Ruth Thomas
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Ruth Thomas
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MESH OF LIFE

The Lives of My Family

This body of work is a further development of The Days of My Life.

It features a knitted visualisation of the lives of four generations: my grand-parents’, my parents’, mine and my children’s (from left to right, arranged by year of birth).

One knitted stitch corresponds to one day of life. Some lives have come to an end and their life shapes are completed, some haven’t and the lifeline-like thread is still attached to the knitwork.

To look at this work is to look back in time: Each stitch is a day gone by. The past materialises as texture; the intangible notion of time is transformed into a palpable surface.

Every life has its own individual shape and pattern. The days of a life are all loosely interconnected and mutually dependent, forming an inextricable mesh of intertwined time.

(Knitted metallic yarn, 9 works from 15 x 31 cm to 117 x 31 cm, 2021, partially ongoing)

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01
Theophil (1899–1972)
02
Theodora (1901–1990)
03
Walter (1889–1988)
04
Lilly (1918–1999)
05
Paul (*1934)
06
Yvonne (1938–2004)
07
Ruth (*1968)
08
Hannah (*2001)
09
Leon (*2003)

Status March 2021

2025–2026

  • Woolgathering
  • Globality of Green
  • Unscreamed Screams
  • Nothing Is As It Seems

2023–2024

  • Pic en vue
  • En voir de toutes les couleurs
  • Nuances des départs
  • Ancestral Hues

2020–2022

  • Au fil du temps
  • Mesh of Life
  • Knitted Time
  • The Days of My Life

2017–2019

  • The Pattern of Language
  • Europeans
  • Order & Chaos
  • Democratic Stipes
  • Pixel Parliaments

1999–2000

  • Spoken Colours
  • 72 Primary Colours
© 2026 Ruth Thomas. All rights reserved.