a conversation between two friends separated by one state, sharing the same passion for the art of knitwear.

knitorious is an archive for knitwear designers, knitwear students, knitwear lovers and even the knitwear curious.

1.25.2011

lo and behold

Ritual Against Homelessness, installation detail | Katharine Cobey | 1992
handspun hand-knit Churro wool, leather, shell, bone
Katharine presents a circle of personages represented by their empty
tunics in this moving outdoor installation. Photo by David Boyce Cobey
Dream Shelters, installation with five figures | Katharine Cobey | 1990
handspun, hand-knit wool, found wool, fossil shells, timbers
It consists of four blankets, a coat, a cape, and a shawl arranged on a bed
of antique oyster shells.
"When we were kids, we built shelters and teepees from a trunk of dress-up stuff"
Mime for the Gulf War Birds, standing figure | Katharine Cobey | 1994
hand-cut, hand-knit, black plastic on wood base
During the first Gulf War, Katharine was especially moved by the plight
of birds trapped in an oil spill and used black trash bags, made from
petroleum products, for this elegy. Photo by David Boyce Cobey
Constructed in the eighth century A.D.,
Temple I at Tikal awaits restoration in 1960.
Rising steeply in nine tiers, a number sacred to the Maya, this limestone
temple-pyramid towers some 155 feet above the city's Great Plaza- and a royal sepulcher.

above & below,
Boat with Four Figures, installation | Katharine Cobey | 1999
handspun, hand-knit wool with stainless steel cables and supports
A spectral boat moves on, across geography and through time, containing
figures representing anonymous women.
Katharine spent five years spinning the wool and knitting the two
sixty-foot-long, five-foot-wide, gray mohair panels of this installation
(in garter stitch on size 11 needles).
One panel forms the boat and its wake; the other drapes like a shroud
over four crude wooden figures carved by Katharine from spruce logs
that she harvested from her land.
Pillars | Katharine Cobey | 2008
handspun, hand-knit wool, acrylic hanger
This installation work-in-progress will eventually consist of twelve
Greek-style pillars knit by Katharine in homage to ancient outdoor sites of worship.
Photo by David Boyce Cobey
While no image of Crazy Horse, no photograph or artwork, has ever been
found, his shirt (above) still carries a powerful aura of the renowned
Lakota leader who held the high title of a councilor called a "shirtwearer".
The design, meaning, and power of an elk hide robe came to the owner,
a member of the Blackfoot, in a dream that offered the power to
foretell the future and promised a long, healthy life.
Spots represent stars, and other details symbolize the sun, moon,
and Milky Way.
Photographed in a flash of magnesium, solemn Austrian scholars
record for posterity their 1914 visit to a Greek five-story tower
on the Greek island of Andros. Cantilevered stairs spiral up the
2000-year-old farm fortification.
"The colossal head to end all colossal heads"
gets a face wash at San Lorenzo under Marion Stirling's watchful eye.
Her husband, Matthew W. Stirling, studied the 2,300-year-old Olmec
head in 1946 on the last of eight expeditions he led to southern Mexico.
Squatting amid contraband history, a trader in Mali, West Africa,
displays his artifacts--many probably poached from Jenne-jeno,
a local mound dating from the Iron Age.

2 comments:

  1. Cute Post.
    http://joannafashionnerd.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. "lo and behold" - that will always remind me of the intro to Lolita.

    i digress, rad post... you always rock at the research aspect!!

    ReplyDelete