Friday, October 26, 2007

Dishcloths Gone Wrong

The Halloween decorations roundabout Exit 151 seem to be more elaborate (and possibly less tasteful) every year, so I thought perhaps I'd do my bit with an homage to Valentina Devine's haunting Scream. For those unfamiliar with the work, it's a patchwork curtain of many staring faces, intended to convey a woman's experience of the horrors and privation of war. There's a photo in America Knits by Melanie Falick, previously published as Knitting in America.

I knit up a prototype and have been trying to imagine a whole bunch of them pieced together, strung on a frame, flapping in the breeze in my front yard.

Dishcloths gone wrong Dishcloths gone wrong Dishcloths gone wrong
Dishcloths gone wrong Dishcloths gone wrong Dishcloths gone wrong
Dishcloths gone wrong Dishcloths gone wrong Dishcloths gone wrong

I dunno. To me it looks like dishcloths gone wrong – disturbing in its own way, I suppose, but I'm not entirely confident about where it would fall on the tasteful/not so tasteful continuum. Alarming the neighbors is OK, but I'd rather not produce an unintended lampoon. What do you think? Feel free to comment.

Meanwhile, blogless Kelli mentioned at MY SnB that her friend Tim, er, needled her a bit about knitting, something about needing to get a life. The bloggers present promised to offer a public knitterly rebuttal. Gentle readers may consider this a meme – tell off Tim! – if they so wish. Or, given most members of the SnB are making, have made, or plan to make Monkey socks, perhaps that should be sock it to Tim. Respectfully, compassionately, and nonviolently, of course.

Red Monkey sock

Friend Tim, all I can say (with Eliot) is while many have heard the mermaids singing, each to each, knitters are fortunate in knowing that, actually, they do indeed sing to us. That pleasant shock of recognition, the thrill that one is known and called by name, the joy in belonging – these are wild and wonderful things in a stark, commercialized world that measures out life with coffee spoons. To be sure, at times it is the part of a true friend to question, even to criticize. So permit a stranger to suggest (with Neruda) that handknitting can contain both utility and goodness, happiness and beauty, and that that is a considerable and a very worthwhile thing.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you mentioned blog-free Kelly and your response to Tim (whose name I had forgotten) was so eloquent. I love the Scream squares. If you have doubts about a banner, they might look good framed. They are just fabulous!

Bezzie said...

I say go for it. I mean it's better than those nylon inflatible thingys by FAR!

dragon knitter said...

i love 'em. and dishcloths gone awry is good, too! hand-made halloween decorations rock!

Zarzuela said...

I think the dishcloths are really cute!

And I don't think I could have made a response to Tim as kind or eloquent as your own.

Jessica

Deborah said...

Ah yes, art and dissent. Reminds me of the time when the idiots decided to cover up Guernica at the UN during the theatrial security council meeting or the justice is blind bronze at the Justice department (tits and justice don't go together)...

forget about the neighbors, better worry about homeland security!

Kelli said...

Thanks for the support everybody especially to Ina for her eloquent and kind words.

I am going to get that last paragraph inscribed and framed soon. ~ksp

Devorah said...

Go for it -- hanging from a tree perhaps?