Skip to main content

Museum of Contemporary Art: Crochet!

Monday, November 25, 2013
First off, Happy Anniversary to the love of my life, Alan Kinsler!

A pictorial essay on our trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, recently. The photos pretty much tell it all!

After a pleasant but chilly trip on the El to downtown, we stopped for hot chocolate first!
Hershey's, Ghiradelli's??
Ghiradelli's, Hershey's???
We opted for Hershey's because we'd been to Ghiradelli's before. Delish!

Dutes Miller crocheting with Coats pink "Pound of Love"
He throws the yarn and does a "made up" single crochet
Dutes told me that he and his partner Stan Shellabarger learned to crochet just for this project, but that they only know the one stitch they are using. Note: Red Heart "Pound of Love" under the chair.

Close up of Dutes crocheting
A very congenial couple, Dutes also told me that they started this project ten years ago as a symbol of their connection, their relationship. When they started with the foundation chain, they literally sat knee to knee and we both crocheting on opposite sides of the chain. As it grew, they were able to crochet simultaneously. The choice of the color pink symbolizes "skin" and the intestine-like tube symbolizes their corporal connection also. They have been together for 17 years.

Stan Shellabarger on the other end of the 80-foot crocheted tube
I walked to the other end to speak to Stan. he's got the hang of single crochet; unlike Dutes who adds an extra chain in-between finishing his sc! No worries; it's art....? He works consistently and he's creating a tube.
Stan Shellabarger crocheting single crochet
Stan told me that they have many satisfying conversations with viewers. "Crocheting is so familiar and it evokes memories that people want to share." The couple crochets about two feet of tube during each performance. I asked Stan if he ever had wrist problems and he told me had once been a carpenter. "This work is a piece of cake compared to some of the rough and heavy work I've done with my hands in the past," he explained.

Viewers amazed by this "performance"


Untitled (Pink Tube): view from one story up
Sometimes the couple sits close together and other times they sit far apart, as shown here. Stan told me that they have even sat in separate rooms with the tube streaming between them. In many places along the tube, it looks faded due to the use of different dye lots in the yarn.

Obviously, these two have minimal interest in learning more of the finer details of crochet or they would have done so by now. They have been crocheting the same stitch (single crochet) for ten years,  periodically exhibiting their "performance" and growing this pink tube! Does an artist have to have a passion or the skills for the technique they are using in order for it to be art?

Does the fact that the tube is now huge and that they have lugged it to various public venues make this art?



We encountered a bonus that day at the museum: Andy Warhol and Alexander Calder both has exhibits on view!!

Alexander Calder
Calder Mobiles


We encountered this sculpture upon leaving the museum:





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Craft vs. Fine Art: How is Crochet Blurring the Lines

I was awakening to the world of crochet in 1972,a time of immense artistic expression through fiber arts; and crochet was not the “ugly stepchild” at the time. In fact, Ferne Cone Gellar who I admire as a successful fiber artist said in “Knitting: The Stepchild of the Fiber Arts?” ( Fibercraft Newsletter 1978), “Has knitting been slighted among the areas of the fiber arts? The very word ‘knitting’ evokes images of the little old lady in tennis shoes. Over the years, I’ve learned to ignore all those jokes.” Cone Gellar went on to publish Crazy Crocheting in 1981 and encouraged her readers to create more than bedspreads, providing ideas such as “things to play with or to display on a shelf or hang on a wall.” A photo of single crochet from bread wrappers served as inspiration.  In 1972 in her book, Creating Art from Fibers & Fabrics , Dona Meilach wrote: “Why are fibers and fabrics becoming increasingly appealing to artists? Most artists agree

Wartime Crochet With Attitude, Part I

Wednesday, October 30, 2013 Karen Ballard and I have a mutual love of free form crochet. We met for the first time in a class taught by Prudence Mapstone of Australia at the Chain Link Crochet Conference 2011. I admire Karen's vast knowledge of needle work history and am grateful for her willingness to share with us as my guest blogger this week. Karen wearing a World War II-era knitting hat with stubby needles on top Karen's Heritage Heart,  with flowers symbolic of her heritage, is currently on tour with Prudence Mapstone's traveling "Hearts & Flowers Exhibition" in Australia and New Zealand   World War 1 Attitudes About Crochet by Karen Ballard In 2008, I coined that term, "Workbasket Campaigns" to describe the organized efforts during World War I (WWI) and World War II (WWII) coordinated through the American Red Cross {ARC} and the Navy League to create needle crafted items.  These items were mostly knitted but also sewn, qu

Crochet and Society: How Crochet has Contributed

Wednesday, September 4, 2013 Because I am passionate about crochet and because it plays such an important role in my life. I am constantly “thinking crochet.” I want to bring awareness about crochet to everyone in the world. They don’t necessarily need to achieve the level of passion that I have for the craft, but my dream is that our society in general would come to recognize crochet as a valuable art and craft.  I also want to see the entire genre of crochet planted firmly on a continuum with all the other needle arts as a valuable pastime and art, and for the day to come when society stops confusing it with knitting! I have often joked that I am “covering my world in crochet” and that’s because I think crochet can beautify nature as well as contribute to many aspects of my community. I have been covering rocks for years and I turn them into sculptures or decorative o bjects. Claire Zeisler:  Fragments & Dashes , Threads magazine, Oct/Nov 1985 My first cover