17.1.20 Sloppy knitting
I’ve been asked to submit new work to the second Incendiary exhibition, in March, curated by Patricia Brien, this time at Pound Arts, Corsham. She’s potentially interested in different work. For details of ‘Incendiary 1’, Feb 6-10 2019 in Stroud, see my website (Baker, 2020a).
In response to the first Incendiary callout at the end of 2018, I began to knit a series of soft sculptures, which I called my Pillars of fire. I completed 4 and started this fifth one. However, I also submitted an interactive work Tethering our thoughts, which Patricia selected instead.
I photographed the 4 Pillars of fire hanging from some trees in Ashton Court, Bristol. I think the idea of situating knitted work outside is very appealing.
I also subsequently submitted one to the RWA Sculpture Open in Bristol and was delighted to have it selected! Is this the first knitted soft sculpture exhibited at the RWA?
Last week I decided to finish number 5 and submit them all, as a series, to the second Incendiary exhibition. Returning to this piece (see page 1) made me reflect again on my intentionally ‘sloppy knitting.’
For my recent Research Methodologies essay, I researched ways that knitting can be used as a research method. One of the methods I considered was, naturally, the construction of knitting. Over the next weeks, I intend to reflect on different aspects of the structure of knitting in relation to my work, as I explore these ideas through practical knitting research and with further critical reflection as well.
Today I wanted to focus on what the artist Anne Wilson first described as ‘sloppy craft’ (in Patterson and Surette, 2015 p. xxv) as I consider my Pillars of fire to definitely fit into this category.
I wrote in my essay:
‘For me, the act of knitting is as significant as the finished product (Baker, 2019). Discussing the handmade, Hung and Magliaro (2007, p.7) maintain that ‘(a)rt is engaged as a process rather than as a means to an end…there is a palpable sense of attachment to the materials and methods...’ As Olek says ‘It’s…the power that every single loop is made by somebody’s hand’ (in Great Big Story, 2018, 02.25).
Artist Rosemarie Trockel’s machine-knitted ‘wool paintings’ (in Schneede, 1998, p18) consider the different meanings of wool as material, knitting as process and the gendering of industrial making. Richard Tuttle (in Borchardt- Hume, 2014, p159), discussing weaving, suggests that ‘(i)nstead of seeing the machine-made imitating the handmade, you see the machine-made as completely different, with different aesthetics’. Their research provides a useful counterpoint to the significance of the mark of my hand in my practice.
The term ‘sloppy craft’, as described by Patterson and Surette (2015), resonates with the ways that I approach my making. My deliberately bad knitting, which is often also unravelling, subverts the expectations of knitted work and adds complex meanings (Nochlin, 2007, p191; Newington, 2014). Artist Anne Wilson calls this a ‘critical, content-driven decision to work “sloppy”’ (in Patterson and Surette, 2015 p. xxv).’ (Baker, 2020b, p.11-14)
There’s so much here to explore further, so here goes:
‘There are various femininities associated with stitch, and also knitting, which have potential for adding subversive meanings to art. According to Parker, stitch itself is gendered; she analyses the gender divide between ‘high’ art and feminised craft (Parker 2010 p 5; Carson 2000a p 27). She proposes that stitch is a signifier of the private, and thus feminine, sphere (Parker 2010 p 5). This divide between private and public is generally regarded as a gendered issue too.
Parker discusses ‘the privatisation of female embroidery skills and their role in the inculcation of an ideology of femininity as devout, chaste, obedient...’ (in Carson 2000a p 27). She suggests that ‘...fine art was established as a public activity of high status associated with male professionals, while embroidery became a low status craft associated predominantly with women and domestic spaces’ (ibid). The links between embroidery and knitting are clear.’ (Baker, 2014)
‘That knitting is an unconventional medium in fine art also adds to the meaning it conveys. Traditionally, hard, durable materials like stone, marble and bronze have been used for sculpture; the soft, impermanent nature of knitting, however, evokes the human form and its mortality, revealing alternative meanings in its folds and surfaces (Barnett 1999 p 186) and seeming to ‘take on a bodily resonance rather than to offer up symbols as such’ (Nixon 2005 p 174).’ (Baker, 2014)
There are a number of other themes to discuss later, but now I will focus on:
Anne Wilson, who first coined this term in 2007, maintains that ‘sloppy’ is the ‘antithesis to what good craft should be.’ She goes on to say that combining the words ‘sloppy’ and ‘craft’ set up a ‘binary of opposites that …defies and possibly flips established hierarchies of value.’ She suggests that ‘the ubiquity of computer screens … digital media … and the availability of seemingly easy perfection that demands an opposite.’ She attributes this to the desire for ‘a more sensorial experience, materiality and the mark of the hand’ with the consequent ‘foible and imperfection, irregularity and ucertainty.’ ( ibid p xxvi)
However, she goes on to express concern that the term ‘sloppy craft’ might engender a ‘false binary’, if high levels of craft skills and deliberate haphazard making are polarised.
