Is knitting design art?

I would be the first to say that I like to make useful things.  Things that become well-used, well loved, and worn until they wear out.  this has been true about many (but not all!) of the sweaters I make for my twins.  This year, for the first time, I wrote patterns for something I was doing anyway.  The patterns themselves were untidy and needed work before I published them (a lot of editing!), but the sweaters have been workhorses.  The sweater pictured here, Stripe Freestyle, has been worn perhaps every other day since I finished it.  The professor washed both Woolly and Stripe Freestyle the night before last, and I set them both out to dry (doing a little stretching and reblocking) on the basement playroom floor.  Then, last night, I used the Gleener on them --AGAIN--to get rid of as many pills as I could.

This AM, the sweaters were back in rotation and two little boys headed out the door to grade 1 in the same sweaters. It's hard to argue with that level of enthusiasm.

There are a lot of technical writing details to writing or knitting a pattern, and these were no different than any other.  However, I am terrible at doing sketches of my designs.  This deficit often keeps me from pitching to magazines or yarn companies' call for submissions--it just takes me forever to do the sketch, and since these pitches are all a gamble, I don't often do it.  I don't know if someone will choose my rudimentary sketches, and I'd rather just get to knitting the sweater and writing the pattern.  My architect father-in-law showed me an app long ago that turns a photo into a sketch, and C4LA sitting around on my iPad ever since.

I decided to play around with the photos of Stripe Freestyle to see what it looked like.  The funny thing is that Woolly sells more patterns (so far) than Stripe Freestyle...but Stripe Freestyle is more useful on a daily basis.  It is getting more wear.  So, what makes a sweater more usable, more beautiful, more serviceable than its sibling?  They both use the same yarns and were made at the same time, in roughly the same size...

I think that it has a lot to do with the personality of the person choosing the sweaters...Woolly's owner feels that many more of the handknit sweaters fit him and are acceptable to him.  Stripe Freestyle's owner, twin A, basically would live in his sweater, day and night, if he had the opportunity.  Nothing else compares.

I am enthralled by the ease of clicking a button, doing a little editing, and getting these sketches instead of the photos.  Does it make anything art?  I don't know--but as long as we end up warm in the winter time as a result of the sweaters?  I keep knitting and designing.

Plastic Straws, and making things

Summer camp starts at 9:30, which means that there is time for early birds at our house to play, walk dogs, and even watch Clifford on TV before camp.  Last week, I dodged upstairs for a bit while the Professor supervised the matchbox car races and tower destruction... and I wrote something about our trip.  It happened to correspond to a great campaign in Winnipeg as well, and it ran on the CBC on Saturday morning.  Here's the link.  (and a photo...) 

Want to save the planet? Start by saying no to the plastic straw

It's been a busy few days.  Just a couple days after we got home from our trip, the Professor left to do some work research at a museum in NYC, and visit relatives.  I had my hands full with twins, but Harry the dog suffered some serious stomach issues, too and was up a lot with me 2 nights in a row.  It resulted in a lot of messes to clean up, a trip to the vet, and $174 later, some antibiotics and a much happier dog.  Sally, our other dog, was remarkably placid during all this, which helped enormously.

Once things seemed a bit more under control, I took a trip to my favorite quirky fabric store, and bought supplies.  I am making something for my nephew in Virginia.  (A quick update if you've been reading the blog since 2008?)  This nephew mostly uses a wheel chair, has some significant challenges, but is bright as a penny.  He signs and uses a communication device, and his spelling is amazing...he is lots of fun!  My kids love playing with this cousin. :)  Anyhow, his mom gave me a project to work on.  (Kids with special needs often require handmade things to help out, you can't buy everything in a store!)  I will need to figure out snaps.  For me, it's a new sewing frontier.
While the Professor was away, I juggled everything fine until things started to be, umm, not as fine.  He was supposed to return Friday night.  Unfortunately, he had one of those bad travel experiences that results in a marathon travel experience.  He spent an extra night with his brother's family in Manhattan, and he was getting on planes that don't take off due to weather (1), plane troubles (1), then missing a connection due to the late flights, and then having to take two more flights, and then well, he got home around midnight Saturday night.  A day and a half of trying to get home.  

