We’re excited to showcase the work of artist Bessie Blum, our new member who recently relocated to Gloucester after closing her store in Cambridge. If you’ve visited us lately, you’ve likely spotted Bessie’s unique collection of Square Bears bouncing in the store. Made of 100% recycled material, each handmade bear comes with its own story and personality. Here, Bessie talks about how knitting and a supposed failure led her to creating these distinguished bears.
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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. I have painted in acrylics, oils, tempera, gouache, ceramic glaze; built with wood and wire and chewed paper; carved with stone; drawn with pencil, pen, sharpie, crayon, pastel, oil pastel; sewn, knitted, and needle-pointed; made animals, puppets, and dolls; installed my hand-cut tile murals in kitchens, bathrooms, and fireplaces; and pasted and grouted mosaics on giant flowerpots and little squares of masonite.
Generally common to all my work is a love of vibrant color and a kind of whimsical tenderness.
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!
While Fair Isle knitting involves two-color (per row) stranded designs and features a number of beautiful traditional patterns, I eventually began to design my own, more often than not making the design up as I went along. At one point, I decided to felt one of my failures (shaping all wrong, though color wonderful), and turn it into a bear using a pattern I had used with quilting years before. The result was my last Bessie Bear, and the first of what I would come to call a Square Bear, now known as Papa Bear Emeritus.
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.
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.