Knit by Elliott Samantha (Sam)

Author:Elliott, Samantha (Sam)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laurence King
Published: 2015-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Art: Isabel Berglund

1. Berglund at work on a knitted piece.

2. Can You Handle Me, 2011.

3. Falling, 2012.

4. Moulds used to shape Falling.

5. Floating Pearls, 2011.

6. Electric Knit Trip, 2009.

7. City of Stitches and Wood, 2005.

8. Knitted Green Pollution, 2009.

Liz Collins

Liz Collins is a textile artist based in New York, who uses knit as her tool to communicate ideas relating to sexuality and the industrialization of craft. Liz graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence in the 1990s, and her output has been prolific since then. Her diverse range of work, which has been exhibited at numerous shows in the USA, challenges and provokes debate. Liz is best known for Knitting Nation, a performance and site-specific installation project that she set up, which stages various ‘knit interventions’, often documented on film.

Liz also has a background in the fashion industry, designing a range (line) under her own name, and she teaches at both the Pratt Institute in New York and at RISD, where she holds the position of associate professor.

Your work is very diverse and seems to embrace craft/art as well as installation and social reflection. How do you define yourself and your work?

You just did a good job defining it, except you left off fashion. I self-identify as an artist and designer specializing in knits – or a knitwear designer and multimedia artist who often uses machine-knitting as a tool of aesthetic and cultural enquiry. I am starting to do more works outside of knitting these days, so I am having to redefine myself with less of a specialization.

It’s always interesting to have a hybrid practice. I have to define my work more as an artist/art, rather than a fashion designer/fashion, before I can be taken seriously. There are people in the art world who are great supporters of my work and understand how the fashion feeds the art, and vice versa.

How long have you been knitting, and what inspired you to adopt knit as your medium?

I have been machine-knitting since 1997 and hand-knitting since 1992. Before knitting I was weaving. I learned to hand-knit and quickly understood the power of it. I could make highly wearable fabric and form in one concurrent process with no set-up time. I haven’t woven since. Knitting offered all I needed.

How do you start a project, and how do you progress it?

It depends on the project. My narratives are often intuitive and ongoing and find their ways into my work whether I am trying to put them there or not. They underlie everything.

Can you explain the philosophy behind knitting interventions and your work with Knitting Nation?

Knitting Nation functions as a platform for me to explore many things. It has some fixed elements – the knitting machines; the live, uniformed/costumed labour; the site-specific response to a space/site with the building of something. I am looking at physical endurance in relation to human labour, the rigour and demands of labour, the dance of labour and repetitive motion.

The knitting ‘interventions’ are based on the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.