ARTIST: Lou Baker, Top All the babies I might have had I (2010)
Bottom L Other 5 (2015) Bottom R Other 3, Wearing the unwearable (2015)
“All the babies I might have had was knitted intuitively as a response to an outpouring of the losses associated with childlessness- the anguish of infertility, the grief of miscarriage, the pain of an ectopic pregnancy, the agony over the ease with which others seem to conceive, the longing for a child.
Instead of knitting baby clothes, I knitted holes as absences.
Its form is abstract, organic, flexible, until suspended, when it becomes something other, vulnerable, floating, yet controlled by tension and gravity.
That it has been felted is another change in control. It’s out of my control.
Some people think it’s quite shocking, as knitting is meant to be passive, private and benign. Using knitting to communicate things that are normally hidden creates an uneasy tension. It should be soft, cuddly, functional, but instead it’s hard hitting, difficult, abstract.
Knitting’s meant to be comforting but this is disquieting.
It’s the dark side of knitting.
It is abject.
It is a memory of all the babies I might have had.
Knitting is a meant to be an easy conversation starter; having to tell people ‘I’m knitting a uterus’ was rather awkward. Sometimes I’d say ‘I’m experimenting with knitting holes’ instead.
It makes me feel very vulnerable talking about it.
I don’t think the sense of loss ever really goes away. It changes with time, but it’s still there.
The colour is the colour of blood.
That something exquisite comes out of this deep sorrow is cathartic.
The title disrupts the viewer’s preconceptions.
The significance of a name.
I’m making public things that are normally private.
It would probably be called confessional art. It’s my own story but it’s actually also a story that I have in common with many, many others…. and that helps. I hope it helps.” - Lou Baker, 2016
Lou Baker is currently exhibiting work in The Cartesian Cut? as part of Fringe Arts Bath, 27th May- 12th June and has just finished a year as an Embroiderer’s Guild Scholar.
