Mulvey’s assertion confirms that there is an assumption in the broader culture that man functions through the use of his intellect, while woman uses her emotion." -- from Bearing Meaning: Women and the Perception of Handycraft

So my thesis, under a huge rush, is finally finished. It may just be a portion of what I intended - but it needed to be done. I'll save the long version for my eventual dissertation. You can read it here: Bearing Meaning: Women and the Perception of Handycraft
I have started to feel as though perhaps writing on a regular basis (more regular than I have been) will be one of the few things that keeps me sane as I dive into the real world (the world outside of acedamia). I have been saddened and frustrated by what I see happing around knitting in an art context-- That it so often is held back by a lack of criticality and that it is eventually reduced to the "cute." So here I will begin to write, and critique the manipulation of this and other "lady-crafts" as they are being used in a contemporary art context today.

I am working on a piece of writing that will talk about my work with in the context of architecture and decoration - here is a start...
Domestic decoration spills out onto the streets of my Philadelphia neighborhood. It is most spectacular during the major holidays – Halloween, Easter and Christmas. Glittering lights drool out of picture windows, garlands sparkle and wreaths abound. The corner house sets in motion a snowball effect where the decoration compounds with each stoop, merging the whole neighborhood into one grand mishmash of domestic décor. Public and private mingle here, even if in the most benign sense. Individual gestures decorate the facades and the street with the graffiti of the domestic and signal a collective ownership of public space.

This writing will (hopefully) snowball into a finished thesis by the end of the next few weeks. Keeping my fingers crossed.

A - Historical context of knitting and women’s roles
1. Breakdown of the history of knitting (SOURCE: Irena Turnau)
2. Defining gendered difference in textile production prior to the industrial revolution
3. Knitting after industrialization – brief look at knitting during WWII as part of the war effort (Purl Harder), recently – knitting as prayer and knitting as DIY trend.

B - Hand-work vs. the machine
1. After mechanization the relegation of the craft to the domestic realm
2. Luddism (in its time) and women (information on this subject will probably be scant at best)
3. Critical look at the “value” we place on the “hand-made” – the fetishization of the hand
4. Mythologies we embed in hand-made objects – psychic power of the object as it is magically crafted (SOURCE: Objects and Meaning)
5. The DIY trend - (-)nostalgia and (+)new economies

C - Craft vs. Art – the down-grade of craft in relation to women’s work
1. Needle Craft as domestic toil (keeping women busy, Judeo-Christian work ethic)
2. The presence of fiber in art as a means to separate craft from art (women, craft, functionality, low art) (SOURCES: Feminist Aestetics)
3. The Bauhaus (SOURCE: Sigrid Wortmann Weltge)
4. Women as Mass Culture (SOURCE: Andreas Huyssen)

D - The spinster – her history, fairytales, myths and connotations
1. History of the spinster (SOURCE: Marta Weigle)
2. Presence of the Spinster now ( SOURCE:Rosenthal)
3. The presence of the spinster in film (SOURCE: Deborah Mustard)

E - Women, film and knitting as a prop – the implications and assumptions about the hands
1. Feminist Film Theory (SOURCE: Mulvey and various points in the Feminist Film Theory Reader)
2. Break down of various connotations of knitting as a prop in popular film

After a few months of pleasant distraction in Berlin I am forced to readdress my unfinished thesis. I have settled on a loose outline that for now will serve as away to organize and categorize my readings:

A - Historical context of knitting and women’s roles (Purl Harder)
B - Hand-work vs. the machine (domestic vs. industrial)
C - Craft vs. Art – the down-grade of craft in relation to women’s work (Bauhaus, Aesthetics)
D - The spinster – her history, fairytales, myths and connotations
E - Women, film and knitting as a prop – the implications and assumptions about the hands

And since I am in still in Berlin and Dessau is just a few short hours away I will add these quick notes:
Admission at the Bauhaus stated “any person of good repute, without regard to age or sex, whose previous education is deemed adequate by the Council of Masters, will be admitted, as far as space permits”
As the Bauhuas was flooded with female applicants – reality won over utopia – and a “Women’s department” was established. Women were directed to the fields of pottery, bookbinding and weaving. The pottery department revolted – not admitting women for their sake and the sake of the workshop. By 1922 Bookbinding had dissolved – leaving only weaving. The climate for women in painting was described as “not hospitable”.

