NOVEMBER 2024
Lori Ann Wallin
Mountain Girl Fiber Arts
In French, “tricoteuse” describes a woman who sits and knits, whatever the external circumstances, and the term describes me accurately; I knit everywhere and all the time. The apparent alchemy of knitting -- using sticks and string to transform thousands of tiny, discrete stitches into a single piece of fabric -- charms me, and I love the practical magic of transforming raw material into functional objects.
I work primarily with natural fibers -- wool, silk, cotton -- materials with texture and warmth which can’t be reproduced in synthetics and which appeal to the hand as well as the eye, durable as well as beautiful. I prefer to use locally sourced materials from small, artisan producers, incorporating their love of craft into my finished projects. I often select deep, heathered, greens, browns, roses, and bronzes for their associations with the forests, farms, and mountains of my childhood.
My designs stem from the tactile experience of handling the yarn and playing with its drape and weight -- I let the fiber guide me. Knitting at its most basic creates a flat, two-dimensional rectangle of fabric, but bodies are rounded, and I enjoy the challenge of coaxing fabric which wants to lay flat to instead smoothly curve around a lush, three-dimensional form. Knitting is a contemplative practice for me – I find harmony in the rhythmic clicking of my needles, the smoothness of yarn gliding over them, the fluid motion of fabric slipping onto cables.
I focus on wearable art and believe the mindful creation and use of everyday objects can tangibly connect us to our history and the resources we rely on. Knitting is a slow process which results in heirloom objects which will remain beautiful and useful for decades, pulling the best of the past into a sustainable future, celebrating the craft and mastery of those arts traditionally – and often dismissively – labeled “women’s work.”
