I woke up with the word ekphrasis stamped onto my mind. Once I was fully awake I realized that the upcoming challenge fits nicely with this word. In March the Mother Bear Project group will knit and crochet "art bears," bears that are somehow connected to art. Muses, maybe? Artists? Interpretations of paintings? Sculptures? Music?
For days I have been gazing at online paintings, have scanned books about some of my favorite painters, Gauguin, van Gogh, Franz Marc, Walter (and Margaret) Keane, Chagall, Picasso, Anselm Kiefer, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Monet, Manet, Degas, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo. I have looked at colors, lines, shapes, and themes. I have selected the first six paintings to be used in the project. And I have knitted six little hats that demonstrate how I see them.
It is easy to interpret Paul Gauguin; his colors are pure; his subjects are females, they look secure in their environment. It seems a bear could just wear a bright, hot pink dress to make Gauguin happy.
It gets more difficult with Pollock. His paintings strike me as loose ends spilled on a canvas, stirred and frozen in time. Well, clearly, a bear cannot be imagined consisting of loose ends. He needs to be knitted into a coherent pattern and he needs to be molded into the formula that made Pollock successful. And the lines must be more than the straight lines of knit and purl.
What about Franz Marc? His colors are as bright as Gauguin’s. He painted animals. He painted the Blue Horse. Maybe all I have to do is to twist primary colors into shape. But then I remember how short his time on earth was, how war took him away and confined him to greys and lingering darkness spreading across the sky. I suddenly see the snowy winter morning that brought me to Kochel and the graveyard where Franz Marc and his wife lie side by side.
Then there is Marc Chagall! A canvas dipped in shades of blue. A red sun with a white halo. But, the soul is, as it usually is, in the detail - little spots of color, bunched together like tiny spring flowers - faces peeking in from the blue universe – a looming torso – and the city of Paris below.
Of course Anselm Kiefer is muted in his colors, a vast streamlined mass of brown, little pink and light blue flecks of life and light, red accents, dullish cream, long, narrow converging lines. I didn’t know Anselm Kiefer in my early life, though he lived close to my home town. He is still a stranger to me, even after I have stood in a museum in front of his larger than life paintings for long periods of time.
My favorite for this project, at this moment, is Monet. He has already been recreated in a little girl's mind. I am speaking of the book "Linnea in Monet's Garden." I have, once before, dressed a doll like Linnea and think I will use her image again, except that I will add Monet's watery greens and blues by giving her some of his flowers. It is a delight to knit her brimmed hat – it is more colorful than the original - and to add a few strands of black hair. Linnea takes away my need to speak to Monet. Speak about him. She seems to know him well enough.
If I find time I will have to interpret Vincent. I really think my project would not be complete without Vincent van Gogh. It was only two years ago that I got lost in his starry night. That I romped through his wheat fields and sang "Sur le pont d'Avignon. There must be at least one sunflower left in my repertoire.
And if I explore van Gogh I must not forget Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Simply because he was ahead of his time. Or because I met his art in Vienna? Or, maybe, because he was a wild man? I wonder what Regentag would look like in bear format. Would it be Dunkelbunt?
If there is time I should also knit bears to honor my favorite ladies, Georgia O'Keefe and Frida Kahlo. Georgia, forever stamped into the red earth of the Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. And Diego's woman, Frida, the bearer of too many crosses.
Am I getting carried away again in my fantasies? In reality there will probably not be time for more than six art bears in March. I should make a list of things I can cancel to allow for more knitting time. Things like vacuum cleaning. Pulling weeds. Folding laundry.
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