I was out webwalking again and came upon this:
It’s a report of a bit of performance art/industrial control/knitting
that boggles the mind. The artist is directing the production of
a knit US flag, using aluminum street light poles as needles and giant
strips of felt for yarn. The actual knitting was performed by two
John Deere excavators, handled with amazing delicacy and
precision. The image is from a story on iBerkshires.com, reporting about the event which took place at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
The artist in question is David Cole.
This isn’t the first exploration of knitting (giant or human scale)
he’s done. He’s also done a previous bit of oversize knitting
with construction machinery, working up fiberglass insulation into a
giant slouchy teddy bear. His other works can be seen at his
website.
I can’t say that the gauge of the flag was in fact 1 st=3 feet, but one
has to admit that it’s pretty huge. I’m especially boggled at the
thought of someone deconstructing the movements to produce a knitting
stitch, then reproducing that series behavior using the controls of the
excavators. I’d love to applaud not only Mr. Cole (for his
imagination in thinking up this concept), but also the equipment
operators. "Knit a flag" is an incredible thing to put on one’s
equipment resume, and is quite a testament to their skill.