I consider much of my knitted and stitched work to be ‘sloppy craft’. I have had many years’ experience, learning these traditional skills, and could choose to conform to the traditionally perfect finish in my work, but I find that subverting those expectations adds meaning. Although I used knitting patterns for years, I now find it much more satisfying to follow my own intuitive way of sculpting with my knitting.
Returning to my Pillars of fire, I think they are a good example of the aesthetic that I hope to explore further through my practice-led research. There are a couple of ways to knit with multiple colours - Fair Isle or stranded knitting and intarsia. For Pillars of fire, I’ve been using the intarsia method, where the different coloured yarns are twisted together at each colour change, For ease of knitting, the accepted way to knit this way easily, is to cut each yarn so that at each place where there is a colour change there is also a long, hanging thread of the previous colour. Knitting a flat piece means that this long thread is there, ready to be twisted and knitted, on the next row. If you don’t use this method, knitting with multiple dangling balls of yarn quickly become impossibly tangled. Although the loose threads get tangled too, they can much more readily be separated.
If I’m knitting in one colour, I would normally knit a sculpture ‘in the round’, either with double pointed needles or with circular needles. As the term suggests, this means that it’s knitted as a spiral, normally just using knit rather than purl. However, if you knit this way with multiple colours, the long threads end up at the wrong end of the new block of colour so for Pillars of fire I decided to turn at a certain point in the form, so that I could pick up and knit the loose threads.
Often, the loose threads aren’t long enough to complete a large block of colour, so at that point, another length of yarn is tied to the end and I carry on knitting. Also, when I have finished one block of colour and change to yet another one, there is some surplus thread of the first colour left hanging.
Consequently, intarsia knitting has two kinds of loose threads – the longer, hanging yarn ready to be picked up and knitted and the shorter, very distinctive knots, where two pieces of yarn of the same colour have been tied together. The normal expectation of knitting would be that these ends would be either knitted in during the process or stitched in when the piece was finished. As you can see, I have chosen to leave them, as marks of my making.
I’m planning to experiment with which side to show, and whether to pull through the loose threads to the ‘right’ side, or not.
The above image shows some of the knotted ends pulled through to the ‘right’ side. I like the fact that they are so distinctive, that they blur the knitting, and to me, that they add tactility and a sense of movement. I like to call it hairy knitting and I think that it could be abject if I used different colours and forms. On the ‘right’ side of the knitting, I pull some of the longer threads pulled through too. I find this very appealing. I want to explore these ideas further.
I’m also interested in the idea of unravelling knitting and the meanings that adds. My 4 Pillars of fire are consequently technically unfinished and I’ve left a circular knitting needle in each sculpture. It gives a hint that I could potentially carry on knitting, or conversely, that the work could be unravelled. I think this creates an interesting and unexpected tension.
It’s been helpful to come back to these ideas and to think about them in further depth, in relation to sloppy craft. I plan to research them further in the following weeks by making this hairiness more of a feature. Watch this space!
I also want to look in more depth at a couple of other aspects of knitting associated with sloppy craft:
Reference list:
Baker, L. (2014) Second skin: used clothing and representations of the body in the work of Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski, unpublished undergraduate dissertation Available at: https://www.academia.edu/32294698/Second_skin_used_clothing_and_representations_of_the_body_in_the_work_of_Louise_Bourgeois_and_Christian_Boltanski (Accessed: 15 January 2020)
Baker, L. (2020a) Exhibitions Available at: https://loubakerartist.co.uk/exhibitions/other (Accessed 17 January 2020)
Baker, L. (2020b) Critical knitting: knitting as a research method, unpublished post graduate essay
Barnett, Pennina, 1999, ‘Folds, fragments and surfaces: towards a poetics of cloth’ in Hemmings, Jessica (ed.), 2012, The Textile Reader, Berg: London, New York pp 182 -190
Carson, Fiona, 2000a, ‘Feminist debate and fine art practices’ in Carson, Fiona and Pajaczkowska, Claire (eds), 2000, Feminist Visual Culture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press pp 25-35
Liminessence (no date) Incendiary Available at: https://www.liminessence.co.uk/ (Accessed: 17 January 2020)
Nixon, Mignon, 2005, Fantastic Reality: Louise Bourgeois and a story of Modern Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press
Parker, R. (2010) The subversive stitch; embroidery and the making of the feminine. 2nd edn. London and New York: Taurus
Patterson, E.C. and Surette, S. (eds) (2015) Sloppy craft: Postdisciplinarity and the crafts. New York & London: Bloomsbury
Perry, Gill (ed), 1999, Gender and Art, London: Open University Press
In response to the first Incendiary callout at the end of 2018, I began to knit a series of soft sculptures, which I called my Pillars of fire. I completed 4 and started this fifth one. However, I also submitted an interactive work Tethering our thoughts, which Patricia selected instead.
