We were doing the mending after breakfast, pushing darning eggs down into the heels of Father's socks, hoping to make them last another winter. The only time words come easy between us is when we're busy. Everything I've learned from Mother, every bit of her truth, has been said while her hands were moving.
--from, The Birth House
During World War I many women all across Canada joined together in the practice of knitting items for the soldiers. The Red Cross slogan, "Knit Your Bit" and songs such as "I Wonder Who's Knitting for Me" became part of the popular culture. Thrumming - a knitting technique used in Newfoundland and most of Atlantic Canada - is a process where pieces of roving are worked into mittens, hats, and socks. It makes them amazingly warm and almost waterproof. (Which is why soldiers were known to trade almost anything for a pair of socks knit by a Newfoundlander.)
Women's traditions have long been passed down in circles…while drumming and singing around fires or kneading bread, at quilting bees and knitting circles. In these comfortable gatherings, songs, skills, conversation and ideas mingle with creativity and art. Today there is a strong movement in many communities to foster women's awareness of these arts. Knitting has been taken up by a new generation as not only a shared experience, but as a form of self-expression, a way to spread awareness, and even as a form of protest.
This quote from Judy Chicago reflects much of my feelings about what we choose to call 'women's art'. It's taken from an interview with Globe and Mail reporter Sarah Milroy. This is Judy's response to a recent rehang in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
"I want to be able to see Lucian Freud next to Alice Neel. I want to see Cassatt next to Degas, Sonia (Delaunay) next to Robert Delaunay, and I'll decide who's the better artist. I want to see Suzanne Valadon next to Utrillo who she trained, for God's sake. He was her son. I want to see the whole picture and then I want to judge, and I don't want to look at them in the context of 'she was the only woman.' We're half the population. Let's get half the space. And if all we were making was quilts and lace, then put them up on the wall and let me see for myself which was the more exquisite. I don't want to be told. I'm tired of being told."
Here are some links you might find of interest:
Thrumming Info (photos, how-to, and links to patterns! Yay, Yarn Harlot!)
