2008 - 2010

The Knitting Series compares the care we give to those we love to the skill we use in knitting a handmade garment.

There is nothing like having a very ill child to blow all of the wheels off of your life. Without wheels and with a critically ill teenager, I discovered sitting. I discovered focus. I sat and I knit and I painted.  The Knitting Series is built on a series of fluid line drawings that I extrapolated out and in doing so I discovered a metaphor. Knitting is a loving act and so many of the pattern instructions and much of the terminology bear that out.  “Gauge” is a square that you knit to determine sizing of a garment. For me this was the medical balancing act with various medications.  “Dropped Stitches”, “Unraveled” and “Where did that Big Whole Come From” all speak to my disbelief of my current reality.  “Three Needle Cast Off”, “Cabling Enables Life” and “Casting Back On” are about the strength of relationships and “Knit Two Together” speaks of the unbreakable mother and child bond. Most valuable is the beauty that results from the difficulty. You can find that rare and shining gift in “Rows Upon Rows of Purls”, “Fitting the Pieces” and “The Girl’s Stitch”. The Knitting Series compares the tender care we give to those we love when they are ill to making a beautiful, handmade garment. It celebrates all the acts of love we perform as heroic. They are.