k1, p2: from Handknits to Computational Design

A red squiggle snakes throughout knit artist Marta Nowak’s Unraveling Myself (2024). Abstracted lightning bolts, organic bubbling surfaces, and interlaced knit strands coexist in her work, It Was Never About You. Nowak combines her skill in painting with fibers to create “knit paintings.” These pieces demonstrate the role knits play not just in fashion and in architectural works, but also in contemporary art.

Nowak integrates analog and digital processes when creating her knit pieces to map out yarn color placement. Row by row, Nowak “paints” with the yarn in her own inventive short rowing colorwork technique, which works as an alternative to traditional intarsia. This is done on a hand-operated flatbed domestic knitting machine. Short rowing, or partial knitting, is when a knitter knits across a section of a row while keeping other stitches on hold, allowing for areas of knits to be built up in one particular color.

In k1, p2: from Handknits to Computational Design, Nowak's two knit paintings invite a larger discussion on the role of colorwork in knit design. Nowak, an artist and knitwear designer, utilizes here short rowing technique in her sweater collections as well as in her artwork. Her knit paintings ask viewers to see knit as a viable medium and material for abstract art and expressing oneself creatively.

We are thrilled to know that Nowak will be featured in the upcoming @thedomesticmachine documentary about Machine Knitting & Online Craft Communities!