Ouch.  However, it was also ouch for me, since I'd planned out life with twins and dogs right through Friday, but not beyond.  Luckily, an artist friend sprang into action.  On Saturday, we joined her to do age-appropriate paper marbling on her front porch, and then her husband read kid stories, and she fed us a delicious lunch.  I thanked heaven for friends who could help about then.  We came home, took a nap, played at the wading pool, and waited for Daddy.  Both boys were so excited that they could not sleep, so we did chores together until nearly 9pm.  Chores are boring, though the boys were very helpful, so eventually, they fell asleep.

On Sunday, we all went strawberry picking, as well as boy bike riding, and playing with the hose in the front yard.  

I'm exhausted, but folks will insist on continuing to eat, too, even after Daddy comes home.  Tonight?  Beef kofte, brown rice, vegan tzatziki, and a big salad.  Strawberry banana apple fruit leather is drying in the dehydrator, strawberry yogurt popsicles are in the freezer, and there are still something like 7 or 8 flats of strawberries left to process into jam or washed, frozen berries...   There's always tomorrow.

stained glass colored glasses

Thought you'd enjoy seeing our newest acquisition...we got this stained glass panel Sunday at an old house warehouse/antique mall place. (Old House Revival, if you live in Winnipeg.)

We hung it immediately in our dining room. Check out the photos! We're hoping that this will:
A) Block out some views of the ugly new condo across the street, which is growing uglier by the day. The latest is the landscaping, which appears to be all rocks....no greenery at all so far.

B) Screen views from the street so people can't look in and see the babies all the time.

C) Beautify our lives a bit.

So far, option C is working. I think it looks great and that makes me happy! I have a call into the store to find out if they know anything more about the history behind this piece. I am so sleep deprived that I am surprised by how nice it looks every time I enter the dining room. I just can't remember that we bought it. :)

It doesn't entirely screen out the condo (very little would) and now it appears that some of the lighting they've installed on the staircase directly facing our house is purple. GROSS.

We acquired this really quickly--went looking at stained glass with the babies in tow on Saturday. We asked for the Old House Revival folks to get a price quote on this piece for us. They called us on Sunday, and the professor went and bought it, brought it home and hung it.

It was a great way to make a decision about decorating! Quickly!

I am posting this colorful set of images to offset the not-so-wonderful other complications we're encountering. This summer I had some big postpartum health complications which I'm not going to go into here. The major stuff is mostly resolved now, but I won't lie, it hasn't been an easy haul. Meanwhile, my professor has been juggling his busy laboratory, teaching a course with 50 some students, life with new twins, taking care of me and two dogs...and a lot of bureaucracy.

You see, we're American citizens living in Canada. The twins are eligible for both U.S. and Canadian citizenship. There's a lot of paperwork involved in all of this passport, Social Security Number and Social Insurance Number acquisition, of course, and the bureaucracy around it is boggling. If, for instance, we want to visit our families in the US, we must straighten all this out before we leave home so the babies' papers are in order to cross the border.

Anyway, as you might imagine, life with two infants is very busy. The babies eat every 2-3 hours, and at night, they stretch that out sometimes to 4 hours. So, we don't get much sleep. A rare and great night is more than 6 hours of sleep with only a single interruption. Usual is 4-5 hours, with perhaps two feeding or diaper changing interruptions.

When patience is stretched to the breaking point by crying, barking, and passports potentially lost in the mail (no kidding) and the new parents in question are seriously tired, sometimes maybe one needs a bit of colored glass (rose colored glasses?) to try to see the world in a more cheerful light.

Sometimes one needs bread as nourishment. Sometimes too, I need art nourishment. This stained glass is helping make the bread feel more like a meal these days. I think it belongs in our dining room.

