Vessels hold ideas to cherish. Most recently I made 2 knitted vessels made in a spiral pattern to hold dear husband, Ralph’s ashes. One is built around the glass candle holder whose light kept me company for the first year after his death in February 2020. The second was knitted around the blue-glazed cookie jar holding his favorite home-baked chocolate chip cookies. The first was finished on Daylight Savings day 2021 and entitled “Savings.” It was accepted for a national tour as part of the Handweaver’s Guild of America’s “Small Expressions” 2021 exhibit. When it returns from the national tour it will remain in our home in Vermont, while the other will live in NYC. Both have lids with their own goat hair cashmere spiral design, both decorated with a small deer antler and some of our chicken feathers. They are vessels containing not only ashes, but the memories emotions and gratitude I feel about sharing Ralph’s life and death, intertwined as one intimate, boundaryless sharing of spirits.
Hand-knitted vessel surrounding the glass candle holder I burned for a year each night after Ralph’s death in February 2020. Handspun Cashmere yarn knitted into a spiral pattern to create a loving vessel for some of his ashes. The lid also knitted in a spiral, with small deer antler and feathers as additional tributes to my “Alaska Mountain Man.”
