Freeform Crochet Artist Emily Barletta

Every Monday I try to share the work of a crochet artist that I love. And every week I swear I find one that I love more than the last! This week I’m adoring the work of freeform crochet and fiber artist Emily Barletta. Recently she’s been doing some cool work with thread on paper but she has a body of work that includes extensive exploration of crochet. She creates really cool shapes out of her crochet work but I think what I really love is her unique use of color. She uses very bold colors (especially pinks and reds) but she tends to stick within the same color family in a piece so that the work is bright without necessarily being something that you would describe as colorful. It’s an effect that I really like. I also like the way that Barletta pushes the boundaries of crochet and other needlearts by combining them with other mediums (mixing crochet and clay in a piece, for example, or using embroidery on canvas rather than on fabric). I think this exploration is awesome and it makes me really enjoy looking at each piece of her work. I am also admittedly probably drawn to her process which includes not planning what she’s doing in advance and working quickly, both things I like to do in my own approach to crochet art although I tend to probably do a little more planning than is probably creatively smart. :)

About crochet artist Emily Barletta

Emily Barletta received her BFA in Fiber Arts in 2003 from The Maryland Institute College of Art but is now a Brooklyn based artist. She had her first solo show in 2007 and has been a part of numerous group shows over the years, the most recent of which was Art/Sewn: Tradition, Innovation, Expression at FiveMyles, a show that featured her more recent work with thread on paper. In 2009, she won the New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in Crafts award and this year she won the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.

A description I love

In a review of some of her works over at Mocoloco, sabine7 gave this great description of Barletta’s work:

“Hundreds of tiny crocheted circles go into Barletta’s projects, but the fibre art does not stop there, as Barletta also includes embroidery in her oeuvre.”

I think this gives a great start to what her work appears like to the viewer. Other descriptions I’ve read around the web refer to the work as organic, sculptural and surreal which are all things that I think also apply. But I think that this is mostly the kind of work that you need to see rather than reading about it so let’s take a look …

Examples of Emily Barletta’s crochet art

Your thoughts?

What do you think about Emily Barletta’s crochet art? Share your thoughts in the comments below!