Knitting Sprawl - Ontario

While still feeling the energy and focus of my post-sesshin buzz, I made my way to the studio yesterday for a couple of hours as part of a ten-hour subway marathon day. My studio hasn't seen much use as an actual art studio recently despite all the best intentions in the world. Last year, it was part yoga studio and homeschooling play rehearsal space. Before that it served mainly as yarn and fabric storage. But given the amount of work to be done (insert whimper here), I have been straining to get there and to start really working on Knitting Sprawl and the other projects lined up on the calendar.

I brought with me the porcelain pieces I have been working on during our weekly class at Greenwich House Pottery. While traveling around Ontario, and for some reason especially while in Toronto, I began to have visions of mixing my ceramic work with my knitting. I decided to make the leap and include some of it in the Ontario piece (or pieces as it is turning out to be).

Here is a sneak peek at what has been cooking.


This is the shape of the city of Toronto. I painted our experiences on it in terms of geography. I like the "terra incognita" reference, as if what we don't see must not exist. This piece will be a stand alone with some crochet added, attached to the holes. I hesitate to say more for fear of botching up my ideas which are still rather fluid. Fluid, but gathering focus.


This is the same shape - the city of Toronto - this time in terms of how the city itself was rather unimportant and served only as a jumping off place to get to the other places. This will be part of a large piece (I think about 6' x 6') that will be knit. It will be connected, via knitting to discs of porcelain that I made for each stop on our Knitting Sprawl tour.


Here is the one for New Hamburg. The clear glaze made the painting a little blurry, but I like that it makes it look slightly aged or something like that.


Here is the beginning of the layout. The final piece will be, I think, shaped like Ontario, with each piece in its relative spot. I made a little star for Ottawa. Ottawa may also get its own separate piece.

I am also working with maps and written directions and the pile of papers I collected along the way - cutting them up, making them into books, etc.

With all the logistics of traveling and the efforts of simply being in one place and then getting to another, I had forgotten about the joy of feeling my hands work.