I finished a pair of thick socks for DH using three different color strands of Cormo wool from Elsa Sheep & Wool.



Happy Halloween! Here's my feeble attempt at carving a rabbit and a cat.



Peaches doesn't go trick or treating but apparently some rabbits do enjoy putting on a disguise. This scoundrel is available for adoption through Four Corners Bunnies.

Pedro Cabrita Reis - «Foundation» at the Gulbenkian Foundation

Foundation is, of course, the Gulbenkian Foundation. I have myself had the chance to discover some of the Foundation's warehouses and storage rooms, and it was an impressive experience. The average visitor has no idea that the two buildings, seperated by a medium-size, beautiful park with a pond in the middle, are actually connected underground. And I suppose that's where most, if not all, of the material for Cabrita Reis' work comes from. Neon lights, glass plates, old tables and shelves, cables, more cables, boxes, fragments of stairs, marble bases for sculptures, huge stones... The guts of an institution renowned for its clean, effective approach. The entrails we shouldn't be seeing, impressed as we like to be by the harmonious landscape designed to be seen from the outside, never from the inside. What is the impression now? How does it change our perspective, our view of the basis? The Gulbenkian Foundation can afford this self-irony. It is generous enough, and has good enough taste.

Is this ridiculous? Shouldn't we be analyzing something else? After all, Foundation is, of course, not just this foundation, but the foundation of something, the basis, the beginning, the rule - what Germans call Grund. Knowing Cabrita Reis' work to be often focused on the art world and museum institution as such, this might be the foundation of art, the real foundation of art, apparently chaotic, meaningless, or at least incomprehensible, often unaccessible (we can walk on some parts of the installation, but in an arbitrary way it is decided by the guards that we cannot walk on other parts), complicated, complicated, overwhelming... and yet, somehow harmonious, fitting, as if there was space for us, as if there was space for what we do, for our creation and our appreciation, for free-associating and even squatting on a stone, if we insist (although I haven't tried that, the guards might react).
If all this can be dwelved into, then why do I prefer to describe the Gulbenkian warehouse? Maybe because the one thing that's difficult to comprehend is how direct this link is. We are there, at the Center for Contemporary Art of one of 10 richest foundations in the world. And yet, this is the way it works. This is the foundation. It is a complex game of basic elements. Of course, with a Corot stuck somewhere to a wall.

Technorati: art installation, installation, visual art, fine art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Kittens looking for a permanent home

Willy & Wonka are safe and sound in the best foster home ever (ours)! But they are taking applicants for a forever home in order to make room for more fosters! Please see: WWW.FCDF.ORG for more details! By Elizabeth Mobley.

Adoring kitty

Adoring kitty by PhotoSeoul.

Saint Bernard Puppy

Saint Bernard Puppy : too cute and he like a panda right?

Stealing a sip kitten picture

This cute little ball of fur is stealing a drink on a hot hot day! The water belongs to a pair of parrots who are just out of view. By NiteMayr.

Flat out kitten picture

Fell asleep mid racing round the crazy little fluff ball by roweeena

On Performance Art, In Lisbon

At last! Some good quality theoretical debate about performance, in Portugal! This is a very unexpected early Christmas gift.
With artists such as Rui Horta and Pedro Tudela, and among the curators, Isabel Carlos and the Portuguese star-curator Delfim Sardo, this is going to be a delicious series of conferences. Considering performance is one of the crucial languages of today's art, this is a must-see.

This series of lectures takes the practice of performance in visual arts as departure point, with a view to covering certain thematic extensions that contribute largely to the definition of the individual nature of each performance.
In addition to an historical approach, the lectures will concentrate on these thematic extensions, thanks to the contributions of a group of speakers from different fields, work areas and artistic domains.

More on the Culturgest site.

Kitten Hexagon

Kitten Hexagon by blurasis.

Here are the Halloween-inspired Caledonia socks using four colors (medium orange, black, taupe, and a yellowish green) of worsted weight yarn. I prefer thicker socks as I have perpetually cold feet. (The free pattern for the Caledonia socks is HERE.)

Kitten Picture is back

Sorry for the lack of postings over the last few days - I've been a bit under the weather with a heavy cold and couldn't face staring at the computer screen any longer than I had too (despite the beautiful kitten pics some of you sent in).

Chris - Chief Web Kitten.

