Knit art

If you've reached the point as a knitter where you feel like there aren't any challenges left, perhaps you can try recreating famous paintings.

Me, I'm just trying to summon enough energy at the end of the day to blog.

Stumbled upon

New York is so stuffed with amazing/noteworthy things that you can run into them without even looking for them. Why, there's the Chrysler Building!

And that gallery at MoMA that we almost skipped? It has Les Demoiselles d'Avignon!

And you know how you'd seen the Empire State Building from a distance but hadn't had a closer view? It was behind you outside Penn Station and Madison Square Garden the whole time! (Seriously, the last day I was there I realized this iconic New York building had been the direction I hadn't looked pretty much every day.)

With a capital a

Knitting is for Pus****? So says this crochet art installation.

Bombs away

Yarn bombing stories are blowing up! (instant rim shot)

Some folks in Austin have encouraged one artist to do a public installation. So the question is, welcome covering up of roadside eyesores or distractions for drivers?

I've yet to come across one of these in the wild. Have you?

Knitertainment

Every now and then I document even the most mundane instances of knitting in films when I come across them. If you're in search of examples, doing an Internet Movie Database search with the keyword "knitting" produces an interesting list of the best knitting titles.

I reckon that "best" means highest rated with knitting listed as a keyword, not best knitting content. For instance, the top entry is for a Newsradio episode. Even as a big fan of the show, I don't recall a lot of knitting action, but sure enough, there's Maura Tierney knitting (or faking it) in the last forty seconds of the "Daydream" episode.

The second entry is for a 2005 short The Knitting Machine. Yep, it's another art installation piece, this time with two backhoes wielding utility pole "needles" to knit an American flag.

So, if you're in need of entertainment with at least a modicum of knitting in it, there are 92 other titles in the list for your perusal.

Sheepish

Central Ohio crafters might have some interest in The Virtual Pasture at the Wexner Center for the Arts. The art exhibit doesn't have anything to do with knitting or yarn, but since it involves sheep--real animals will be grazing on the Ohio State campus for a few hours on Mondays--I thought it might be worth pointing out.

Don't ask me to explain it. The local paper's article on the project adds some explanations if you're having difficulty figuring this out.

The Big Knit

I'm not sure what exactly The Big Knit is supposed to be other than an art installation project in Australia. True to its name, it is big and it is knit. And it gives me a blog entry for a work-filled day.

An Agatha Christie yarn

I shudder at the thought of writing, highlighting, and underlining in books. Call it my inner librarian. (Actually, I worked at a library for a brief time in high school.) Nevertheless, I can admire the artistry in the work of those who alter books.

One altered book contest winner knit a wrap with strips made from the pages of an Agatha Christie book. Unfortunately I've not been able to find a good picture of it. This one shows more of it but doesn't give a sense of how it might look when worn. Of course, no one would wear it as a garment, but at least seeing it draped across someone's shoulders would give a better idea of how it looks.

As unimaginable as destroying books is, I also balk at the thought of how tedious knitting with this material must be. Just think of all of the gluing needed to make the "yarn" and the care that would be needed to avoid ripping it while knitting. Better yet, don't.

The Magic City

Birmingham, Alabama probably isn't the first place that comes to mind when you think of a vacation destination. Frankly, it didn't for me either, but my nonsensical decision to come here just means that my time here will be about discovery.

Last night I went to Regions Park to see the Birmingham Barons play minor league baseball. The ballpark is tucked about a mile into a subdivision, which struck me as a slightly strange location. Then again, I'm amazed at how much commerce and traffic piles up out here in the greater metro area

Regions Park is pretty familiar by minor league baseball standards. There's not really a bad seat in the place.

Sports franchises have decided that the games don't just sell themselves. You have to deliver a bunch of other in-game "entertainment", whether in the almost nonstop playing of music and sound effects/movie drops except for during play. Inevitably the songs and other stuff are the same among ballparks and across sports. Birmingham displayed some local quirks--more country music made the playlist--but what surprised me was that they weren't obnoxious with the things that are done to keep non-baseball fans interested.

Such extras didn't seem to take away attention from the game. In keeping with the team's honoring of National Mustard Day, a hot dog eating contest and a mustard trivia quiz were held between innings. There was also a frozen t-shirt contest. Never fear, it's family-friendly. Two t-shirts were frozen in ice. The winner was the first to get it out and put on the shirt.

As for today's doings, I didn't have a set plan. I was having a difficult time deciding what to do. The Birmingham Museum of Art won out. What a good selection it turned out to be. I spent about three and a half hours looking at what they had on display. (I think I overhead an employee mention that about 80% of their collection is in storage.) I'm partial to the European art, of which they had a nice sampling, such as a small Degas sculpture and a painting each from Monet and Pissarro.

I was kind of stunned by the size of this vase from Wedgwood pottery. It's enormous, somewhere between five and six feet tall. Alexander the Great is depicted on it. In the next picture you can see that the story on the vase continues on the other side, and you can see how big this thing is.

The museum also had an entire gallery for other work from Wedgwood.

Their Asian art galleries reopened this year and had some impressive stuff, such as this Japanese drawing or painting of waterfalls. The BMA also has Native American, African, and contemporary art, including some outsider art. I thought I'd seen it all, but there were sculptures outside.