Chapter 2, The Gender Issue – “Women’s Work: Textile Art from the Bauhaus” by Sigrid Wortmann Weltge, 1992, Chronicle Books, San Fransisco

Paul Sharits
Tony Conrad
Peter Kubelka
Michael Snow
Tatlin

Knitting together thesis and my work. The use of thread, of knitting, of textile as both a way to reference the bifurcation of art and craft within the context of theories of "Feminist Aesthetics" and to discuss the cultural perception of women in film who use thread.
_____________________________

From: Spinster Tales and Womanly Possibilities

“ I would argue that the standardized representations of women in popular culture, whether authoritative or mundane, both affected and reflected views on the character and nature of womanhood”

"Cinema stories not only reflected popular perceptions of women; they were also central to the process of (en)gendering ideas and concerns about the family. As a medium that consistently reached a wider national audience than any that preceded it, films both echoed existing stereotypes and created new ways of seeing.”

_______________________________

From: Spinter: An Evolving Stereotype revealed through film
"The stereotype of spinster has been universally understood to be feminine in nature.  Words like “spinster” and “old maid” pertain to the sexual as well as marital state of a woman (Schur, 1983).  The words used to label the spinster’s male counterpart do not parallel in meaning.  “Bachelor” typically implies that a man is young, virile, and available.  It doesn’t have the same negative connotations as that of ‘spinster.’  The word bachelor alludes to a healthier sexuality, more normal than the implication for the unmarried female.  A bachelor could have numerous partners, but it would be immoral for a spinster to do the same.  Only in a few film portrayals has the male stereotype been interpreted negatively (e.g. the fuss-budget  character, Felix Unger, in the 1968 film The Odd Couple).  More typically movies such as The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) and Bachelor in Paradise (1969) shaped our unmarried male stereotype.  Unlike the spinster, the fact that a man is not married does not necessarily imply a deficiency in his character.  Females have been called the “heretics of love,” but Haskell (1988) assures us that males are not viewed in the same manner."

Psychological profiles of a spinster - Abnormal, Pitiful, Unfulfilled, Suspect.

An Exploration of Textile as Metaphor- looks at mythologies, fairy tales, etc.
My Ugly Sweater - Viral knitting project - exploration of the stitch and the digital
Freddie Robins - Digtal vs. stitch
Spinning in myths and folktales

1. Spent most of the day fighting with a temperamental Final Cut Express. Having trouble with the zoom and pan motion features. After applying the features and trying to view from the timeline - the audio track runs but I get nothing but a still?? I think I have it worked out - but it has slowed me down a lot.

2. Had a great meeting with DLHays today. Some of my reservations about another idea for the museum (from now on referred to as "Loose Ends Institution") were confirmed. I am concerned that foregrounding my own activities in the community could be read as self aggrandizing. I am not really interested in naming myself as a model citizen - what I would like to do is find a way to point a finger at the university - implicating it (and its employees) disconnection from the local community of C-U. I would also like to reveal the problems with the transient nature of the university population. Perhaps a better strategy would be to implicate myself. Why am I not staying here?

David clearly articulated a connection between the "Loose Ends Institution" and the captured knitting piece - both reveal a kind of loss, morbidity. Both have to do with my removal. My own hands have been prominently featured in my past knitting work. In the video - I am capturing only the hands of others. The "Loose Ends Institution" also deals directly with the idea of my absence - my leaving this place.

