Drippy Mountains, Tufted yarn,33″X31″
Artwork and photo credit: Cara Allen
FLORENCE-Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts will be showing an exhibition of works by artist Cara Allen from August 8th through September 13th. The opening reception will take place on Sunday, August 8th from 2 pm -4 pm. The exhibit will be the 31-year-old artists first show in Alabama since moving to Posey Mill, Alabama from Dallas, Texas in 2019. Allen’s abstract landscapes are rendered in yarn using an industrial tufting gun and are evidence of her continued exploration of technique as well as her ability to challenge traditional applications of yarn as an artistic medium.
Cara taught herself to knit as a young girl in Oklahoma and started her first business, the Yarn Barn, selling potholders and scarves to her parents, sister, and neighbors. By high school, Cara was creating her own patterns for outerwear and dresses and in college she was deploying both rigorous knitting techniques and boundary-pushing crochet. Her capstone project, Capturing Nature, was the central exhibition in her university’s annual art show for senior students. Looking back at how she conceived of fully immersive fiber sculpture after years of following traditional Celtic and Scandinavian sweater patterns, Cara attributes her inspiration to the caverns and geological formations she explored on the Cumberland Plateau while a student at the University of the South.
“Layer by layer, rocks tell us of the passage of time. I began to see the connection between the knots I was forming with my hands and needles and the strata that have taken billions of years to form. Yarn is a soft, organic substance yet I found myself trying to imitate stone deposits. Where I was used to patterned, mathematical construction, I looked to the hills, wind-eroded walls of caves, and punchbowl waterfalls around me to challenge the notion that knitting had to be a linear, methodical artform”.
Cara began her career by designing sweaters for Free People/Urban Outfitters Inc. Next, she moved to the
Parker Falls, Tufted yarn,19″X26″
Artwork and photo credit: Cara Allen
mountains of Colorado where, reapplying pattern-like order to her motif of stacked, earthen material, she named her business Brick Knitwear. With her vintage knitting machine that she held onto since the days of The Yarn Barn, she produced ready-to-wear accessories and sweaters.
When job opportunities took her and her husband to Dallas, Cara set aside her yarn and needles to focus on photography. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she, her husband, and their three dogs relocated to Posey Mill, Alabama. Returning to a more rural, verdant setting, Cara was once again inspired by the possibility of fiber. While restoring her family’s 19th century farmhouse, she came upon a hefty industrial tufting gun, saw the bare walls of her husband’s childhood home, and thus the idea for this collection was born.
“I’ve knit with yarn, I sculpted with yarn, and now I am painting with yarn. These pieces represent continued study of technique, my meditations on landscape and history, as well as what it means to have the ability to clothe, adorn, house, protect, and decorate all with the same medium. These abstracted landscapes tempt viewers to reach out and touch something organic and timeless.”
The Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts is free and open to the public Monday – Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and on Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The art center is located at 217 E. Tuscaloosa St. Florence, AL and can be reached at 256-760-6379 for more information on exhibits, programs, and membership. The Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts website can be viewed at: www.florencealmuseums.com
Media Release/Nadene Mairesse
Program Coordinator
Kennedy-Douglass Center For the Arts
