Project Wonderland

I promised myself that I would include some knitting articles here, since that is part of what I do, as well.  And today I had the great opportunity to take part in the creation of the Blanton Museum's Knitted Wonderland Project, a community knitted art project from the mind of Magda Sayeg, operator of Knitta Please.

Magda's projects usually entail covering urban surfaces with knit material.  Here's one of my favorite examples of her past work:

A bus covered in knit materials in Mexico City.

The goal of the Blanton project is to cover upwards of 90 trees in knit material, from the base of the trunk to where the branches start.  It is an extraordinarily huge project, and over 170 Austin knitters turned out at the informational meeting to help.

I'll be checking in over the next couple of weeks to report how the project is going, and posting some pictures of the completed effort.

But for now, I'm a bit interested in meditating on the concept of the project, which is to turn ordinary or urban landscapes into something cozy and warm.  The idea is to kind of create a sweater for the whole world, if you will.

In a world that's about convenience, utility and efficiency, how can we apply this sweater concept, perhaps more metaphorically, to the rest of life, without risk of degrading into a foggy and overly-sentimental new-age love fest?  No one wants to lose their edge.  Knitting itself, which is a slow act of creation and love, is not always a cozy act.  There are frustrations that attend it.  Stitches are dropped and gaping holes are made.  Sweaters turn out too large or too small.  But it may well be that acts of love are not always acts of softness, but a testament to all things: the frustration, the learning curve, the glory, the mistakes, the completeness. 

It may well be that our inanimate spaces can be part of this creative process, as well.  These are good things to think about.