Peter Nencini- artist in residence at Norwich Castle Museum

Recently we received an email from Peter Nencini who is an lecture for illustration at NUA but is also an artist, he was asking for some help with a project he was doing at the castle in Norwich. He was asking for a machine knitter who would be interested to help him with his project called        'Half Half Scarf' so of course i was really interest in this. 

• Working title: 'Half Half Scarf'

• Duration: one week

• Workshop day 1: introduction, screening, discussion with simultaneous 'scribing' of ideas, stories
• Workshop day 2: visual research, possible use of 'Forum' archive and Castle collection
• Workshop day 3: synthesis, transcription of visual matter to gridded machine-knit designs
• Workshop day 4: production of knitted 'half half' scarves
• Opening day 5: opening, talks, showing of scarves

• Participants: selected NUA Illustration Year Three students, guest researcher-speakers, community groups directly connected to the social stories researched and visualised.

• Processes: analogue and digital drawing as a tool for thinking, research and design; hand machine knitting; connected, accessible digital and craft processes.

• Precedent: a number of previous workshop-events involving in-time creation of glyph-pattern-units for stitched and knitted works, in collaboration with Sally Nencini and other designers at or with public arts institutions (each workshop title carries a link to its doumentation): 

• Premise: 

• Dialectical potential of the half-and-half football scarf; traditionally an expression of cordiality or antipathy 
• Liverpool and Norwich; when football stories become social stories. Initially, a focus on Justin Fashanu's iconic volleyed goal at Carrow Road in January 1980, scored against Liverpool at the height of their domestic and European pre-eminence. From a Liverpudlian family, this was (and still is) my foremost visual memory connecting then and now. The goal has accrued meaning over time, partly for its audacity and then for the story Fashanu as one of the first top-flight black players in English football; then, still, the first and only openly gay footballer.

• Method: to discuss, debate, scribe, investigate and realise a visual 'kit' of surface-glyphs which are applied and produced as an edition of hand-machine-knitted 'half-half-scarves'. Each scarf carries a faceted narrative through its imagery, so functioning as discourse rather than banter. In this sense, it can be seen to align with the campaigning work of Kick it Out.

 So from reading the project i was really excited about meeting with Peter and getting involved with the project

For the first day we were up at the castle i got to meet some of the illustration 3rd years and also Jess and Nick from Note Well Press and then i was just getting used to the knitting machine KH950i which is Sally's ( Peter's wife) knitting machine. It was really good to be able to use this machine as we don't have one at university, so i feel i really gained from being about to use it 

The KH-950i is an electronic knitting machine with a built in computer with patterns already programmed into it and you are also able to input your own patterns that it will memorise

In the images above and below you can see the knitting machine and some of the samples i had made from the built in patterns on the machines computer 

 Below is an  image of a wall Peter and some of the illustration students did which was with colours and objects related to the project, i really liked being able to see how other people work and lay things out and found working with different people a really good experience, i feel it has given me more confidence to talk to other people

Peter then invited me for tea and to meet with his wife Sally who is a knit designer. She was able to show me how to input your own patterns into the knitting machine, shown in the image below it was like playing a retro computer game.

 

I was also shown Sally's studio where she runs her business from, it was so good to be able to see how Sally works as its something that i will hopefully do when i finish university

Sally's work was so good to see as its so bright and she does a range of different pieces and not just one thing, so it was really helpful for me to see and talk to Sally about her work and i feel i could talk to her if i ever needed any help 

 Throughout the week i carried on getting used to the knitting machine and trying out different designs and yarns that would work for the Half Half Scarf.

 Shown above are some of the designs Peter and the others came up with we all wanted to try and do a fade out type knit to have the football teams colours fading into the pink

It was good to see everyone ideas, i also brought in some punch cards from my machine so they could start to understand how the machine reads patterns so it was easier for them to understand what would work and what wouldn't as a pattern for the machine 

It was really good to be there in the Castle all week so i was able to talk to people who came into the exhibition 

Most people who come straight to the knitting machine as it was a thing the recognised from there childhood either them using or remember then mothers using to make them clothing, it was really interesting for me to here people memories that they had attached with the noise of the machine going or the machine itself

At the end of the week we started to bring one of the final scarfs to being made we had a few troubles along the way with getting the machine to take the pattern and not get caught on the floats as there was a lot, so we decided for me to bring in my punch card machine where it could deal with the floats better 

 Below is the one half of the finished scarf with has the Liverpool and Norwich colours fading into the pink

 We were really happy with how the scarf has come out, but we are going to carry on the project and get a few more scarfs out there and try and get the scarfs to be worn at a game would be great so still more to come with this project yet