ABOUT THE VIDEO

*the video is from my IN THE WOODS PROJECT FROM 2010....the rewards will be different...but the video will provide a good overview of my work.  

Hi, I'm Shanell and I made a crochet skeleton in 2005. 

I made the skeleton, in order to explore my body while I was an art student at the University of Lethbridge.. Before making this work I had a keen interests in medical history, Frankenstein, enlightenment thinking, the Victorian period, the birth of industry (textile production), crime investigation, mortuary practices and museums....I made the work to explore my interest in the human body.

I have a fear of my body and when I was quite young I developed some "morbid" or "natural" fixations about nature and death. This came from discovering that someday I would cease to exist. There were no illusions provided and I was never told of an afterlife. I knew I would end up as a rotting corpse from an early age.

I grew up on the prairies in Canada and out here buildings are not old, you are lucky to find buildings over 100yrs old and you have this sense that the city isn't precious and could be swept away. I knew as a kid I longed for more. I needed to connect with more human history.  

I made LAB from Crochet since it is labour intensive, time consuming and made by hand only one stitch at a time. Where as in knitting you have many "live" stitches at one time and knitting can be made by machine. In LAB, I wanted the one to see the work and understand instantly that it was made by hand and was laboured over for a great deal of time. It took about 8 months to make.

I taught myself to Crochet/Knit/Sew/ect when I was 8 or 9 years old, my Maternal Grandmother ran a flea market/junk store and she allowed me to use her shop as a supply house. Using the yarn, craft books, and collecting interesting textile objects for research. I would spend many afternoons taking apart/rebuilding textile items, organizing the shop/collection and reading history books.

Otherwise, I never expected the work to go viral and It has been  an amazing surprise!

SO THANK YOU!

And as a result it has encouraged me to publish an artbook.

 The artbook will include.

 - new colour photos of the internal workings of my LAB (skeleton) and other work.

 - information on my research practice and some essays on craft/art/science as it relates to my work. 

 - a few icky crochet/knitting/sewing patterns.  

 - a few comics 

Thanks for visiting ....and if you are unable to support the book, please help me by sharing the link.  

Shanell Papp