The floor is too cold

Since December, I have been trying to capture our kitten, Ming, who likes sitting on my mom's slippers while waiting for his meal. You see, the floor is cold this rainy season and he likes the warmth that the insulated rubber provides. My problem is that this spot in front of the kitchen door has poor light. Since the aperture cannot be lowered below 5.6 (I still have to study why sometimes I cannot use 3.5), I have to extend shutter speed to 1s. But how do you keep a kitten still? Answer: you can't and he moved his head here.

at Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, the Philippines. By Farl.

I will have photos of the Halloween version of the Caledonia socks for you tomorrow. I was originally thinking of adding some duplicate stitch spiders or dangling jack-o-lanterns but alas my mind has already moved on to the next project(s).

I've decided my next knitting booklet for sale will feature 3-4 patterns for multi-color knitted gloves for men and women. I don't expect to have this done before the holidays and really there is no rush. I want to use several different thumb gussets and perhaps even a faster version of Sanquhar gloves using a thicker yarn than the traditional laceweight. I do love to knit gloves most of all so this will be fun.

I've decided I want to knit Latvian mittens, some Fair Isle mittens, and some Dale of Norway socks. I only have a really good selection of colors in worsted weight though so I figure I'll try to knit a child's pattern using worsted weight yarn to get an adult size.

I also want to do some playing around with color. I want to do a tone-on-tone project, probably in various shades of blue, and I want to do a project in the ugliest colors I can imagine (just to see if I can make it work) and I want to design a bona fide Fair Isle project. For that one I will indeed use Shetland yarn although I find it pretty scratchy.

On the home front, Peaches is apparently responding to the change in seasons and is now eating almost constantly. We are trying to ignore her constant begging but she refuses to be ignored and positions herself in front of us and gives us the bunny evil eye. Ms. Plump-o does this even if we have just fed her 2 minutes ago.




She's not exactly wasting away from lack of food, eh? Meanwhile Jack the cat disapproves of all this rabbit begging.

Oops. Rob pointed out to me that I only put the Checkerboard Mesa Hat for sale in print for $9.99. I've changed that so now you can also get it via a download for $4.71. The amount for the print patterns is higher because of the higher cost of color printing - the print costs are around $5.30 for a 5 page pattern then Lulu takes over a dollar each pattern for their profit. Fortunately with .PDF files it doesn't matter.

Checkerboard Mesa Hat

Here is the child's version of the Checkerboard Mesa Hat. The pattern includes a checkerboard ribbing and uses 8 colors of worsted weight yarn.




The pattern is available at the Lulu store .

I'm currently working on a version of the Caledonia socks using Halloween colors and need to get to work to have them finished in time.

Yesterday we attended the harvest festival offered by our wonderful year-round CSA. (Sorry about the photo quality but I can never manage to take good photos when it is extremely sunny.) This is actually only one of the locations for our CSA - they have greenhouses in several other parts of the city and they get in organic produce from the region to distribute to many locations all over the city.



Los Poblanos is located on some prime and historic Los Ranchos de Albuquerque real estate near the Rio Grande river. The area includes a lavender farm, an inn, and a cultural center along with the land for our CSA. The inn and cultural center were designed by renowned New Mexico architect John Gaw Meem.



Here is a statue of San Ysidro, the patron saint of farming, in front of a lily-covered pond.




DH met some new friends.




After the harvest festival, DH took me to what he calls my "happy place."

Kitten investigation

By roxeteer.

A kitten named Sydney

I'm looking after a kitten this week while friends are away on holiday in Denmark. By Brian AG.

Sleep kitten

Sleep kitten By Jan Bakker.

German twisted cast on. German twisted cast on. German twisted cast on. That is the name I keep forgetting. This magical cast on alleviates the curling in two-color ribbing and is also used for looseness on socks for wider legs. The talented Sarah sent me these two great links that show how to do it and I think it is in one of Nancy Bush's books as well.

http://www.knottygirls.com/jenlablog/freepatterns/twisted%20german%20cast%20on%20tutorial.pdf

http://hipknitism.com/library/techniques/twisted_german.shtml

I've been collecting some of my technical knitting posts from the blog archives. (I deleted many relating to the Master Knitter program in a fit of pique after my Level III debacle but there are still a few left.) I plan to put them in the sidebar along with links to my free patterns but I'm waiting until after Blogger institutes some major changes at the end of the month.