I photographed the 4 Pillars of fire hanging from some trees in Ashton Court, Bristol. I think the idea of situating knitted work outside is very appealing.
I also subsequently submitted one to the RWA Sculpture Open in Bristol and was delighted to have it selected! Is this the first knitted soft sculpture exhibited at the RWA?
Last week I decided to finish number 5 and submit them all, as a series, to the second Incendiary exhibition. Returning to this piece (see page 1) made me reflect again on my intentionally ‘sloppy knitting.’
For my recent Research Methodologies essay, I researched ways that knitting can be used as a research method. One of the methods I considered was, naturally, the construction of knitting. Over the next weeks, I intend to reflect on different aspects of the structure of knitting in relation to my work, as I explore these ideas through practical knitting research and with further critical reflection as well.
Today I wanted to focus on what the artist Anne Wilson first described as ‘sloppy craft’ (in Patterson and Surette, 2015 p. xxv) as I consider my Pillars of fire to definitely fit into this category.
I wrote in my essay:
‘For me, the act of knitting is as significant as the finished product (Baker, 2019). Discussing the handmade, Hung and Magliaro (2007, p.7) maintain that ‘(a)rt is engaged as a process rather than as a means to an end…there is a palpable sense of attachment to the materials and methods...’ As Olek says ‘It’s…the power that every single loop is made by somebody’s hand’ (in Great Big Story, 2018, 02.25).
Artist Rosemarie Trockel’s machine-knitted ‘wool paintings’ (in Schneede, 1998, p18) consider the different meanings of wool as material, knitting as process and the gendering of industrial making. Richard Tuttle (in Borchardt- Hume, 2014, p159), discussing weaving, suggests that ‘(i)nstead of seeing the machine-made imitating the handmade, you see the machine-made as completely different, with different aesthetics’. Their research provides a useful counterpoint to the significance of the mark of my hand in my practice.
The term ‘sloppy craft’, as described by Patterson and Surette (2015), resonates with the ways that I approach my making. My deliberately bad knitting, which is often also unravelling, subverts the expectations of knitted work and adds complex meanings (Nochlin, 2007, p191; Newington, 2014). Artist Anne Wilson calls this a ‘critical, content-driven decision to work “sloppy”’ (in Patterson and Surette, 2015 p. xxv).’ (Baker, 2020b, p.11-14)
There’s so much here to explore further, so here goes:
- Stereotypical expectations of knitting:
‘There are various femininities associated with stitch, and also knitting, which have potential for adding subversive meanings to art. According to Parker, stitch itself is gendered; she analyses the gender divide between ‘high’ art and feminised craft (Parker 2010 p 5; Carson 2000a p 27). She proposes that stitch is a signifier of the private, and thus feminine, sphere (Parker 2010 p 5). This divide between private and public is generally regarded as a gendered issue too.
Parker discusses ‘the privatisation of female embroidery skills and their role in the inculcation of an ideology of femininity as devout, chaste, obedient...’ (in Carson 2000a p 27). She suggests that ‘...fine art was established as a public activity of high status associated with male professionals, while embroidery became a low status craft associated predominantly with women and domestic spaces’ (ibid). The links between embroidery and knitting are clear.’ (Baker, 2014)
- Knitting and the body:
‘That knitting is an unconventional medium in fine art also adds to the meaning it conveys. Traditionally, hard, durable materials like stone, marble and bronze have been used for sculpture; the soft, impermanent nature of knitting, however, evokes the human form and its mortality, revealing alternative meanings in its folds and surfaces (Barnett 1999 p 186) and seeming to ‘take on a bodily resonance rather than to offer up symbols as such’ (Nixon 2005 p 174).’ (Baker, 2014)
There are a number of other themes to discuss later, but now I will focus on:
- Sloppy craft:
Anne Wilson, who first coined this term in 2007, maintains that ‘sloppy’ is the ‘antithesis to what good craft should be.’ She goes on to say that combining the words ‘sloppy’ and ‘craft’ set up a ‘binary of opposites that …defies and possibly flips established hierarchies of value.’ She suggests that ‘the ubiquity of computer screens … digital media … and the availability of seemingly easy perfection that demands an opposite.’ She attributes this to the desire for ‘a more sensorial experience, materiality and the mark of the hand’ with the consequent ‘foible and imperfection, irregularity and ucertainty.’ ( ibid p xxvi)
However, she goes on to express concern that the term ‘sloppy craft’ might engender a ‘false binary’, if high levels of craft skills and deliberate haphazard making are polarised.
