Pop Art Self Portraits
This is one of Grace's pieces. A mixture of paint and sand...
Our girl with her art teacher
Grace in front of her Pop Art portrait.
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Thank You Tree
Blessed be
This gentle tree
That patiently allows
The knitted swag of knotted loops
Upon it’s graceful bows.
A strange conceit
To dress a tree,
When in good time
It’s own sweet leaves
Will gown it with such splendor.
It’s not the dress
But the tree
That causes all the wonder.
Blessed be
This gentle tree.
~Nancy Mellon
Have you visited Jafabrit's Art, one of my blog links? Corrine is an amazingly talented artist with a huge heart, great wit and a bright spirit. She lives and works in a small community, one of our favorite towns, not too far from Rabbit Run Cottage. Corrine is one half of the wonderfully creative duo of Corrine and Nancy Mellon that began this project...an art project that makes people smile, feel dog gone good and, well, just brightens up a dreary day. Today was one of those gray, constant drizzle falling on my head, days but then the Knit Knot Tree provided Mom, Grace and me with a much needed ray of sun. This bright and happy project has been featured in newspapers and television and radio...and yes, even the BBC recently interviewed Corrine about the tree.
YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio (AP) — No, that's not a hallucination. That pear tree is wearing a sweater.
Wrapped around the trunk is a colorful, crazy-quilt skin made up of panels of yarn knitted individually by residents and visitors alike. Good-luck charms cling to the yarn. Family photos, poems and jokes peek out of knitted pockets.
The art project in this southwest Ohio village, already known for its offbeat art, has become a conversation piece and even a photo op.
"What takes this to a different level is it is a community thing," said Corrine Bayraktaroglu, an artist who helped start the "knitknot tree" project. "People are really, really enjoying it. They're coming from towns to have their photograph taken with the tree. They're adding stuff to the pockets."
Knitters around the U.S. are dressing trees, street signs, benches, door handles and other objects.
Last month, residents of Columbus, Ind., knitted cozies for 33 ornamental pear trees that line the city's main street. One tree, called the People Hugger, has knitted arms.
Knitted coverings are showing up on trees and doorknobs in Charleston, W.Va. In Houston, knitters have dressed up park benches, car antennas, telephone poles and beer bottles.
"It's fascinating what's going on in the knitting world," Bayraktaroglu said. "Graffiti street art is going to a whole different realm. It's gone beyond just painting on sides of buildings."
Artist Carol Hummel is among the pioneers. She crocheted a cozy for a tree in front of City Hall in Cleveland Heights several years ago. It took her 500 hours and the use of a hydraulic lift to dress the upper branches.
The cozy has survived several winters and even a swarm of cicadas, which left their molted skins clinging to the material.
"There are a lot of copycats now," Hummel said. "A lot of people are getting into putting things on the trees. That's cool."
In Yellow Springs, the first knitted panel — a gold piece with the words "Knitknot Tree" and a smiley face — went up in October. It wasn't until early February that more panels began to be added.
"Then it just took off like crazy," Bayraktaroglu said. "People were coming from out of town and adding their own knitting."
Artist Nancy Mellon said people love to come up and touch the tree, and children like to check out what's in the pockets.
"There was a man — while I was working on the tree — who walked by, and all he said was 'Thank you,'" Mellon said.
Other residents in this village about 15 miles east of Dayton also seem to like the dressed-up tree.
"It looks like Yellow Springs; it's unique, it's colorful, unpredictable," said Lynda Sirk. "It makes me smile. That's what I like."
The tree is vulnerable to the raised legs of passing pooches. Because of that, the panels of yarn don't extend all the way to ground level.
As the panels spread up the trunk, the knitters had to follow, first standing on a chair, then a three-step ladder, a 6-foot ladder and finally an 8-foot ladder. They finally decided they had gone high enough after someone suggested scaffolding and village officials began to worry about someone falling.
"The fear factor has kicked in," Mellon said.
The artists who started the project tentatively plan to remove the knitting on Arbor Day at the end of April and give away the pieces of yarn.
But Bayraktaroglu has some reservations about that.
"People get very attached," she said, "and I think they'll be mad at us if we cut it down."
This poem was also penned by Nancy Mellon
Grace wants to add something so we will be making another trip back to Yellow Springs soon.
Listen for my yodeling as I drive into town Corrine!
I hope you are all well and enjoying the week. May it be a sweet one for all of you!
Grace's Artistic Tribute To Keith Haring
From the biography for school children:
Keith was born on May 4, 1958. He grew up in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, the oldest of four children. He started to draw right away.
"My father made cartoons. Since I was little, I had been doing cartoons, creating characters and stories."
As Keith grew up, he continued to draw and make art. He saw modern art when he visited museums in Washington, DC.
After high school, he went to art school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a year. He started making big drawings, and when he was 19, he he had his first public show.
In 1978, Keith moved to New York City to go to a different art school. He loved being in the big city. There were big museums with all kinds of art. There were many young artists working in his neighborhood. And there was a lot of energy on the street.
In New York he found his style.
"I bought a roll of oak-tag paper and cut it up and put it all over the floor and worked on this whole group of drawings. The first few were abstracts, but then these images started coming. They were humans and animals in different combinations. Then flying saucers were zapping the humans. I remember trying to figure out where this stuff came from, but I have no idea."
Then Keith started seeing empty black pieces of paper on the subways. He knew that this was the perfect place for him to draw. He started making his subway drawings every day.
"When I drew, I drew in the daytime which meant there were always people watching, from little kids to old ladies to art historians.
Keith started to become famous. All the people riding the subway saw his work, and it was also on TV and in the newspaper.
Keith also started showing his work in art galleries, where many people started to buy them.
"I wanted to sell my paintings because it would enable me to quit my job, whether as a cook or delivering house plants or whatever else I was doing--and paint full time."
In his first show in New York, he painted all the walls with his art, and then put up his paintings and his sculptures. Hundreds of people came to the opening party, and it was a big success.
Now Keith worked harder than ever, and he travelled around the world to show his work. He had shows in Europe, Japan, and all across the United States. He even painted the entire side of a church in Italy!
His paintings and sculptures became very expensive. He wanted everyone to be able to buy his work, so he opened a new store called the Pop Shop to sell his art on posters, buttons, T-shirts, and games. He also worked with children in schools to paint large murals with them, and he made paintings and sculptures for schools and hospitals in many places. In 1988, Keith got very sick with a disease called AIDS. At that time, doctors could not help people with AIDS. Keith knew he was going to die, but he was very brave and kept working as hard as he could until the end. He also made posters to tell people about the sickness and gave money for doctors to search for a cure.
After Keith died, his work still lived. You can find it in museums, in books, on posters, on TV -- and even on the World Wide Web.
Keith wanted everyone to make art, especially children.
For more information about this artist:
Keith Haring
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I send love and hugs to you all. I hope your week is going well. Be good to yourselves!
XXOO Susie Q
