I got outed on the elevator the other day. A co-worker spotted knitting needles in my bag.
I rarely have a chance to knit these days, and compensate by indulging in the next best thing: looking at weird knitted art online.
Listening to this week’s show, I remembered an odd, thought-provoking site that can add to Jeremy Deller’s “Conversations about Iraq .” Artist Dave Cole has a series entitled “Kevlar Baby Clothes”, which features exactly that: baby clothes created from bullet-proof vests discarded from the war in Iraq.
David Cole, Kevlar Baby Line
Cole’s work often juxtaposes the harsh realities of our world against the sentiments of childhood: a hand-knit, porcelain baby blanket (made from an “Extreme Temperature Refractory Ceramic Textile”); a teddy bear knit with fiber glass; an AK-47 that appears to be made from bubble gum. But something about the Kevlar onesie put a lump in my throat. I am knitting for a little man who will be here this January. I can only hope he’ll have to look up what Kevlar and suicide bombs mean when he grows up.
Dave Cole Kevlar Snowsuit, 2008
– Susie Karlowski
(You might also want to see Cole knit a HUGE American flag here.)
