Alright, here it is, the next big thing.  Some ideas I have are silly little things that make me smile, but some make me call everyone I know and say “So…. I have a NEW IDEA!”

This is one of the latter.

I’ve been working on my knitted canvasses for a while now and I constantly come up with new ideas for them, not all of which I put here.  Leaving the needles in, using clear gesso, using black yarn, leaving the knitting showing, it goes on and on.  But I have the mother of all awesome knitted canvas related ideas.  I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this before.

Part of the reason I make my own canvases is because I wanted to be involved in as much of the process as I can be.  Of course, sometimes when I say this to people they smirk and reply, “Oh, are you going to spin the yarn?  Or shear the sheep?”  Cause that’s just the type of people I know.  I also like the idea of being environmentally friendly (says the oil painter).  But I never throw out turpentine and always use the gray pigment that settles at the bottom of my paint jars in my paintings.

So today while I was painting with my knitted canvas in my lap (it’s roughly four feet by four feet which means I was actually sitting under a blanket that I was painting, the coolness of this was not lost on me) I was also watching Wasteland, an incredible documentation about Vik Munis and a group of pickers from Rio de Janero which multiple people have recommended that I watch.  Suddenly, it clicked.

I’ve tried spinning and I don’t really like it.  I’ve also seen someone sheer a sheep once and it looks… sad.  And mildly terrifying.  But, along with my desire to make as many stages as possible of my art as I can, I also am a community artist and interested in social issues.  As an abstract artist, I haven’t yet figured out how to do this visually.  So I turn back to what I know best: playing with materials.  And there it is.

Knitted canvasses made from plastic bags.

Ideally, I would like to collect these bags from a dump and/ or the streets, wash them, and use them.  For now I’m just using the collection of CVS, Target, and Shaws bags in my kitchen.  I would also like to turn the knitting process, which involves cutting the bags into strips and then actually knitting them, into a community project.  A group of people helping to turn their own garbage into art.

BA-BOOM!

 

Acknowledgements:

Years ago, my cousin Carrie gave my sister a bag with had been crocheted out of plastic bags by one of her friends.  My sister still has it and used it for years and I remember being incredibly jealous and thinking it was the coolest idea ever.  Apparently the idea was stuck in my mind, waiting to be dusted off and taken off the shelf.

Since I knew that other people had done this, I googled how to knit using plastic bags and found these two incredibly helpful websites:

http://www.morehousefarm.com/PlastiKnits/

http://www.diynetwork.com/decorating/recycled-plastic-carryall/index.html

Check them out, maybe they’ll give you an idea too!