A Yarn About Painting

Several years ago, I was preparing artworks for an exhibition in the same space I was running meditation classes – my lounge room! Space was at a premium. I would paint at night creating a mess with paint, palettes, brushes and easels only to pack it up in order to create a semblance of order and calm for my meditation students the following morning.

I find inspiration for a painting often comes in those waking moments just before becoming fully cognizant. I often see colours morphing into forms. Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna and Indian Yellow may merge into giant boulders against a Cerulean Blue sky.  Phthalo and Veridian greens become reflections, as Naples Yellow and Pale Lemon materialize into sand. On a day when I can keep that thought alive, I will either grab my sketch pad and roughly paint these ‘theta brain wave’ visions using acrylics.

However, on one particular morning, when an image emerged, which I knew I had to paint, I became frustrated, as there was insufficient time to register this, with students arriving so soon. So, I tried to lock it into memory but feared the subtleties would be lost when attempting to later salvage it.

I was to teach a ‘Mindful Knitting’ class, where elements of mindfulness meditation were connected to the practice of knitting – the rhythm and flow, the breathing with focus and intention, observing body posture and tension in the hands. In practising being in the moment, we concentrated on our sensory connections: the texture of the yarn, the sound of clinking needles, our enchantment with the colour yarns; the visceral impact of each hue.

This day the students were to choose from a huge range of beautifully coloured yarns to make a sampler of the different stitches they would be incorporating into their chosen knitting project.

Pale blue, turquoise, teal, royal and dark blues, soft pink, rose, magenta, crimson and red, ochre, vivid yellow, lemon and cream joined olive, emerald, sage, charcoal, slate and mist grey yarns which filled the dining table.

As I was laying the balls of wool out, I remembered the painting that had appeared on waking and so quickly rearranged the yarns so that I could register the colours from memory. Within moments I had generated a canvas of colour and took a photograph so that I could draw on it later that day when once again the meditation room, my loungeroom, had been turned back into a studio.

Now I am blessed with the space to be able to set up canvas and paints and return to it without interruption. However, when pressed for time I can still rely on rearranging wool to work out what colours sit well together. Unlike painting where you have to set up the different colours on the palette and mix combinations to create your desired effect, by having a huge range of variant yarns you can enable the quick matching of colours or clearly see when they jar and adjust accordingly.  

At times I approach knitting as if it were a canvas and delight in knitting with varied hues. Luminary Australian designers and knitters such as Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson and American British artist and craftsman, Kaffee Fassett, who appears in the image above, sparked my interest in yarn in the 1980’s with their oftentimes dazzling interpretation of nature, woven into elaborate wear.

I lack their sophisticated knitting skills and have concentrated more on mixing colour through simple patterns. But oftentimes as I’m knitting, I’m also thinking of how I can weave these colours into a painting, for there seems to be an interrelationship between the two expressions - art and craft.

Somehow art is designated as more significant and therefore more prestigious than craft. Such delineations can prevent cross fertilization between these unique and potentially complimentary forms of expression. After all, they are both about using our hands and colour and allowing our imaginations to soar.