I consider much of my knitted and stitched work to be ‘sloppy craft’. I have had many years’ experience, learning these traditional skills, and could choose to conform to the traditionally perfect finish in my work, but I find that subverting those expectations adds meaning. Although I used knitting patterns for years, I now find it much more satisfying to follow my own intuitive way of sculpting with my knitting.
Returning to my Pillars of fire, I think they are a good example of the aesthetic that I hope to explore further through my practice-led research. There are a couple of ways to knit with multiple colours - Fair Isle or stranded knitting and intarsia. For Pillars of fire, I’ve been using the intarsia method, where the different coloured yarns are twisted together at each colour change, For ease of knitting, the accepted way to knit this way easily, is to cut each yarn so that at each place where there is a colour change there is also a long, hanging thread of the previous colour. Knitting a flat piece means that this long thread is there, ready to be twisted and knitted, on the next row. If you don’t use this method, knitting with multiple dangling balls of yarn quickly become impossibly tangled. Although the loose threads get tangled too, they can much more readily be separated.
If I’m knitting in one colour, I would normally knit a sculpture ‘in the round’, either with double pointed needles or with circular needles. As the term suggests, this means that it’s knitted as a spiral, normally just using knit rather than purl. However, if you knit this way with multiple colours, the long threads end up at the wrong end of the new block of colour so for Pillars of fire I decided to turn at a certain point in the form, so that I could pick up and knit the loose threads.
Often, the loose threads aren’t long enough to complete a large block of colour, so at that point, another length of yarn is tied to the end and I carry on knitting. Also, when I have finished one block of colour and change to yet another one, there is some surplus thread of the first colour left hanging.
Consequently, intarsia knitting has two kinds of loose threads – the longer, hanging yarn ready to be picked up and knitted and the shorter, very distinctive knots, where two pieces of yarn of the same colour have been tied together. The normal expectation of knitting would be that these ends would be either knitted in during the process or stitched in when the piece was finished. As you can see, I have chosen to leave them, as marks of my making.
I’m planning to experiment with which side to show, and whether to pull through the loose threads to the ‘right’ side, or not.
The above image shows some of the knotted ends pulled through to the ‘right’ side. I like the fact that they are so distinctive, that they blur the knitting, and to me, that they add tactility and a sense of movement. I like to call it hairy knitting and I think that it could be abject if I used different colours and forms. On the ‘right’ side of the knitting, I pull some of the longer threads pulled through too. I find this very appealing. I want to explore these ideas further.
I’m also interested in the idea of unravelling knitting and the meanings that adds. My 4 Pillars of fire are consequently technically unfinished and I’ve left a circular knitting needle in each sculpture. It gives a hint that I could potentially carry on knitting, or conversely, that the work could be unravelled. I think this creates an interesting and unexpected tension.
It’s been helpful to come back to these ideas and to think about them in further depth, in relation to sloppy craft. I plan to research them further in the following weeks by making this hairiness more of a feature. Watch this space!
I also want to look in more depth at a couple of other aspects of knitting associated with sloppy craft:
- Form and formlessness with reference to knitting (Bataille in Faiers)
- Order and disorder (Douglas)
Reference list:
Baker, L. (2014) Second skin: used clothing and representations of the body in the work of Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski, unpublished undergraduate dissertation Available at: https://www.academia.edu/32294698/Second_skin_used_clothing_and_representations_of_the_body_in_the_work_of_Louise_Bourgeois_and_Christian_Boltanski (Accessed: 15 January 2020)
Baker, L. (2020a) Exhibitions Available at: https://loubakerartist.co.uk/exhibitions/other (Accessed 17 January 2020)
Baker, L. (2020b) Critical knitting: knitting as a research method, unpublished post graduate essay
Barnett, Pennina, 1999, ‘Folds, fragments and surfaces: towards a poetics of cloth’ in Hemmings, Jessica (ed.), 2012, The Textile Reader, Berg: London, New York pp 182 -190
Carson, Fiona, 2000a, ‘Feminist debate and fine art practices’ in Carson, Fiona and Pajaczkowska, Claire (eds), 2000, Feminist Visual Culture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press pp 25-35
Liminessence (no date) Incendiary Available at: https://www.liminessence.co.uk/ (Accessed: 17 January 2020)
Nixon, Mignon, 2005, Fantastic Reality: Louise Bourgeois and a story of Modern Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press
Parker, R. (2010) The subversive stitch; embroidery and the making of the feminine. 2nd edn. London and New York: Taurus
Patterson, E.C. and Surette, S. (eds) (2015) Sloppy craft: Postdisciplinarity and the crafts. New York & London: Bloomsbury
Perry, Gill (ed), 1999, Gender and Art, London: Open University Press