In the foreground is a Salvador Dali sculpture. A Rodin is in the background.

This work's artist, whose name was unfamiliar to me, had his own little space for his mixed materials pieces. It looked a lot more interesting than I thought at first glance.

From there I went to Vulcan Park to see the largest cast iron statue in the world. The Vulcan statue represented Birmingham (and Alabama) at the 1904 World's Fair.

As big as the statue is, it can be a little difficult to put the size into perspective because of how high up he is. The observation deck at the bottom of the photo is as high as one can go, so your only real look at him is on the ground far below. Still, it was a neat thing to see, and the visitor's center provided some background on the city and the area that I found very informative.

I had considered going out to see some live music tonight, but I'd been out and about and on my feet all day, so I didn't feel up to it. I have no familiarity with the band, although I've read some good things. It probably would have been worthwhile, but with approximately six and a half hours of driving to do on Friday, taking it easy (and composing this post) have been perfectly fine for the evening.

Now that's an FO

Who needs to see all the familiar tourist attractions in Italy when you can check out a giant pink bunny in the Alps? The artist collective's website mentions that it took five years to knit, which makes sense what with it being 200 feet long and all. Yes, it's big enough to show up on Google Earth.

The installation has been in place since 2005 and is intended to remain for twenty years. I'm not sure which is harder to believe, the fact that those involved kept at it to get the project finished or that they were able to find somewhere to put and keep it.

Pop

Columbus has been the only North American stop for the exhibition Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms. It was a major get for the Wexner Center and for the city, but leave it to me to wait until it's nearly gone to visit it.

I had purchased a ticket for tonight's Times New Viking ♥ The Velvets, a concert celebrating the exhibition's closing. The ticket was also good for admission to the galleries, so I went down first thing this morning to check it out.

I'm a little more than passingly familiar with Warhol's work, but I certainly don't have a deep knowledge of it. This exhibition certainly could have changed that as I could have spent a few days consuming all of his film and TV work. For instance, Empire, a single shot of the Empire State Building, lasts slightly longer than eight hours. It was one of several projected films in the galleries. Another space was set aside for monitors displaying all of his television work. Factory diaries and other videos line the walls leading to the galleries. It's more than one person can take in.

Frankly, it's more than I would want to watch. I sampled bits from several pieces, but for me Warhol's film work holds greater appeal in concept than as a viewing experience. My impression is that he foresaw a future in which daily life is treated as though we are performers, whether in so-called reality television or in the videos uploaded to YouTube.

Seeing his reproduction of products--the Campbell soup can paintings, plywood containers painted to look like cardboard boxes of Brillo pads--made me think that such work predicted the idea of brands becoming artistic and self-expression. People wear clothing where the brand is the focus, as if it says something about them. As far as I know, Warhol saw it first.

I returned this evening for the Times New Viking concert, which saw the trio joined by a violinist and another guitarist while pixelated Warhol and Velvet Underground-related imagery was projected behind them.

The rock and roll drones were fun to hear even if TNV's versions were, shall we say, pretty rough around the edges. Then again, Lou Reed and Nico would never be accused of meeting the traditional definition of vocal excellence.

Capital A

If you can bear one more day of non-knitting chatter, I'll try to return to it tomorrow. I haven't picked up the needles since Friday, but I think I'm now through the worst of this week's brutal schedule.

Until then, I'd like to talk about art. Scratch that. I want to discuss Art. With its connotations of refinement, elitism, and the esoteric, it is considered, in many instances, a dirty word, especially when placed in opposition to entertainment. (No would dream of capitalizing that word, of course.)

Art is work rather than fun, cold rather than warm, of the head rather than of the heart...or so the thinking goes; however, I don't believe these things must be mutually exclusive. Sometimes art's pleasures are more cerebral than sensual, but the greatest melds the two qualities into something with unique power.

That's right, I saw a film tonight that penetrated the fiber of my being and invigorated my weary body and spirit. A great film can do that. Art can do that.

I had the chance to take another look at There Will Be Blood. I saw it about three and a half weeks ago amid the hustle and bustle of the pre-Christmas rush. While I enjoyed it quite a bit then, I wasn't able to devote my full attention to it. Since I got less than four hours of sleep last night, I wasn't sure that I could manage to stay awake in the theater this evening.

I did not have a problem remaining alert. I was transfixed while I felt the film working its magic. If it sounds like a spiritual experience, it was in the way that great art can lift us up and out of ourselves. Feeling this transcendence does not happen often when going to the movies (or reading, listening to music, etc.), but when it does, it is indescribable. I perceive more vitality in me, as though every cell in my body is buzzing.

Needless to say, this ended my internal debate of what film to name as the best of 2007. (Yeah, it can be more of a gut feeling than anything.) The challenge now is writing a review to do it justice. I do offer a caveat that the film is an acquired taste. I don't mean to draw battle lines between art and entertainment because I think both can be found wherever one looks. (For Pete's sake, Music and Lyrics will be in my top ten.) Still, I concede that There Will Be Blood may be slower and darker than some will find comfortable. It's not a film you want to hug.

I can think of other art that has provoked such strong responses in me, but I'm curious what you think. Does this sound foreign to you, or can you relate? If so, what grabbed you?