Bessie Blum

Since toddler-hood, I have dirtied my hands with any number of visual arts media, while my current involvement shifts as my interests are caught by what I see around me. Generally common to all my work is a love of vibrant color and a kind of whimsical tenderness. Since 2014, inspired by my first visit to Shetland, I have been making bears out of recycled Fair Isle sweaters, including some I myself knitted many years ago. I first discovered Fair Isle knitting at a tiny wool shop in Oxford when I was furiously studying 18th-century English novelists and thought that a great distraction would be to knit a sweater with 30 colors on size 2 needles!

Upon visiting Shetland, I discovered that the felted Fair Isle bear was becoming a tradition there, and I was inspired to see where this kind of bear making might lead me. I dug out some old sweaters and plopped them in the washing machine (several times), and began accumulating others. Now, as each bear assumes its own character, I am always excited to see who else I might unearth inside the many-colored strands of wool I have gathered around me.