guess who's coming to dinner

      

Virginia Woolf by Vanessa Bell (1911-12)

My wandering mind was focussed by an idea in Alterknits by Leigh Radford. As a creative excercise, she suggests thinking up your own 'Dream Knitting Party' to which you can invite any three people (dead or alive). This is just the kind of thing I like to ponder as I knit (that, and the food situation in the house). So here's my dream knitting combination:

Vanessa Bell

Having been through several serious Bloomsbury phases and having seen so much of the group's art, I rate Vanessa Bell's work the highest, far higher than that of the more celebrated Duncan Grant. I love her use of colour, her domestic and garden scenes, her still lives and the gentle, feminine touch she brings to all her compositions. I enjoyed her biography by Frances Spalding and was unsurprised to read about her long, slender fingers and loved the detail that she always removed her rings before kneading bread dough. She could go shopping in Lewes, the Sussex town near to Charleston, and buy exactly the right shade of cotton for her sewing from memory, without a scrap of fabric for matching.

I'd love to see her elegant hands handling yarn and knitting. She would imbue her pieces with maternal love and a sense of balance and home. She could show us how to select just the right shade to set off resonances and contrasts. Her Omega Workshop textile design experience would teach us a great deal. Plus, she could make the bread and paint a small interior with a group of knitters for me to keep.

Dorothy Parker

 

Dorothy Parker as a modern day Betsy Ross or Madame Defarge by Luis Quintanilla (c1943)

We would need someone to entertain us while we knitted. One of the great joys of group knitting is the laughter and gossip. Dorothy Parker carried her knitting in a bag wherever she went, and she would be the consummate knitting ranconteuse, clearly having no problems with being witty and creative at the same time.

When the artist Luis Quintanilla painted her for his series of 'Portraits of Authors as How They See Themselves' [sic] he asked her how she considered herself. She wrote, 'I could only tell him the desperate truth: as a pastel old party, sitting in the corner knitting'. She said that he made her a 'non-arithmetical Madame Defarge', and I have the feeling Dorothy Parker would be knitting barbs into her piece as quickly as Vanessa Bell would be knitting bobbles of love into hers.

Henri Matisse

Purple Robe and Anemones by Henri Matisse (1937)

Matisse is the ultimate hand-painted yarn man. A Noro Kureyon, Axelle de Sauveterre and Koigu man all rolled into one luminously colourful ball. If I'm having the ultimate knitting do, he'd have to be there.

Matisse was brought up surrounded by women and textiles. His sense of colour, placement, pattern and composition were all developed by the silk jacquard weavers and embroiderers in his home town of Bohain. His portraits are full of wonderful textiles and he clothes his models in beautiful fabrics, stitches and folds. It would be a challenge to teach him to knit and then to see what he would do with colour and flat pattern. In return, he could enlighten us about the artist's creative impulse and encourage us to develop our own.

I quite fancy being painted as an odalisque, and I'd happily sit for him while I knitted with Axelle's cashmere, laughed with Dorothy Parker and listened to Vanessa Bell's accounts of Bloomsbury shenanigans. We'd eat Vanessa's freshly-baked bread, drink fruity red wine from the south of France brought by Matisse, and Dorothy would mix lethal, stitch-dropping cocktails.

Who would you invite to your knitting party?

Comments

[Anamaria]

Thank you for this wonderful post: now I must find out more about Vanessa Bell, read something by Dorothy Parker, go look at Matisse's paintings in the National Gallery. I think I'd invite you to my knitting party!

[kelli]

Frida Kahlo, Barbara Kingsolver and Dale Chihuly.
Three of my favorite "artists."

[Sarah]

Well, my mother, of course, because she's fun, witty, and creative. Vera Wang, because I'd love to see what she could do with some gorgeous yarn. And Yeats, because I think he could write some beautiful poetry about lady knitters. Which we need more of.

[susoolu]

I never knew Dorothy Parker knitted - how wonderful! And now you have given me something to ponder, too, while I work out who to invite to dinner (and what we would eat and drink, as well).

[Kate]

Miss Marple! Although she would be quietly noting all my character flaws... And Anne of Green Gables for her dreamy conversation and because she certainly would knit moebius strips when trying to join into a round. I wonder why my guests are fictitious characters? Guess I'll throw in Myrna Loy as "Nora" too.

