Knitted entrails, July - September 2021
During a tutorial Andrea asked what colour was the inside of the body? When I was 19 I started to study Medicine at Bristol Uni so spent 2 years studying Anatomy and working in a dissection room with cadavers. Embalmed bodies have the colour leeched out of them by chemicals, but anatomy textbooks of that era had very distinctive colour palette, similar to the colours I have chosen for my entrails.
I also Googled it and found this delightful answer. These two sources then helped me to imagined the colourful inside of a human body and I chose my palette of wool.
I also Googled it and found this delightful answer. These two sources then helped me to imagined the colourful inside of a human body and I chose my palette of wool.
I feel that, along with my flesh coloured knitting, my knitting has developed and become much more sophisticated and nuanced. Choosing a more muted palette definitely makes a difference too. Knitting with multiple colours, building in texture and form, is slow and labour intensive, but the final outcome is stunning, I think.
To create the illusion of entrails I knitted a number of dark red/burgundy tubes on each of these pieces, which I feel is especially effective. The long strands of yarn on the reverse side are a genuine by-product of the process of knitting with many colours in the round. I see it as the marks of my making, a kind of unconscious intentionality. I call it 'hairy knitting'. To me it seems very painterly, as the strands of yarmn seem to mix and mingle. Probably every knitter would have a different pattern of marks. I have trialled ways to show both sides of my knitting in other projects but here, my plan to install these in transparent plastic will mean that both sides will be seen.
To create the illusion of entrails I knitted a number of dark red/burgundy tubes on each of these pieces, which I feel is especially effective. The long strands of yarn on the reverse side are a genuine by-product of the process of knitting with many colours in the round. I see it as the marks of my making, a kind of unconscious intentionality. I call it 'hairy knitting'. To me it seems very painterly, as the strands of yarmn seem to mix and mingle. Probably every knitter would have a different pattern of marks. I have trialled ways to show both sides of my knitting in other projects but here, my plan to install these in transparent plastic will mean that both sides will be seen.
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