Coral Reef Part Deux

Visions for a second coral reef canvas started dancing in my head as my room sized installation started dragging me down. I believe it was when I started knitting my Sperm Whale that my freeform crochet finger started itching. Once one consistently creates outside of the rules, it is extremely hard to go back.

I bought a bigger canvas (36 x 48) and started anew.

My idea for this canvas is to move, as a viewer, through a coral reef canyon. I'm hoping to add perspective which will be a challenge since I physically lack depth perception.

I warped the canvas as before but wove the warp and weft strands together in order to establish a bit more stability. I also brought in several elements that I had created for the room sized installation.

The red barnacles were created from some lovely hand spun that didn't quite have the stamina to stand up to their barnacle-ness so I ended up felting them and connecting them into a single piece.

The background is freeform crochet and knitting which eventually gets covered up, for the most part. I did attempt to add coral pieces directly onto the warp and weft threads but it lacked stability. Yes, it is a lot of work to create a background that is mostly hidden but I did take a short cut for the bottom of the canvas. In an area that I knew would be completely covered, I simply crocheted straight rows and eventually made a small piece that would be the exposed canyon.

Hyperbolic shapes are my favorite to make. When I start to search the internet for coral reef photos and new ideas for critters on the reef, I can get utterly sidetracked just looking at all of the hyperbolic shapes that a coral can take.

When it comes to creating the critters on the reef, I usually search through online images, decide whether knitting or crochet would be the best medium, and figure out the best way to represent them in the world of the reef. Should they be swimming? Hiding? Acting like a boss (see Lionfish)? Just tootling along and minding their own business? A lot of personality can come out in where they are placed and what they are doing.

The Germ of an Idea

I've always been fascinated with the ocean world. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Clarke, showed us reel to reel films of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and I remember being absolutely mesmerized. By the time I was seven, I knew I wanted to be a marine biologist. When I turned nine, I received a membership to Greenpeace for my birthday. I would spend Saturdays immersed in books at the library, filling notebooks and creating charts about ocean depth, salinity, decompression times and whale species.

I moved to Maine to attend the Maritime Academy but after awhile, I transferred to the University of Maine to study marine science. I was caught between the tug of adventure and the quest for knowledge. When my aunt who raised me died from cancer, I needed to drop out of school and get a job. I ended up joining the merchant marine in the deck department and I sailed the South China Seas.

Throughout this time, I was knitting. I started when I was nine or ten using an old Coats and Clark knitting pamphlet from the 50's. No one in my family was a knitter or a fiber crafter of any kind. I have no idea where that pamphlet came from or where I even heard about knitting. My aunt wasn't inclined to invest in my new found hobby so I sharpened two pencils and found some garden twine and I taught myself to knit. Now I see people watching videos online and it makes me so happy that their journey is at least a little easier to start.

It wasn't until I hit my late twenties or early thirties that I started to knit unusual things. I began playing around with crochet (also self-taught), and I crocheted a brain. I also knitted a digestive system, a Medusa hat (complete with snakes with beaded eyes), hand grenades and pies. As someone who has always had a bit of an oppositional personality, creating strange things out of beautiful fibers was a healthier way to scratch that itch.

I don't remember when I first saw hyperbolic crochet or how the Institute for Figuring was creating amazing coral reefs from fiber, I just know that when I moved to Washington State and started to walk the beaches, touch the water, examine the tide pools and play with the seaweed, I knew that I had to funnel my inspiration into my fiber art.

I do recall seeing a sign at an art supply store on Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor one day and when I went in, I found a 30 x 40 canvas for 50% off. Having never painted, I wasn't quite sure how I would incorporate my canvas into fiber art but I had just purchased a small rigid heddle loom at a fiber festival in Canada and weaving was starting to intrigue me. I decided to warp the canvas and weave a background with an ocean theme.