[Suzi]

At first I will learn and read more about Vanessa Bell. And for my knitting party I would like to invite Käthe Kruse, she will show us to make lovely dolls and knitting their pretty dresses. Then Tricia Guild or Cath Kidston to advice us in colouring our homes, and my grandmother who made delicious meals and had the patient learning me all about handcrafting. And if you don´t mind, it would be great if you also join our party!

[susoolu]

I've got one invitee so far - the sculpter Louise Bourgeois.

[Michelle]

What a beautiful and provocative post--a perfect blending of art and craft.

[janeaton]

Let's see.... F Scott Fitzgerald (to share his incredibly descriptive prose - hope he wouldn't be too drunk to talk to!), Guy Taplin (and he could bring lots of his bird sculptures for me to admire) and Alan Davie (fabulous paintings).

[Chris]

What a fabulously interesting post - thanks for sharing!

[Joelene]

May I invite myself to your knitting party? It just sounds amazing. I am still thinkning who I would ask to join me, but you are top on the list:)

[Leslie]

You have outdone yourself. This entry is brillianty conceived, artfully wrought and wonderfully well-written.

How I enjoy your blog.

Leslie

[lanea]

Yay Vanessa Bell. I got to tour her house and gardens when I was living in the UK once upon a time, and I've loved her ever since.

[christine]

What an interesting group that would be - love the Dorothy Parker painting..I'd like to be a fly on the wall during this knitting session......what a fun post!

[Petra]

What a wonderful post that really got me thinking. My mind is spinning on who would be on my party ;-)

Best wihses from Germany
Petra

[lieslgibson]

The Matisse textile show at the Metropolitan Museum here in NYC was really outstanding - he is an excellent choice!

[Franklin]

Yum. *Delicious* post.

I'd invite Eleanor Roosevelt, Gertrude Jekyll, Joan Crawford and Renata Tebaldi to mine. (Gertrude was an embroiderer and watercolorist before her eyesight deteriorated, and of course you can't beat her for advice on color.)

[Virginia]

Superb post. Leslie said it all.

[aja]

What a great post - thank you! And I can't believe someone else said Louise Bourgeois, she is one of my favorite artists. Lee Bontecou as well, so she would definitely be at my party. And Yoko Ono, just for fun.

[Kay]

Well, your odalisque by Matisse would be a sure-fire hit on Self-Portrait Tuesday. (If the powers-that-be would make an exception to the 'self' requirement, for Matisse!) I think I would swap Eleanor Roosevelt in for Dorothy Parker....although she'd probably be too earnest, we could get to the bottom of all that's been written about her relationships. xoxo Kay

[Rose]

That is a very intriguing question - I'll have to think about it. I'd be afraid to invite Dorothy Parker, but she's a good choice. Great post!

[Kitty Baroque]

Oooooooooh, I had never thought of Matisse before as a knitter, man, that would be WONDERFUL!! He would put Kaffe in his place ;-)

Oooohh, puuurrrlllleeeezzee can you put a RSS Feed on your site, I don't want to miss a second and Bloglines makes it SO easy to keep up if sites have this link.

LOOOOOOOOVVVEEEE your stuff Girl*

KB

[sabine]

thank you so much for this lovely post. i've never heard of vanessa bell. and i would like to read the book of frances spalding.
speaking of my knittuing party: an artist has to be there, and i would like to dicuss colours and shades with an artist from one of my favourite eras, early venetian renessaince: so if giorgione would be available or the elder bellini! i'm sure one of the guys would be delighted to learn knitting for to experimentin on how to put landscapes in a painting without makin it a landscape piece.
i know, where i would like to have my knitting party. on sunday, for many many hours i watched the old (but gold)tv series "brideshead revisited", and for my handicraft party i would love to have one of the gorgeous rooms of castle howard with a chimney.
cream tea has to be served, and language of conversation has to be english, british english of course! maybe evelyn waugh could be there for entertaining. and i would like to have a non-knitter there as well, my british friend emma: with her outstanding humour she can entertain me for hours...

[brandie]

very intriguing post! love this idea! i guess that i missed that section in alterknits.
rather love your choices...my three would be Margaret Atwood, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Audrey Hepburn. just sitting her imagining what that would be like...such fun!

[Pip]

I love this post Yarnstorm. Absolutely love it.