THE CHICAGO CAMBRIAN REEF

Undoubtedly one of the most wonderful aspects of the Crochet Reef is our Contributors. Every person who comes to the project seems to find new things to do. The endless diversity of new forms that our Contributors discover constantly amazes us and we have come to see the project as a vast, ongoing, evolutionary experiment. Everyone who takes up the technique seems to find their own voice. But some Contributors find an especially powerful and unique voice. Evelyn Hardin in Cedar Hill Texas, is one of these unstoppable forces. Another is Aviva Alter in Chicago. Aviva came to the Reef exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center where, at one of the workshops hosted by the Windy City Knitting Guild, she learned to crochet. That day she began to create her own hyperbolic crochet species, singlehandedly taking the evolutionary project forward several hundred million years. Aviva's forms were like nothing we had ever seen before. The vast diversity and complexity of her models calls to mind the giant evolutionary leap that occurred during the Cambrian Explosion of life on earth 530 million years ago, a period that saw the coming into being of most major animal groups.

So extraordinary were Aviva's models that we asked her to spearhead the development of a new Chicago Cambrian Reef. This reef is being constructed by a small group of Chicago women, to whom Aviva is teaching her techniques at workshops she holds on Sunday afternoons in her westside studio.

Here is Aviva's statement about her artistic practice:

"As far back as I can remember I have made things. I have always used my hands and the artistic, visual side of my brain to create. At the same time I struggled to understand the fundamentals of science; I fantasized about being a scientist and to study the brain. I wanted to understand and use the analytical, mathematical side of my brain to explore the nature of artistic creation. Coming into the Reef Project has helped me get a glimpse of that. While listening to a lecture by Christine, I entered the world of hyperbolic forms. I started to create examples of these forms the day of the lecture and I have not stopped since.

A lot of my artwork is made from readymade fabric and thread. In that work I start by posing questions and statements that define human nature and experience, questions that have no certain answer. In crochet I have found a place I can create forms. Making an endless structure comes to me as an organic process using yarn and plastic. This is a place I focus my attention on improvisational form along with thoughts concerning the planet, environmentalism and my own place in this world. I feel there are answers to questions concerning how we treat our damaged world and how we find ways to fix it, using art to highlight this process."

Aviva Alter - Chicago (Jan 2008)