Knitting as art

I actually have all four pages of this Daniel Clowes comic, thanks to my neighbor and FOA (Friend of Adam’s ) who is an art school alum and who mailed a copy of it to me after we saw the movie. My scanner seems to be broken though, so I’m just linking the first panel from Wikipedia.

Anyway, I’ve realized this whole “art” idea is great! Now I can justify my ugly knitting! Who knew that any of my readers and commenters went to art school? I love it! I did not go to art school, though I did major in history, which is bullshitty in its own way, particularly if you wrote the kinds of papers I did. (Including my totally awesome paper “The Semiotics of the Autumn 1996 Men’s J. Crew Catalog.” And no, I did not go to Brown.)

I read KnitKnit a while back (and I saw Sabrina Gschwandtner speak at that American Craft event I went to) and I thought it was fairly interesting. It’s a mix of people who definitely see knitting as Art, fashion designers, and handknitting designers. They each gave a pattern, so it’s actually quite an eclectic collection, and an interesting book, if not necessarily the most useful.

I’m not really sure if I’m a process or a product knitter. I think I’m kind of a product knitter, because I wouldn’t knit something just to learn a technique, yet I often choose to knit ugly things. I think I might be is a knitting-product knitter, versus a clothing-product knitter. I knit things because I like the look of the finished object, versus the look of the finished object on me. Though I have a tendency to buy extremely weird clothes too, so it might be a life problem.

By the way, I know this blog totally ignores actual news–like the earthquake in China, the problems in Myanmar, or even the election–but I’m not sure I have any useful thoughts to offer on any of those situations.

Posted in Printed Matter, Uncategorized at May 13th, 2008. Trackback URI: trackback

4 Responses to “Knitting as art”

  1. May 13th, 2008 at 9:27 pm #Adam

    “The Semiotics of the Autumn 1996 Men’s J. Crew Catalog.”

    People might think that’s a joke, but let it be known: She actually DID write this paper!

  2. May 14th, 2008 at 6:43 am #Sarah

    I remember seeing that movie in the theater a while back and being really angered by it, only days later to realize that I actually thought it was quite excellent.

    Perhaps I netflix it and see it again.

  3. May 14th, 2008 at 8:25 pm #Derridada

    OK, but why stop at semiotics? This is no time for halfway measures. Go all the way with full-fledged otics! Rearrange the letters and you have stoic; sneak in a U and it’s coitus. Then you’ve got something! Take it from me–semiotics are for wimps.

  4. May 16th, 2008 at 11:21 am #T.A.B.

    Not only did I see the film on DVD (which I enjoyed very much), but my girlfriend bought me the script to the movie which contains the complete, original comic on which the movie is based. Very good stuff.