Norwegian Knitting Resources Part I
Norwegian Knitting Resources Part II
Spinning/Knitting with Cat Fur
Steeking
Koolaid Microwave Dyeing
Two-Color Knitting
Twined Knitting/Tvaandstickning Part I
Twined Knitting/Tvaandstickning Part II
Weaving in Ends
Color Jogs
Tension Problems
Duplicate Stitch
Darning Socks
New Mexico Fiber Resources
Online Color Knitting Links
Cabling without a Cable Needle
Fair Isle vs. Stranded Color Knitting Part I
Fair Isle vs. Stranded Color Knitting Part II
Reverse Duplicate Stitch
Purling with Two Colors

MY FREE KNITTING PATTERNS

Garter Lace Scarf
Super Stars
ROY G. BiV Socks
Knitted Curlicues
Rabbit Finger Puppets
Caledonia Socks

Basket case kittens

Kittens in a basket by scrapygraphics.

Both pictures are by Margi Geerlinks, at the Aeroplastics gallery in Brussels.
Her works seem very uneven, some are simple "surrealist" plays with meaning, others are quite clever social commentary, others yet - really freaky stuff, way out there. But one thing is sure - she doesn't stop herself from going after what the mind's eye sees. Of course, that might not always be good.
I really liked both the works above. The first one, because making simple yet sustainable statements is extremely difficult. The second, because... what in the world is that? Extremely aggressive, yet organic, what starts off sexy ends with a scandal. And then, why is the scandal a scandal? This reminds me of elephant man, the figure/state and the film. But it's... controversial. In the litteral sense - it goes against the flow. The shock is not in the ugliness. It is in the denial of prettiness. What's wrong with us? What's wrong with us? Why is pretty so pretty? Why is not pretty such a problem? Say it's pretty, believe it's pretty.

There are other works in Margi Geerlinks' portfolio which I simply didn't dare to put here.

Technorati: photography, fine art, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Attack kitten picture

Jack the attack kitten by orphum.

Snoozing kitten picture

Snoozing kitten by altemark.

Corrugated or Two-Color Ribbing

I love two-color ribbing (also called corrugated ribbing) and I think it can really enhance a knitting project. The knitted stitches are one color and the purled stitches are another color. Because of all the floats it is slightly less elastic than regular ribbing.



If you are a two-handed color knitter, doing this type of ribbing really isn't much slower. I am right-handed and I hold the yarn that is to be purled in my right hand and purl those stitches American/English style and the yarn that is to be knitted in my left hand and knit continental.




I'm not sure why so many knitting patterns change colors in two-color ribbing in the purl stitches. That requires that you knit across the first row every time you change a color (to avoid bi-color purl bumps) and it can really affect the elasticity of the ribbing. I always change colors in the knit stitches instead.



One oddity about two-color ribbing is that if you cast on in one color using the long-tail cast on and then immediately start the ribbing the color you didn't cast on with will tend to peak out under the cast on edge. I don't think the problem even has to do with your tension on the first row - the problem seems to be that two-color ribbing makes the bottom edge curl up slightly. It isn't a huge problem but it annoys me. I pulled on the pink yarn a bit to further demonstrate this problem at the bottom of the knitting in this checkerboard two-color ribbing.



I've heard there may be a special cast on you can use to avoid this but I'm not aware what it is. I've even had this happen even when I cast on with two colors. Let me know if you know of a cast on that eliminates this. One easy way to avoid it is to rib the first row in the cast on color and start the two color ribbing on the second row.




I am not always fond of how this looks though so I use another solution.
If it is really bugging me I go back after I'm done knitting the item with the cast on yarn threaded in a tapestry needle and LOOSELY tack up the bottom float. Here you'll see the diagonal white yarns on the bottom of the Checkerboard Mesa hat from yesterday's post that have been tacked up.



Here is another photo that shows what the interior of corrugated ribbing looks like.

Why I like Elizabeth LeCompte

Wooster Group, Hamlet (2006). Photo Paula Court

Everything I come up with in my head, I put it on stage. But in 90% of the cases it doesn't work, precisely because it's in my head.


I think about what the audience will think. Every single moment. I want to be there, every evening, and observe what people do when they watch the play. If I feel them disengage or feel uncomfortable, it forces me to think about what I really want.