Other topics worth readdressing:
Subject of persistence in my work - persistence despite absence
Leaving a trace, a mark, a legacy
The gallery as the ultimate temporary and transient place (how can I make a permanent change to the gallery?)
Making a piece in the gallery, the CCHM and Opensource that is embedded in the space - not removable and perhaps invisible

Any gesture I make for my (out of school) works here to continue is futile - this place is ultimately going to continue to shed its population - and with each year there is more of a likelihood that the things I have done here will fail and fade into the past. What I can do before I go is make sure the Lot Project, if not built, is well under way. I can also continue to volunteer my time in a web-design capacity to CCHM. I can do my best to make sure I pass on as much info as I have to the grads. And I can do my part to make sure OS is in good working order. I can not see a way to highlight these parts of my life without a kind of "know it all" gesture that could seem really condescending.

I think I am kind of back where I started. Just focus on what needs to get done - the video, the writing, the felt piece for the "Skinless Capital" show, the "Lot Project". I have made it part of my practice to spread myself outside of the school – the program. That is nothing special - just part of who I am. And as for the people who live here long term and choose not to engage in this place - their lack of connection is a mechanism to avoid what I am dealing with right now. If you never gave a shit, you can always pack up and leave.

I am privileging this show way too much. It is a formality.

+ Spinsterhood:An Evolving Stereotype Revealed Through Film - Bachelor vs. Spinster
+ Feminism and the bifurcation of art and craft - Feminist Aesthetics + Crafty Women and the Hierarchy of the Arts
+ Mythical connections of Women and Thread - The Fates
+ Idle Hands and the Judeo-Christian Work Ethic - The Protestant work ethic is a biblically based teaching on the necessity of hard work, perfection and the goodness of manual labor.
+ Knitting and Psychoanalysis
+ The Idiot Savant – Knitting as a sixth sense
+ The Language of the Luddite - Pynchon - Is It OK to be a Luddite?

The Fates - Allegory of Knitting
Feminist Film Theory
Web-weaving (The Black Widow)
Spinsterhood
Needlework as representational of sexual repression (Victorian Era) - Set forth by Freud then broken down by feminist theory of the 1970's
1950's - Knitting as a substitute for masturbation
idiot savant - an intellectually disabled person who exhibits extraordinary ability in a highly specialized area, such as mathematics or music. [French  : idiot, idiot + savant, learned.]

Look to clips (including audio) to reveal repression (DeFarge=Political | Hepburn=Sexual). Create a new narrative by weaving these archetypes to create an overall picture. Think about contextual elements - when were the films made in relation to which archetype they use. How does that archetype point to a cultural reality?

Look up: Maureen P. Sherlock - writing about the pleasure and trauma of female initiation.

EDITING:
Juxtaposition of formal - quality of image, context of sound, b&w to color, spoken vs. no dialogue, length of clip, creation of rhythm, speed of actual knitting, blending of different archetypes

TODAY:
What about a current upsurge? DeFarge knits, perhaps on account of her political know-how versus her ability to act as a women. Is current knitting trend related to a sense of lack of control? I have read few articles about its revival post-9-11.

"Holiday" (1938) - Katherine Hepburn and Carey Grant
Hepburn [the quiet, bright, yet misfit older sister] sits and knits quietly while her father inerigated Grant [who is meant to marry the other sister]. Hepburns position in the family is as the sensative, bright, caring oldersister - the one who resents her wealth and would prefer to travel the world to find herself. She knits as a means to be in the room (but not really there) - as a means of evesdropping.

"Tale of Two Cities" (1935)
Madame DeFarge knits ferociously in nearly every scene. Her speed makes it hard to tell whether or not the actress really knits. She is insane, so is her knitting.

"Little Women" (1933)
The whole lot of them knit and sew together while oozing all over each other. Each charachter (with the exception of Amy) drips piety.

"The Prologue" from the Passaic Textile Strike (1926) - Treasures (Volume 3)
I filmed a short scene where you see the interior of a the Textile Mill. A women minds nearly an entire row of knitting machines.

