Baruch Gould taught a Freeform Knitting workshop last weekend at the Artfibers studio in Pinole.  It was a special privilege to be there.   All chairs were filled with an enthusiastic group, who seemed to share two things:  advanced fiber skills, and a keen desire to experiment.

Baruch had just returned from a conference on a Greek island and said his mind was still there.  The spell of art and history, even once removed, was infectious — we all lost track of time, and gained a sense of timelessness, from his thoughtful presentation.

He described a process of discovery that everyone can follow.  It begins with choosing two yarns to combine.  Should they be similar, or quite different?  In fact, as Baruch stresses, there is no wrong answer or bad result.  A wellspring of surprise comes from fiber combinations, much like the surprise of combining flavors in cooking.

One begins with a swatch, about the size of one’s hand — two yarns carried together.  It can be knit or crochet, technique is really beside the point.  Then pick up stitches at the middle of one edge of the swatch: add new yarns, working around the corner, to the middle of another edge, add rows.  The result will be a surface that puckers — a patchwork out of plane. Then pick up more stitches, adding another swatch, this time increasing needle size every few rows –  the new shape will resemble a fan.

As this landscape emerges juxtapositions of color and texture seem random at first, like faces in a crowd.  Baruch described how he started working in this way by carefully arranging a palette of colors, in a certain idealized relationship.  But in the altered state of fiber concentration that we all experience, he found that when reaching for the next color on the palette his hand would go somewhere else and choose a different one — it seemed to have a mind of its own!

This process, Baruch pointed out, is actually the subconscious at work.  It is a mind of its own, a substantial resource if we can open the conversation to include it.  Someone asked for a set of rules to work from and Baruch said there are none.  This proved to be a source of stress for some — one person said that without rules there was no clear way to proceed.  Baruch replied that we do have a way to proceed, it just may be different from the way we are used to.

The lecture and demonstration parts of the workshop were brief, permitting people to focus on the activity part.  What we often notice in wokshops is that such “play time” often begins with a lot of laughter and story telling, but after a while things become very quiet.  You could hear a needle drop — everyone has entered into “knitting meditation”.  The energy in a group intently focused like this is really tangible and inspiring.

Baruch closed by showing each person’s swatch to the group and asking the creator how the process felt to them.  This is really the essence of “touchy/feely” talk and we thought some might find it odd, but the opposite was the case.  Each person had a detailed understanding of decisions and insights embodied in their work, a kind of mental map of the new landscape, and as they talked about it we all understood what they were getting at.

Baruch works professionally in psychology, arranging seminars and conferences on Jungian theory, which probably explains the effortless way that he guided us through uncharted waters.  But he invented freeform knitting for himself before the current career, and I’ve often wondered if his ability to see the unexpected in fiber enhances his ability to do the same with people.

Tags: blanket, fiber art, free form, knitting, scarf, swatch, wall hanging, workshop

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