Things to celebrate

1. I've made it to 37 weeks of pregnancy--full term with twins! Now I am just waiting for them to decide to arrive naturally, which I don't mind doing at all. I figure the discomforts I know are easier than the unknown ones to come... The good news is that when they arrive, they should hopefully be fully developed. The bad news is that the doctor can't imagine why anyone would willingly hang around waiting, and wants me to be induced. I'm holding out for now. The pressure to have a medicalized birth when carrying twins seems to be pretty big. That's ok though, I'm pretty big now too--I'm carrying around roughly 50 lbs of twins here. I'm hoping I can take it.

2. I've finally finished the red sweater! I started this back in September and described all my yarn choices there. This is one of those "Joanne designs" that will be unlikely to be repeated. I wrote down all my choices, but this sweater took a long long time to do. The mohair boucle on the bottom raced by, but the dk weight yarns for the upper body and the arms took long time due to my swollen hands. Even sewing in the sleeves took me way too long. I designed it to be flattering with a big belly...but I think I misjudged how big a belly I would produce. For now, I think it looks great on this very skinny clothes hanger!

The pin is a special thing on its own. It was a gift from my nephew Nate's mom. She worried it would be a bit too gaudy for me--I tend to wear plain things--but I've been eyeing it for months because I thought it would work perfectly for this kind of sweater. Here is a link to the artist who makes these. They are truly masterpieces of felt. Very quirky and interesting things...

3. We had a lovely visit earlier this week with the professor's brother and sister-in-law. They came to Winnipeg and soaked up our sunny spring weather and we enjoyed their company enormously. They went to see things with the professor, saw Assiniboine Park and enjoyed lots of good food and gelato. They were also very patient with me when I disappeared to take naps all the time. It's hard working shlepping around twins and I need lots of rests.

4. It's "May Long" this weekend-a three day weekend! The professor says things have emptied out at the university and overall, it is relatively quiet in town. I am hoping that means we'll have a lot of good quality time this weekend to rest and enjoy each others' company. Either that, or it means we'll be hanging out at the hospital. Just have to see what happens...

That's the news from here.

Social History #3

The professor and I saw this car one day in August, along the route we usually walk our dogs. It was gone (towed away) by the time we came back down that block. I've been waiting for a time to post this photo for a while--unfortunately, I think I've found it.

This Research Note from the National Endowment of the Arts fits perfectly with an image of an old, rusted out antique car.

Why, you ask? Well, according to this research on women artists in the United States from 1990-2005, women will have to work 25% longer to earn what male artists earn. Worse, the pay disparity becomes worse as women artists age...so the older women artists become, the less likely they'll be to catch up to male artists. Women artists will have to work until they are perhaps as beat up as this jalopy and---still don't earn what male artists earn.

If you're up on your feminist statistics, this seems like old news. In fact, the current statistic for women nationally is that women in the United States earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. (working full time, at comparable professions.) However, for women artists, it's 75 cents to every dollar a male artist earns. If you read the research note in detail (and I encourage that, it's not long and it's enlightening) it indicates that there are exceptions. Younger women (18-24) earn up to 95 cents for every dollar men earn, while older women earn 67 cents for every dollar men earn. The findings are not radically different when compared to other labor markets...but overall, it's bad news for women artists in the workforce.

In particular, it indicates that women artists may marry but don't have children with the frequency of the national average. I wonder, is that because it's very hard to have health insurance or provide it to your children as an artist who is self-employed? There are also interesting statistics that indicate that women earn more in Kentucky than the average--but I daresay that is because the overall average for men's salaries is lower here. State by state statistics for this can be illuminating.

What does this have to do with social history and the phrase "and she knits?" Social history often looks at the underclass...and if the research starts with 1990, we're looking at historical data from 3 to 18 years ago. Knitwear designers and writers are part of this overall labor category of "artist." Fiber artists, of course, fit in the category. Until we find a way to value women's work and women -- knitted work, written work, design work... the way we value traditionally male work and men-- women artists will be undervalued. Many talented female writers/designers/artists who do not rely on spousal support end up needing to change fields just to support themselves. Alas, even 2 cents on the dollar makes a big difference.

