Ruth Thomas

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M E S H O F L I F E

The lives of my family

This body of work 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 metallised yarn, 9 works from 15 x 31 cm to 117 x 31 cm, 2021, partially ongoing)

An older version of this work deals just with my own life:

T H E D A Y S O F M Y L I F E

A stitch per day of life

Preliminary work on MESH OF LIFE – see description above.

(Knitted metallised yarn, 36 x 52 cm, 2020, ongoing)