When I start writing about these mural projects, my mind always goes directly to the people behind the project. In this case, it’s Liz and Brad Hilton. We met them on the streets of Grand Haven at an art festival years ago and effortlessly connected. They found a Deep Sea Diver original painting to take home and, as I wrapped it up, they started wondering aloud about the possibility of a mural in their workspace. “I like the way you think,” I replied with a smirk.
Many moons later, Ash and I found ourselves inside their business in Holland, Michigan, bringing to life the intriguing story of William Lee and his sock framing machine.
Liz’s book on the history of framework knitting that we used for inspiration.
William Lee was a clergyman in England in the late 1500s. His wife was a good cook but a slow knitter and William wanted to change that. So, he came up with a grand vision to invent a machine that could knit. Keep in mind, this was the late 1500s. The Industrial Revolution and all of its wondrous machines wouldn’t hit for another 200 years, but William Lee was way ahead of his time. He managed to build a knitting frame powered by foot pedals that mimicked the movement of his wife’s hands and voila, she was able to knit socks in a fraction of the time.
Cool, old framework knitting machine.
So William and his brilliant machine ride off into the sunset on a wave of riches, right? Wrong. William goes to Queen Elizabeth I for a patent and he’s denied not once but twice (dude even improved the machine so that it could knit fine silk instead of just coarse wool). The Queen was worried about William Lee’s machine rendering the countless hand-knitters in her kingdom obsolete. Bummer, William.
He then took his knitting frame to France where he continued to improve it and was granted a patent there. But poor William was never really able to get his business off the ground and he died a pauper in Paris in 1614.
Regardless of the success that eluded him during his lifetime, this man and his genius knitting frame laid the groundwork upon which the Industrial Revolution was built. His machine was improved upon and adapted over the next two centuries to produce ever-complicated textiles. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s its use ballooned into a myriad of possibilities. One of the main transitions achieved by the Industrial Revolution was from handmade production to machines that imitated the hands and produced on a much larger scale. William Lee had achieved this two centuries prior.
The inspiration for the final composition of The Knitter mural.
Offspring of William Lee’s ideas are still in use today and these descendants were whirring away as Ash and I readied ourselves to install our mural honoring this forward thinker. We were invited into this hive by the aforementioned Liz and Brad Hilton who own KNITit, a company that makes many 3D knitted goods. Liz is a 3D knitting specialist and her most notable creation is the Swaddelini, a soft and stretchy sleepsack for newborns. Her livelihood easily connect its origin to William Lee, so her and Brad hired Ash and me to honor William Lee with a mural.
This mural was indoors and presented a unique opportunity for us to try out a new innovation of our own: wood cutouts. We had always loved the dimension of my paper-collaged figures on my paintings and were able to replicate that process on a large-scale mural last year in Marquette (READ ABOUT IT HERE). But we wanted to push the dimension even further and a wood cutout was an exciting new direction to explore.
Most of the work of a mural comes in the planning phase and Ash and I got busy in the studio dreaming up designs of William Lee and his frame. We wanted to get the angles just right and find a fitting background, all while keeping an eye to the space where the mural would go. After many iterations and reworks (around 8), we finally found it: a quarter-turned view of William Lee working his stocking frame with a background of magnified knitted thread. Beautiful.
We thought this background was it.
Until we woke up the next day and thought this was it.
Complete 180.
Fully fleshed out background, guy, and colors.
After consulting with my main woodman (and brother) Lucas “Oddjob” Voorhees, we figured out the logistics of how to build and install this massive figure. The key was to build it in three interlocking chunks that fit together at seams complimentary to the design. Basically, the cracks between the plywood pieces would be at places on the design that made sense and wouldn’t distract from the overall piece.
We found a dark evening in wintry Michigan (pick a day, any day), set a projector up on the side of the studio, and traced our design onto three 4’x8’ sheets of maple plywood. After cutting them out carefully with a jigsaw, I stained and sealed them just like I do the panels I paint on. We decided to collage paper onto the surface where William Lee was to enhance his presence and give him a nice subtle dimension/texture. Finally, I painted the details of the sock knitting frame and William Lee, fully bringing these pieces to life in the studio.
Tracing the guy onto the plywood. At least it got dark early so we could do this at about 5pm.
The guy is collaged and the painting has begun.
More paint.
All 3 pieces almost complete.
The next step was to paint in the background so on a few nights in early December, Ash and I drove the 20 minutes to KNITit and got to work on the background. The background went up relatively smoothly, despite only being able to use a tall ladder on the 20’ ceilings. Things got a little shaky on the upper rungs, but we pushed through unscathed. The final step was to bring our cutout plywood pieces into KNITit for the final installation.
The background in progress.
The Knitter pieced together for installation.
Time to hang.
It was surreal and very cool to put William Lee and his sock-knitting frame up on that wall while the modern iterations of his innovative idea whirred away all around us. The ancestors of these machines were dreamt up over 400 years ago and the technology that William Lee created is still in operation today. Amazing.
The Knitter with his framework knitting machine among the modern 3D knitting machines.
Overall, the mural and wood cutout were a great success. The added dimension really makes William Lee and his frame jump out to the viewer. The background is delicate and mesmerizing while illustrating the incredible feat that his machine achieves.
The Knitter | 2024 | KnitIt | Holland, MI
We love how the cut out ‘pops’ off the wall.
We were so honored for the chance to bring this idea to life and are ever grateful to the Hiltons for giving us that opportunity. Long live the knitters!