"Peeping Tom" (1960) The blind mother knits as she tells her daughter of her aprehention about the upstairs neighbor. She is the only character that seem aware of his murderous ways. She has know way to actually know - she gains her knowledge via intuition.

"Dancing at Lughnasa" (1998)

"The Women" (1939) Mary Haines mother knits as she explains to Mary the necessity to keep quite and not question her husband about his infadelity. Later one of the women (the biggest gossip of the group) knits while prying at Mary for information about her husbands affair. She continued to knit at the fashon show.

"The Shipping News" (2001) Both Wavey and Agnis knit briefly. The movie takes place on a mystical isle in costal canada (Newfoundland). Visions, clairvoyance and mysticism play a role throughout.

"Sleeping with the Enemy" - Lead charachters mother crotchets while her murderous husband lurchs over her shoulder. She is blind and unaware of his presence.

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1945) - Grandma crotchet's while she tells her grandchildren of the American Dream of upward mobility and education. She speaks only once, and all is hushed as she expounds her wisdom.

"Like Water fo Chocolate" (1992) Grief-stricken Tita attempts to knit away her sorrow. A mile long afgan results.

"Heavenly Creatures" (1994) - The young australian girls plot the dead of the ones family after withdrawing into their own world of fantasy. Winslets character knits while recovering in the hospital. The head nurse taught her "her special stitch".

"Les Diabolique" (1955) - French film noir. A wife and mistress kill.

"Witness" (1985) - Harrison Ford hides out in Amish counrty to protect a young boy who witnessed a murder in the big city.

"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) - Former child star goes nuts and hides her handicapped famous sister in a room - the trapped woman knits while plotting her escape.

"Now Voyager" (1942) - Boston spinster blossoms under therapy and finds impossible romance.

"A Cry in the Dark" (1988) - Based on the true story of Lindy Chamberlain: during a camping trip to Ayer's Rock in outback Australia, she claims she witnessed a dingo stealing her baby daughter Azaria from the family tent. Azaria's body is never found. Police note some apparent inconsistencies in her story, and she is charged with murder. The case attracts a lot of attention, turning a simple investigation into a media circus, with the public divided in their opinion.

"Repo Man" (1984) - Male Officer knits in office.

"The Secret of Roan Inish" (1994) - Like "Dancing at Lughnasa this film is also set in Donegal Ireland.

"Fargo" (1996) -

"State and Main" (2000) -

"The seven Year Itch" (1955) -

"Breathless" remake

"Sweet November" remake

"Girl Interupted"

"Boogie Nights"

-Check NYC for video databanks - looking for a film, silent, 1918 called "The Secret Code"
-[re]Read Lev Manovich's Database as Symbolic Form - In relation to the way in which I am considering to edit the collection of clips:

A collection of clips are pulled from popular film. The clips focus on the hands of characters knitting in film. The clips are assigned to a knit stitch (clip 1 = knit, clip 2 = purl and so on). The video as a whole is edited by following the patterm of a glove.
Structuralist film-makers of the 1970's used deliberate editing techniques (such as this) to create films. It is an attempt to avoid, transform and manipulate meaning that is derived from a series of images juxaposed to one another (such as in a film sequence).
_____________

In relation to "Cusp":
gendered labor
a gendered separation of labor - the separation of hand from body - the hands as a place of production
This needs to be written about...

Seems this is the place to start. Some thoughts to begin:
*The representation of women who knit, in film, reveals the crafts assumed role as one of mysticism and witchcraft.
*Women knitters in film are revealed as mystical.

*How is knitting used in film to develop female characters? How does the role of knitting support an archetype? What is the archetype? Typically - wisdom, ritualism, gossip, subversion, meditation, mysticism, Terror of the Feminine, distraction - there seems to be an over-riding theme that knitting fills a void (a kind of absence) but also provides a window through which the character can recieve the supernatural. Knitters in film are often impaired in some way (blind, dumb, etc). Knitting reveals a kind of untapped, unknown skill that the average person does not have.

