A few weeks back, I went to see the knitted rock at the Tate Britain. It was part of an installation by Andy Holden called Art Now. I was really interested to see the exhibit as I had seen the rock in pictures and have to admit I was not that impressed. However, I am not the sort of person to judge without seeing with my own eyes, so made sure to search it out when I went to see the Chris Ofili exhibition.
I was pleasantly surprised, as I actually loved it! The rock was covered in panels of stocking stitch and I do love a simple piece of knitting; it allows the yarn and texture of the stitches to really stand out. This was very true of this piece. The yarn was plied up from strands of slightly differing shades, making a subtle melange of colours, dotted with slubs of darker and lighter fibre, which had a very attractive texture.
The panels of colour were also placed well, fading from darker at the bottom of the rock, to lighter at the top, making it look even larger and higher. Certain sections were shaped with short rows to fit every contour of the object, which I found very pleasing - it would have been very easy to cut and sew each section with little thought to the shape.
It was great to visit with a fellow knitter who is also well travelled and saw the piece not just as a small rock, but also seemingly a landscape. When looked at in this light, each fluffy dark slub of fibre on top of the rock looked like some shrubbery or trees way off in the distance on some desolate rocky knoll.
All in all, I found this piece to be a fabulously interesting work of art, perhaps especially due to my innate love of a piece of knit!
