Cool Splotch

By now, a year after publication, I am just plain cleaned out of ASTOUNDING KNITS. On the shelf in my office that's lined with extra author's copies to pass on to friends and colleagues, you'll spy not one bright pink-and-turqoise spine. And the reason is: my daughter's eight-year-old thug friends swiped them all. Okay, I sanctioned the swipage. And gladly, too. It's rare that the worlds of kids and books-intended-for-adults actually meet and merge. For whatever reason, AS wholly captivated a bunch of third graders.

One of their collective favorite entries was of Isabel Berglund's City of Stitches. A life-size knitted white tree held "viewers" in knitted sweater pockets inside its trunk, underneath a cloud of green knitted foliage. This past February, Berglund showed (at Specta gallery, in Copenhagen) a similarly compelling and befuddling knitted collage piece titled Floating Pearls:

Isabel Berglund's Floating Pearls (right), shown here with Borderland (left) by Signe Jaïs

"We are witnessing an object in the state of transition," says the gallery literature. Say two eight year olds hovering around my ear as I type this: "Whoa, it's a cocoon, a necklace and a splotch!" and "It's just cool!"