03741 - Orange, N.H.
Gary Hamel is an artist living in Orange, N.H. One of his ongoing projects is producing wool for sweaters knit by local artisans to represent scenes around Cardigan Mountain. Paintings of the sheep that produced the wool, the plants used to dye it and the mountain's landscapes will also be part of the final show. The following is an edited interview.
I’m very obsessed with this whole spinning thing. I had to find a way to justify spending three hours a day sitting at my spinning wheel, so I came up with this project. I’m calling the whole thing the Cardigan Project. it’s bit of a play on words, since here I am on the side of Cardigan mountain, but cardigan is also a type of sweater.
I’m planning twenty-four sweaters, two representing each month. All the colors are based on the landscape at different times of the year.
One sweater is about sunlight coming through the pines. That’s a very ephemeral thing. Other sweaters are more specific: the moss on the rocks on Cardigan, the corn stubble in the field in early winter, the chipped peeling paint on an old barn in Canaan with a single vine of woodbine growing up it.
Looking out today, I would choose the green of the pines and the spruce, the white of the snow, the blue of the shadows, the white of the birches, which is a slightly different white, the grey of the barn. That’s what I would put together.
The wool comes from my sheep, Frank, Helen, and Edith, named after my grandparents. I have them sheered, then I dye and spin the wool, but I’m not going to knit it myself.
I took a knitting course, a one day workshop, and it was a disaster. I found myself with maybe twenty very beautiful women and I got totally distracted. I did end up knitting a scarf but it looked more like an accordion. So I thought, well, I’m going to ask people to knit for me. And I like the idea of getting someone else’s energy in it.
The dyes that I’m working with are natural. I’m going out and picking dandelions, or golden rod, or rhubarb leaves. Now I cringe a little bit when they’re out there in the summer mowing the roadsides. It’s like, “Oh my god! You just wiped out my source of clover!” You just sit there scratching your head, thinking, “Couldn’t they see that was useful?”
The whole process has made me so much more keenly aware of what’s around me, the abundance. I have always felt my work, whether it was painting or writing, spinning wool or preserving food, is about feeling close to nature.
With this project even the simple act of putting on a sweater in the morning is enriched, because I’ll be wearing a work of art.
Listen to Gary Hamel describe his vision for the Cardigan Project.