*Why is knitting so often used for the purpose of this kind of portrayal? Knitting is circular. Knitting can create a large swath of fabric from a single continuous thread. Knitting is slow, contemplative even meditative process by its nature. [In relation to a possible performative piece] How can knitted be disrupted? Can the body be used in such a way to put stress upon what is inherent in the process? How can slowness, contemplation and meditation be avoided?


Supporting material thus far:
"Peeping Tom" – clairvoyant, maternal, all knowing, suspicious
"Dancing at Lughnasa" – circular, mystical relationship to brothers time in Africa, ultimately impotent and overcome by mechanization, terror of the feminine (group knitting).

Crafts Council in London presents "knitting Together: Concepts in Knitting"

Political Protest Turns to the Radical Art of Knitting

Talking, not yet working. I wonder how much closer the end of the semester needs to be before I light a fire under my ass. There is a plan, just go to do it.

Some new possibilities:
***Considering the idea of performance at the Krannert. The south wall of the gallery abutts a service hall that leads to the loading dock. I am considering performing in the hall, with a video camera in the gallery pointing through a hole in the wall that reveals me. The video will feed live to a monitor in another part of the museum (not sure of location). Reveal my conscience removal of myself from the space. Forced framing of the viewers access (or can they control the camera?) Does noise from my space penitrate the gallery? How does this relate to "Cusp" (cutting off) - removal of self, toiling?

***Need to play around with other means of capture in FC. Figure out how to zoom and manipulte the motion. I am considering using a number of different means of capture (to provide contrast). But what I have not been able to see is how it is that this catalog / information will be revealed? Are the film clips running one after the next, bleeding together? Are the clips seperated and displayed on a series on monitors? Are the clips gridded? How important is the sound? This is why I just need to dive in.

Finished an application to the "Work Ethic" show.

Versionfest
University of Southern Maine - March 1 - Visiting Artist in Residency
Creative Thriftshop - March 30 - Proposals should contain 50-75% fiber material and/or related medium or concept.
CORE Program, Houston - April 1 - 9-month fellowships for visual artists
Des Moines Arts Center - April 1 - 24 month residency (teach / work)
The Kitchen, NYC
Mattress Factory

Dancing at Lughnasa

The film opens with a darkened screen, tribal sounds and a dream-like state of dancing around a fire. The movement is circular as the viewer takes part in the ritual. An old missionary returns to Ireland from 25 years as a missionary in Africa. A reversal of his oath to Catholicism, he has adopted the beliefs of the tribe which he intended to covert.
He arrives in Ireland, somewhat deranged, to join his five sisters who make their living knitting gloves for the local market. There workplace, the kitchen table, is also revealed as a place of circularity, of ritual. The African ritual (or rather a cliché of it) of dancing around the fire draws a parallel to these knitting women. As they knit they discuss religion, their fate, illegitimate children, love and sacrifice. A heap of woolen gloves in the center of the table replaces the fire. They dance with their hands, not with their feet.

I keep seeing this over and over. The portrait of the knitter is often a women or group of women conjuring spirits. They are clairvoyant. They are all knowing (but deceptively). They are the worst kind of gossip. They are performing a ritual. They are dangerous. How is knitting, something that when it is discussed conjures scenes of maternal love, manipulated in film to be something malicious? Is the congregation of women so threatening? Knitting is the trickery of the hand [connected to] women knowing is the trickery of the mind.

This is a start.

GENERAL:
Terror of the Feminie - the fear of allowing women to gather {see} Knitting as a Revolutionary Act

THESIS IDEAS:
Cultural representation in film of people who knit [ritualism, gossip, subversion, meditation, mysticism] - focus on cultural representation rather than historical entrance into work. Tangental topics - theory of craft, negotiation of the visual and conceptual [Adorno], uncanny narrative, Eros and the Everyday (Marcuse, Herbert of the Frankfurt School), technology and the hand

DANCE and MOVEMENT: Oskar Schlemmer [Bauhaus]

TEACHING: Potential text for students - "The Gift" Luis Hyde