Tag: artist
Stephanie Rhode – artist
by connie on Mar.17, 2011, under Blog
Last Saturday Best Beloved and I rode our bicycles to Ikea in Haarlem to meet with artist Stephanie Rhode.
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- Glass Houses
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- Sand Houses – installation
Knitted Houses, Lest we forget:
Installation June 4 & 5th 2011 in Gunzenhausen, Germany
On the weekend of June 4/5th 2011 there will be an installation of 490 houses with knitted facades in the market place of Gunzenhausen.
Stephanie has mobilsed people from Europe including Germany and the Netherlands to knit the walls of the simple miniature houses and so create new homes for the displaced and forgotten lost souls of Gunzenhausen’s Jewish community. The white walls of the 490 houses will be delicate and translucent, ready and waiting to accommodate the souls. But the foundations will be solid, as strong as the determination of the artist to fill these houses with life, to present the forgotten souls with a shelter in the here and now.
The 490 knitted houses on the market square are to commemorate all the Jewish people who for centuries, had their homes here until 1934, 77 years ago.
A time to knit – a time to reflect. As if the knitting itself loops and weaves itself into our memory of the many men and women of Gunzenhausen who were once content to go about their lives within the Jewish faith, contributing to life within this little town on the banks of the river ‘ Altmühl’ . They knit themselves into memory; releasing the chains of the forgotten past with every stitch. So too, do they break the threads of false ways of thinking.
Stephanie Rhode has a way of making her artworks interact with us on different levels and this one does it too:
She says ‘‘My subjects are all about reflecting our present, about reflecting the society we live in. It’s an interaction between what I see around me and the response I get from my environment. The faster and more hectic everything is, the simpler and calmer my pieces are. It’s all about giving back, reflection and reduction. I’m always working with contrasts and opposites”.
Interaction is brought to mind in the knitted house project: between the artist, her ideas and the knitted objects on the one hand, and between the objects and the Jewish citizens on the other.
Throughout the installation, the artist’s knitted works tell of her view of the history of her town, her home – or simply stories about knitting. The different places where the events took place are vividly documented. The placement and display of the 490 knitted houses is another bridge is built: between the participants, those who come to view the exhibition, and the former Jewish inhabitants of Gunzenhausen.
The installation will continue to have an effect, even when the knitted houses have been taken down because every house will rest on a purposely positioned piece of gold leaf on the ground of the market place. As the remaining outlines of the gold leaf, reminiscent of the houses, will be worn away in the everyday life of the market place, we will be reminded that something used to be there.
The installation, the knitters community as well as phrases from conversations between the artist and participants during and after the exhibition will documented and projected against a wall in pictures and quotations. There will also be photographic documentation about the people who have knitted for this art installation as well as the history of the former Jewish community at the Gunzenhausen town museum
Appeal:
Stephanie is looking for knitters willing to knit one or more houses or a house can be adopted for 100 euros.
Info Link to the knitted houses project it includes a registration form. I hope you join with this project as I have done. Stephanie will provide you with white yarn, pattern and a metal house frame.
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- Glass Houses
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- Sand Houses – installation
Why did we meet Stephanie at Ikea? Well I wanted to buy Swedish herrings and it is the only place here where we can buy them that we know of.
The Great New Zealand Cloak
by connie on Jul.20, 2010, under Blog
The competiton was held by the Compendium Gallery in Devonport, New Zealand in 1992,
The Brief – To Create the Great New Zealand Cloak, My Piece – “Island” 
When I planned the cloak – I did want to include reference to Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, who created wonderful cloaks mostly of a rectangular shape with a woven tie at the shoulders or neck. Their cloaks were woven, usually of a flax fibre. The best and most valuable Maori cloaks included bird feathers, the most striking for me being those created with kiwi feathers. Some were all over feathers attached to the base woven flax cloak. The flax is dyed in a specific mud to get the very dark almost black colour in the work. The flax was woven in intricate geometric designs using the dyed black with the creamy natural fibre and their stories are woven into the designs in the cloaks.
My cloak was created in one piece from the bottom edge to the shoulders. It is an island from the sea to the sky with mountains, sea shore, surf, farm land etc, as best as I could represent a land from the sea. I considered adding a component relating to my own Viking heritage of the sea – but had decided that will be the basis of another cloak in the future.
The black stripe down the sides from the shoulders have linen tassels is to provide that link back to New Zealand Maori whose cloaks were the natural flax creamy colour with black tassels. A feathered cloak would not have tassels. My reference is in reverse – creamy linen tassels on black yarn strip. I called my piece “Island”, because New Zealand is made up a group of islands.
I feel that I created an art piece in the form of a cloak, an absolutely wearable cloak. It sits well and floats from the shoulders. It is light and warm and envelopes one in luxury. When you are wearing it and walk along the shape of it moves in light waves and ripples like the shallows on the sea shore. I am still delighted when I wear the cloak and am always delighted when it is borrowed as it has been many times. This cloak has attended an opera, music festivals, celebratory dinners, and graduations. A perfect piece.
This the link to my earlier story of The Great New Zealand Cloak” competition / exhibition – http://www.connielene.com/the-great-new-zealand-cloak-exhibition
When I created this cloak I decided that I was possibly an artist who knits.
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Connielene - Unique Designs & Knits
The Gallery
From March 10th 2010
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