Mary Walker Phillips is one of the most influential figures in the world of modern knitting. She was an American textile artist, author and educator, known for elevating knitting to the status of Art.
Like the other stories this month, Mary Walker Phillips' story is often obscured by the prejudice that exists in the textile arts, but her story is an active quest to change that status quo.
Training and First Jobs
Mary Walker Phillips was born in Fresno, California in 1923, and from childhood she knitted. She studied contemporary weaving at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she was a student of Marianne Strengell, a renowned weaver.
After graduating from art school, Miss. Phillips (as she liked to be called) received a telegram that said:
“please bring cotton material for weaving thirty-five meter curtains, natural deep pink lavender and dark brown. also gold metallics.”
That's how she moved to San Francisco and worked in Dorothy Wright Liebes' studio.
New Explorations
Despite her success in weaving, Phillips decided to return to art school to study experimental textiles.
It was an unusual move for a single woman over 30 in the 1960s, but as Phillips once told a reporter: “ My timing was impeccable. The art world was ready to look at things in a different way. ”
After graduating, Mary founded her own studio in NY. There she picked up her needles and began experimenting, exploring the potential of knitting as a form of artistic expression. “There can be great joy in inventing your own stitch,” she wrote.
She was willing to try knitting with almost anything that resembled rope: paper tape, wire, leather, hair, fiberglass, insulation, even asbestos!
Publication of "Creative Knitting, A New Art Form "
The great turning point in Mary's career occurred in 1959, with the publication of her book "Creative Knitting, A New Art Form".
This book revolutionized the world of knitting, introducing new techniques and approaches that transformed knitting into a modern art form.
"Creative Knitting" was widely acclaimed and helped establish Mary as a leader in the field of artistic knitting.
Recognition and Innovation
Her work began to attract the attention of art critics and collectors. Thanks to her work, the art of knitting began to appear on the walls of galleries and museums.
Mary began creating large knitting installations to be displayed in museums and galleries around the world. Today, top-tier museums like MOMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt include Phillips' knitting art in their collections.
Despite the fact that she was a woman in a male-dominated field, her work was recognized for its technical complexity and aesthetic beauty.
Exhibitions and Books
Mary has had a number of solo exhibitions. These exhibitions helped cement her status as a renowned artist and elevate knitting to the status of art.
Mary also began teaching and wrote other books, such as The Encyclopedia of Crafts (1980) and Knitting Counterpanes, Traditional Coverlet Patterns for Contemporary Knitters (1989) , sharing her knowledge and inspiring a new generation of textile artists.
Conclusion
The story of Mary Walker Phillips teaches us not only that the textile arts have their intrinsic value, but that there is room for new possibilities when we leave room to create freely, without standards.
As The New York Times put it, what she did was “free knitting from the tyranny of the sweater. Where traditional weavers were classical artists, faithfully reproducing a score, Miss Phillips knit jazz. In her hands, knitting became an art of free-form improvisation, with no rules, no patterns, and no utilitarian end in sight.”