What a miracle it would be if women in the United States earned equal wages for equal work. That's part of this mystical thing that we call equality, part of the parity refered to by feminists like me. I know that I earned more the year before marrying than I've ever earned in the ten years since--almost a penalty for wedlock...and yes, that's with two graduate degrees. (not lacking in the education or experience department...)

To read the whole report rather than just the summary above, Click here to download the pdf. (it takes a bit to download--warranted, given the weighty topic.)

So, don't like being compared to a Tin Lizzie? What do you think about the NEA's research note? What are good solutions?

social history bio #2-Jerilea Zempel

I'm going to take a wild guess here and ponder some possibilities about my last post:
a) many people lack a fast enough connection to watch a video
b) folks don't like watching video clips, even on topics they enjoy? (like knitting)
c) it didn't seem interesting or like legitimate information
d) it didn't seem relevant to the topic/it was too radical/controversial/fill in the blank
e) too busy with pre-holiday shopping? (this is my husband, the professor's contribution)
f) don't like Stephen Colbert/Comedy Central?
g) all of the above?

You're welcome to vote on this in the comments...
I'm still enchanted by this Comedy Central clip and was struck by the lack of interest!

In the meanwhile, here's more information about why I posted that video clip:
Jerilea Zempel is an artist and professor at Fordham University. Her work has won NEA grants, been exhibited in the US and Europe, and she's taught at Bennington, Barnard, Rhode Island School of Design and the Maryland Institute College of Art. I found this out via a bio posted about her 2oo9 residency here.

Professor Zempel's border crossing experience (from Canada to the U.S.) is written up in detail on her blog (listed above), newspaper articles, as well as on the following other sites: Dream Activist, Don't Doodle in your Notebook

Why did I include this in the feminist social history/bio series, "And she knits?"
1) This is an artist whose work comments on aspects of our daily lives
2) Her work intersects poignantly with typical history topics of war, peace and geographic boundaries.
3) It fits into a definition of social history "that is often described as history from below or Grass-roots history because it deals with the every-day people, the masses and how they shape History rather than the leaders." (One could argue that educators are leaders, but women educators might still be considered more grass-roots in this definition.)
4) Oh...and here's the big one. This artist uses knitting and crochet as her mediums (media?) to get her point across. That's very cool, in my book. It also fits perfectly into this phrase...."and she knits."

You'll note that there's no photo posted here...I didn't want to steal any of this American artist's work without permission, since the border patrol stopped her because they feared "some kind of copyright infringement" when they saw her sketch book and yarn/crochet hooks!

radical knitting

Yup, it's what we (fiber) artists do. We run around, "arting" it up, crossing borders and causing mayhem.

What, you say? This isn't Joanne's normal blog post...no bread baking or dog photos accompanying the knitting?

This is my "social history/bio #2" post. My friend Cindy sent me this link. I realize this is more like recent history, but sure is worth checking out. Enjoy this video clip called "Nailed 'Em-Radical Knitting" and just think of me, crossing the border to Canada next summer. Will the border control folk get suspicious when my landing documents mention "50+ lbs of wool roving, used as a packing material?"

EDIT (12/8/08): Note, the below video I posted yesterday is funny and worth watching. It is NOT about illegal immigration. It's about an American artist who uses knitting and crochet to do art and political commentary. It's about her experience with crossing the border entirely legally. I have plenty of choice thoughts on immigration (how did most Americans get here? Oh, and if the immigration regulations were as difficult then as they are now, do you think your family would be here?) however, I didn't bring those up when posted this... this video doesn't either. Many millions of border crossings are entirely legal. Enjoy it. Have a good laugh.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Nailed 'Em - Radical Knitting

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Psst. Drop me a line down here. Tell me if you laughed. (I did) Also, do you think it's fair to call recent border patrol activities "recent history?!" Any other knitting topics or people you'd like to see me cover in my social history/bio posts?