Monica Klungland
My arts praxis started with an interest in traditional textile crafts, like weaving, for that purpose to make useful or beautiful things. Working as a teacher I encountered children playing with the yarn balls and found their play provocative, and at the same time sensual and beautiful, like art. This led me to be interested in the collective nature of craft practice and how collective qualities can challenge and change demands for personal and individual expression in art education. I question how collective qualities of craft practice can become the artistic expression in an art practice.
Q&A
What craft do you work with?
I work with various traditional textile crafts such as knitting, sewing, embroidery and weaving. I have done textile craft as a hobby all my adult life, but it is in the last ten years that I have learned weaving and been interested in collective and relational aspects of craft practice. I weave on traditional table or floor looms and am fascinated by how this tool is simple and at the same time offers diverse opportunities for expression. Weaving has become a favorite technique because learning the whole process of setting up a loom, understanding the mechanics of the loom and how the various patterns emerge in the textile is a long process. Even though I’ve been doing this for ten years, it sometimes feels like magic when the first wefts are inserted, and the pattern emerges.
What inspires you to work with this craft?
One could say that for me it starts with balls of yarn. Different kinds of yarn balls inspire me and invite me to do something. For me craft is a doing, not an object. I look upon doing craft as an existential way of living, encountering resistance, and being touched by the material world. I prefer yarn made from wool or linen, or recycled yarn made from cut-up old textiles.
How do you start your creative process?
In my individual work with the loom and the materials, I often start with recipes. A recipe or a pattern can inspire me in the same way that the weaving materials inspire. I follow the recipe to some extent, but it doesn’t take long before ideas, resistance or challenges emerge. It is these moments that fuel my creativity. Creativity arises in encounter with resistance, and the resistance can come from materials and techniques, or from myself. Even if I start with a recipe, I always end up with a result I couldn’t have predicted. In collective work, creativity arises in the same way. I go into it with my ideas, but encounter resistance and disruptions from other participants. I feel the pleasure of cooperation and togetherness, but at the same time something new can emerge through provocations and interruptions.
How would you best describe your workspace and what tools could you not do without?
I have furnished a bright and pleasant studio in the attic of my own home. Here I have a warping frame, my loom, a good worktable, and my sewing machine. I also have shelves for books and yarn. It’s a good space to be in, and I always long to be able to spend more time there. Otherwise, I weave once a week with others in a weaving studio where I receive instruction from a professional weaving teacher. This is important for my interest in the collective aspects of craft. I also teach arts and crafts on teacher training at the University of Agder, and here I have access to a weaving workspace which I use together with students.
Are there new techniques you would like to try?
I find inspiration in folk art and cultural heritage, and always want to learn new weaving and embroidery techniques. Right now, I want to learn the traditional embroidery that decorates the folk costumes in Setesdal.
What have you learnt or the best advice you have received that you would like to share with fellow crafters?
In an essay in Issue 4 of The Vessel Magazine art historian and professor Jorun Veiteberg writes about craft as concept. She accounts for a shift in perspective where the term craft is seen as a verb and not a noun, and she argues for a focus on craft as a way of doing and not a fixed object. This is the best advice I want to share with fellow crafters, and something that I have experienced in my own craft practice.
What other types of craft do you dream of collaborating with?
I am part of an artist collective called Stitch Sisters consisting of Helen Eriksen, Samira Jamouchi, Mali Hauen and me. We have attended the same doctoral program at University of Agder and are concerned with a performative approach to art education. Together we explore the material touch of wool through sheep farming, relationality and craft techniques such as carding and spinning. In addition, together with my colleague Anne-Mette Liene at University of Agder, I explore how different craft techniques can be explored as performative expressions in a cross-aesthetic approach between visual art and theater.
What professional dream do you have?
My professional dream is to further develop these collective art projects, and to move art education in a performative and relational direction were craft is seen as a collective doing.
Media & Contact
Representation
University of Agder
Photography credit
Monica Klungland
Location
Kristiansand, Norway