Thursday, January 14, 2010

invasive crochet...



Finally, here is my first feature on one of the connective thread artists, artist Crystal Gregory. Crystal makes very exciting work which she calls invasive crochet. Installing crochet on park benches, fences, bricks, and cinder blocks- often responding to the space and environment around her.


Crystal made a an amazing work, Foundation II, just for connective thread in which she crochet cinder blocks and installed them into a wall of actual blocks. She then really turned the work alive by lighting the work from within.


Not only is Crystal a very talented and interesting artist but she is adorable, gracious, and sweet to boot.


Crystal states about her work:

The rhythm of making and the repetition of stitches create a harmony within my art practice. Thread, lace, metal, and wood are the props of both individual domesticity and collective social networks. I join together the points where individual and social systems overlap, and where issues of sexuality, vitality, and death construct meaningful relationships, and find release.

Guerilla crochet projects around New York City involve ideas of graffiti, urbanization, and woman’s work. I use organic webbed shapes and materials combined with hand work to take back the urban landscape. My art challenges gender assumptions by weaving feminine lace work into the crevices and spaces of masculine urban landscapes, such as the fire-retardant metal of a fire escape, the hard wood of a park bench, and the chain link fences attached to bridges. The web highlights the unique and man-made nature of both structures.

I have a feeling we will keep seeing plenty of Crystal and her great work as she as already participated in the Water Pod project and art in odd places in NY. The great thing about NYC is there are plenty of opportunities for temporary public works- something right up Crystal's alley and off of her crochet hooks.

To see more work right now stop in at her solo show which opens Tonight!

Rethinking Home

On view December 17th, 2009 to January 29th, 2010
Artist Reception: Thursday January 14th from 5:30 to 7:30

Manhattan Theater Source Gallery
177 MacDougal Street
New York, NY 10011
(between West 8th Street and Waverly)
www.theatersource.org

Rethinking Home

Sculpture and Installation
by Crystal Gregory
www.crystalgregory.org
Photography
Merav Lahr
www.meravlahr.com

Rethinking home is a project asking questions of interior and exterior architecture combining two bodies of work, Foundation I and Passage. Foundation I explores ideas of pattern, structure, and gender within domestic space. Passage expands on the theme of home through an outdoor installation using written text painted on a door and window to illustrate rite of passage as well as the physical act within a collage of nostalgic still images.

or check out her website.


4 comments:

tim said...

See Crystal Gregory at future of the city award - http://www.smart-urban-stage.com/blog/future-of-the-city/the-surface-of-a-city/

lauri said...

I am obviously a few years late, but would love to know a bit more about this. I have just started to crochet and in pinning some beginner projects and other crochet related items, I came across Crystals art.

I would love to do something like this, first, around my neighborhood, then spread out.

Are there links to more articles or info on this type of art?

Joetta M. said...

Crystal also did an installation more recently near a subway entry worth trying to find out about. I think I posted about it so maybe you could search the archives.
Also here is another great artist:
http://littleyellowbirds.blogspot.com/2009/08/another-boundary-broken.html

Amy Cooper said...

There is lot of articles on the web about this. But I like yours more, although i found one that’s more descriptive.
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