Knit Stitch Ceramic Archive  

2024 

Stained Clay, cotton 

For this work I selected specific knit stitches whose titles refer to natural phenomena, like “Honeycomb” and “Heavy Rain.” I knitted each swatch out of cotton yarn and then dipped them in slip, or liquid clay. When I fired the swatches, the cotton burned out and only the ceramic remains. 

I am interested in alternative ways of knowing and being in the world that have developed outside of conventional academic institutions that often emphasize a hyper-intellectual approach to understanding. This project demonstrates an alternate way of understanding one’s environment through touch.  

Hand crafts offer a way of knowing through the body– developing a sensibility for a material and muscle memory for a process. This is also a collective way of knowing– uniting present makers with those who have come before and performed the same movements with their bodies. I consider my work a collaboration with past generations who dedicated themselves to learning about fibers or clay.  

This piece opposes the often-hegemonic nature of a typical archive in favor of emphasizing knowledge that is passed down through generations and preserved in a material through a tactile process.  

Everyone is invited to touch and feel the difference between the two samples at the end of the table. One swatch is fired clay and the other is made of cotton yarn.