From her dining room table in Oklahoma City, Kendall Ross knits brightly colored, intricately patterned sweaters and vests—some so large that referring to them as wearables is a bit misleading. Her textile pieces are often emblazoned with diary-like messages that speak of relationships, insecurities, and life’s joys. Sometimes, too, she uses her work to comment directly on the craft versus art debate.“The art-versus-craft thing is an unnecessary binary in my mind because all of it is so connected and important to me,” says Ross. “I think a big goal of my work—and of talking about the art versus craft divide—is to bridge that gap between what we see as fine art because it’s in a fine art space and what we see as craft because a woman is doing it in her house.”
Coming from a family of creative women, Ross learned how to crochet at an early age, thanks to her grandmother. Then in middle school she tried to teach herself to knit via YouTube videos. “It went very badly,” she admits. “If you’ve ever tried that, it never goes well.” That’s when Ross’s mother stepped in and took her to a local yarn store, where the owner taught the young artist the basics of knitting.
Knitting became such a part of Ross’s life that, as a history major in college, she wrote her thesis on women’s knitting groups during World War I. “In a lot of ways, that’s something that’s always in the back of my head, that knowledge that this is a process that’s so rooted in tradition and history and groups of women getting together and sharing those things, but also talking and gossiping and having community with one another,” she says.
Despite her passion for knitting, Ross says that it took her some time to bring her work into the art sphere. “I talk a big game now about art, and knitting as art, but that was a slow journey because, for so long, I didn’t know that what I was making was art or that I could call myself an artist,” she says.
“Locally, in Oklahoma City, I was making friends and wanting to be a part of art opportunities here,” Ross explains. “So I shoved down the imposter syndrome a little bit and made a choice to call myself an artist and to call the work that I was making art and I started applying to local things and it just picked up from there.”
EVEN IF YOU’RE DOING IT BY YOURSELF, THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE ROOM WITH YOU.”
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