- Elizabeth LeCompte, artistic director of The Wooster Group, in an interview with the French review Mouvement (no.41, oct-dec. 2006). (my translation)

Do the above two quotes appear innocent to you? If they do, you probably don't have much contact with contemporary performance. These two sentences are sure to shock a lot of the avant-garde purists out there. The second sentence is simply a shocker: a seemingly avant-garde artist thinking about the audience? How dare she! She is supposed to be focused on art, on her experience, on the stage, on the essence, or on the periphery, but hers and hers only. The public should be the witness of something beautiful, not a criterium of artistic choice... Oh, how tremendously, absolutely silly. How pretentious, snobbish, irritating. How old and tired and, silly, just silly. And naive.
Notice LeCompte doesn't say the public's opinion decides. She doesn't say she changes everything if the public doesn't like it. But it makes her rethink. In her own words, "it forces" her. She doesn't feel there is really any choice. Is there? Certainly. You can turn your back to the ignorant multitudes and do your own thing your own way for your own self. You can have an inner voice that says this or that. You can be forever faithful to this voice. It's up to you. Or you can have a little modesty. And listen. And respond. Or not. But listen.
The first quote has to do with creativity on stage. LeCompte has no problem saying she has ideas first, then she comes into the rehearsal space and tries them (all!) out. Instead of doing it the traditional, "new" way, devising everything together in one pretty melting pot. Instead of making everything appear out of improvisation, as is expected from a performance group. And if that were not enough, she admits that yes, 90% of her ideas suck on stage. And she doesn't see any problem with that. And it works.
(at least I hope it does. if you want to confirm - go see The Wooster Group's Hamlet at the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Nov.4-10 at the Centre Pompidou.)

Technorati: performance, performance art, theatre, theater, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Farm kitten picture

By daecks.

Here it is - DH the Utah backpacking fanatic has named it the Checkerboard Mesa Hat. I haven't actually attached the curlicues because I want to get some shots of the top decreases. In a fit of productivity never before seen around here the pattern is already typed up. I just want to knit a child's version to include with the pattern - I'm doing it in purples, pinks, and blues. I am also working on a technique post with some knitting tips about doing two-color ribbing. I should have everything done and the pattern for sale by this weekend.

I've been spending a lot of time food shopping. I got the idea to try to do a Thanksgiving vegetarian feast with only local foods from the 100 Mile Diet web site. They say that most of the food you eat travels an average of 1500 miles. We can get most fruits, veggies, fresh eggs, and weekly organic bread with locally grown wheat from our wonderful year-round CSA but the other stuff is proving more difficult. Apparently NM is 6th in the country in milk production and 7th in cheese but Whole Foods with all their "local foods" signs had neither in a local version. I'm doing tamales with a red chile sauce and a pumpkin flan for dessert.

Yoppie asked in the comments about a few of the socks in the Photobucket gallery of most of my knitting for the last 5 years. The Turkish socks are from Anna Zilboorg's book Fancy Feet. The Bazaar socks are from a free Interweave knits pattern by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. I didn't actually use her pattern for mine - just her color charts.

Fixing theater

In the next couple of years I'm determined to make a couple of independent short films. I' m disappointed by a great deal of theatre. I love it, but I am beginning not to like its transience; as I get older I want to do something fixed.

- Pete Brooks
found here, along with a couple of other great quotes from the book On Directing.

Technorati: theater, movies, theatre, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Videoart contest

Magmart | International Festival of VideoArt | 2nd edition

"Is now starting, till February 2007, the 2nd edition of Magmart | video under volcano, international festival of video art.
The festival is a production of studio tad, with partnership of Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, GenomART and Computer Arts magazine (italian edition)."

Enrico Tomaselli
festival staff
info@magmart.it
http://www.magmart.it
Skype: MetaArt

Technorati: visual art, movies, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Aram Bartholl is playing with your life

Aram Bartholl, First Person Shooter


Pretty self-explanatory. Among Bartholl's projects there are several ones playing with the idea of an "online" gaming world. It is all light-hearted, smart material. Taking oneself just seriously enough, but for heavens' sake, not too seriously! See, for example, this charming film from the WoW project:


(if nothing appears, see here)
Notice that the first work shown here seems to be created by someone protesting against the violence in video games. But discovering the artist's portfolio makes us realize he is rather someone who has been working (among others) on the crossing between real life and the gaming reality. This hides a very interesting and delicate issue: the spectator usually expects the artist to have some sort of an agenda, a declared ideology that he would be pursuing (here, it could be pacifism). Instead, artists often work on a vocabulary, a particular language, rather than an idea(l). Matter forms itself in a certain way and the artist, like the first spectator, discovers its dynamics and its possible readings. Especially in the world of theater (though not only), this makes a lot of people uncomfortable. The idea of an artist as someone entirely in control, like some mad scientist who knows what he is inventing (!) makes it difficult for many artists to assume: this is what I discovered, I'm not sure what it is, but I like it, and I hope we can all find out more about the potential vectors of this...thing. As Goat Island puts it, "we have discovered a performance by making it".

Technorati: art installation, installation, internet art, net art, performance, performance art, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi