A handmade blanket by Lizzy Dargie offers no warmth, no comfort

[TexasTowelie]

What do you think of when you imagine a hand-made blanket? Probably something soft and warm for a chilly winter night. Artscape producer James Baumgartner talked with Lizzy Dargie, a Providence artist who has created a blanket that is none of those things. Instead, it’s a metaphor for life in the pandemic.


One granny square from the blanket
PHOTO BY LIZZY DARGIE


JAMES BAUMGARTNER: Instead of yarn, Lizzy Dargie crocheted her blanket out of 28 gauge steel wire, a little thinner than a spaghetti noodle. She used a popular crochet pattern called a granny square. The squares are about 6 inches on a side, almost floral in design and they’re stitched together with more wire making a blanket that’s about 6 feet long. It has the shape and form of a blanket, but it’s unsettling to see something that should be warm and comfortable but instead is metallic, and cold, and sharp. The wire is stiff, but the blanket is flexible. You could lay it on a twin bed, or you can fold it up and drape it over a couch like an afghan. Lizzy told me that the idea for the wire blanket came to her in September 2020, six months into the pandemic.

LIZZY DARGIE: That was quite a culminating period as people were figuring out how kids were going back to school, if they were going back to school, or not. So much remote versus in-person talk. It felt like a full summer of not normal life and not getting to experience all the normal things and gatherings. I think, also the looming fear of the winter. People trying to predict what was going to happen and what life was gonna be like, and feeling that looming, like, being able to be outside is going to go away and kind of feeling that and so I think it was, it was really a culmination of all of those things that kind of led to that spark, right at that time, at the beginning of September.

JAMES: And as it gets cold, you're gonna need a blanket, right?

LIZZY: Yes, yeah. And though this one wouldn't help you very much.

Read more: https://thepublicsradio.org/episode/a-handmade-blanket-by-lizzy-dargie-offers-no-warmth-no-comfort
(Rhode Island Public Radio)