Artists Responses

During the course of the project people have been inspired to create works which utilise the ideas within the Knit A Year concept and explore it through their own practice.


Colour Abstracts By Niki Carlin- Photography
Niki and Casey Carlin from Black Glass Studios. Were photographers in residence during the Knit A Year Halton project. They took photos of the events and many of the photos you see on this site are by them. Niki created a series of colour abstracts inspiredby the strands within the exhibitions.
Comments: " Love these images Niki."

Mood Badges by Beth Barlow and Hazlehurst Studios- Socially engaged practice and installation
A barrier to people seeing one of the Knit A Year in Halton exhibitions was the amount of time the venue was open. Beth worked with the venue to explore ways of getting the work out beyond the venue. Another barrier to involvement was some peoples reticence to learn to knit. Mood Badges were created as a solution to these issue's. The badges were distributed around town and given out at a market event. People were asked to take a badge reflecting their mood and post it back through the venue door. Inside the venue was an installation comprising of the badge cut outs. Badges were added to this installation as they came in. 

Poetic Responses to Our Online Chats by Kay Steven
Each Sunday during 2014-2015 we hosted an online chat on the Knit A Year Community site. The chats were long, invloved, inspirational and thought provoking. We were keen to archive the chats. In the first instance we copied and pasted them for others to see. As time went on we created more artistic ways of recording them, including a series of poems.

December Chat
fundraising
babysitter
covers
parisian escapees
whilst artists
book faired
in baltic
new
good
looking
strand
notes to
plug gaps  
xperimental
strand
shaping days
futuring moods

by Kay Steven 

November Chat 

marine engineers
knitting in church

holding people
closer
pulling people
at distance
closer closer

holding people
closer

silence silence

knitting distance
holding people
closer

vulnerable spaces

holding people
closer
                  casting
                           off

By Kay Steven

Knitted Flowers by Beth Barlow and Wednesday Woollies
Wednesday Woolies is an established knitting group. They knit with purpose and like utility. The group struggled to latch onto the symbolic nature of Knit A Year. Beth worked with the group to understand their ideas around knitting. The group often give to charity, including  hospitals. The group were interested in knitting flowers. Beth developed a piece where the group knitted flowers and the flowers were given to a hospice where fresh flowers were no longer allowed.