Get knotted!

According to my dictionary, macrame is a noun and the name given

to the art of knotting string in patterns to make decorative

articles such as spider plant holders.

Truly underwhelming

But why?

Why go to all that trouble?

They'll die just as quickly standing in a saucer on the window

sill, no need to hang them at all.  I didn't understand the

fascination back in the 60's and I still don't get it now.

Must have been a long trip.  I wonder what they were modelled on?

I can sort of see why sailors away from home for months on end

would feel compelled to make decorative bell ropes out of bits

of old twine simply in order to keep away the boredom of the

voyage not to mention the rest of the crew.  But next thing you'll

ask me to believe is that it can be just as absorbing as making

little cotton crosses in neat little patterns all over a piece

of linen!  Never!

Come now Julia, don't be too hasty.

None of your sweeping generalisations on this blog please.

There are always exceptions to the rule and I've just found one

of them - religious macrame icons.  I kid you knot!

The boy Vlad with some of his work.

Vladimir (the knotter, not the knitter or the impaler) Denschchikov

was born on 1st July 1952 in Kiev.  He's an actor and teacher by

professon and director of the Simferopol Crimea Maxim

Gorky Academic Russian Drama Theatre, to mention but a few.

However, back in 2007, after suffering a stroke, he took up macrame

as a therapy to help restore the use of his hands, and so that's when

it all kicked off.

Deep in the Ukraine, entirely self taught and using nothing but his

bare hands and imagination, he creates his amazing masterpieces

entirely from millions of tiny, precise little knots with the exception

of the faces and hands of the saints he is depicting which are

painted on canvas and attached seperately.

Vlad has become so immersed in his passion that he even makes

the thread he uses from fine linen cloth.  The process is time consuming

as the cloth has first to be soaked in water before being taken apart

one thread at a time.  Thank goodness for DMC is all I can say.

Each tiny icon represents hour upon hour of relentless, eye-straining

work with even the smallest of projects measuring 40 x 50cm

taking anything between three to six months to complete.

Don't try this at home.  You might go blind and you certainly

won't have any time left over to catch up on your Long Dog's either.

There's no denying that Vladimir's work is skilled and beautiful,

perhaps even divinely inspired, but I still find myself repeating

my original question:  Macrame - why?