Allyce Wood
Daylights, 2022
hand-knit fabric using a punchcard knitting machine in reclaimed yarns of various fibers 10 feet x 16 feet
I create textile artworks that combine coded systems and the familiar. Daylights was made on a 1960s domestic knitting machine, a tool that is traditionally used for garment making. As I familiarized myself with its inner workings, restoring each rusty piece by rusty piece, I began to see its potential for complex imagery and expansive material. One of the main functions of this knitting machine is ‘knit-in’ or color-work, a type of two-stranded process that allows for an intricacy similar to jacquard weaving. I made a series of binary punchcards that fed through the carousel, with each design made up of a grid of holes. A long row of tiny metal needles lifted and interlooped yarns—coordinated by the programming of the punchcards—with the details of my motifs tessellating as the rows of knit flowed. The pixilated faces of friends, symbols lifted from medieval tapestries, and simplified representations of the fruit I bought at the grocery store filled each panel. Yarns of bright golds, pinks, and blues reminiscent of sunsets alternated to create feelings of optimism and abundance. Daylights aims to honor the fabrics of our everyday life and speaks to a future of interconnection.
Allyce Wood
Viewpoint (six scenes), 2024
vintage nylon cord, upcyled cotton fibers 15 x 75”
Handwoven on a Bergman Countermarch loom, this piece blends synthetic vintage fibers with pearly mercenized cotton and sewing thread. Each panel is it's own expression built of clasped weft and twill treadling; each panel is it's own landscape of tension, image, and color.
Allyce Wood
Golden Line, 2024
hand-dyed cotton warp, various inheriteded wool wefts 35 feet x 10 inches x 10 inches
A woven rope of glinting fibers drops from high above, its single strand expanding in complexity as it drapes downwards. Its long line loops over and under itself as it draws nearer the ground, ribbons and plaits extend from various points like tree roots, or map lines of past decisions. It exists as a timeline, its colors shifting from golds to purples, twists becoming plaits to become plaits again, each effect responding to the previous one. Each action informs another.
