Knitting Nation + Hugo Cabret = Great Day

A wonderful day, in fact a wonderful two days, but the best thing of all is that now it's the weekend, and I get another two days. Fantastic!

This morning my knitting friends and I went into Boston, to see Phase 8 of Knitting Nation at the ICA. That's the Institute of Contemporary Art, for my fellow philistines (I'd never been, myself).

They moved to a new building on the waterfront, and the outside of the building is to my eyes unexceptional, while the logo reminded me of the IGA grocery store chain logo:

What do you think?

The building might not be much, but the site is right on the water, with beautiful views. In fact, I caught a glimpse of the airport across the harbor, marked by the figure that as a child I called "the giant with a golf ball on his head".


And the views are also good from inside, where the knitting performance was going on.


Eight knitting machines, cones of yarn, piles of fabric ... very rhythmic, very meditative. I'm not usually a performance art person, but knitting is a way to get me in the door. Click on the photos to see bigger.


They had t-shirts, though I decided not to get one. And fortunately, since I'm not a size small, I didn't want to spend $100 on a t-shirt with added knit sleeves, presumably added by the artist. They were very cool, though.


(I took a short video of the machines in action, about 90 seconds, but given that it's been an hour and a half and it still hasn't finished uploading, I give up. I'll try it again tomorrow.)

We sat for quite some time, watching, and of course three of us were knitting. The artist had a photographer there to capture the event, and she took some shots of us, too! Pretty funny: the line between performance and observation. It was a great way to spend some time.

Then tonight I went with other friends to see Hugo, the new movie based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and it was excellent. I even approved of the 3D, which I usually am not a fan of. Some of us had read the book and some had not, so I have no qualms in recommending it to everyone.

Two days of good fun, and it's only now Friday night! This is my idea of a weekend.