The Agenda

Suspending the role of gender and violence on the biggest knitting needles you've ever seen

by Anna Shapiro

Wednesday, Sept 6, 2006:

I walked in to the Anderson Auditorium at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts for the first of their Fall 2006 lectures, which also served as the kick-off of a tour extraordinaire for our very own backwoods down-home artist Dave Cole. To my delight, the first image projected on the big screen was The Knitting Machine: two huge excavators with two aluminum utility poles attached with a MacGyver contraption, supporting a huge loosely knit felt object resembling the American flag. This is not an unfamiliar sight to me. I have seen many of these ridiculously large knit sculptures since I stumbled upon Cole's pink fiberglass teddy bear in the Decordova Museum's annual a few years ago, and have become a groupie ever since.