When I put together my recent roundup of driftwood+crochet inspiration, I stumbled upon the work of crochet artist Susanna Bauer. I realized I’d actually seen her beautiful designs before, and I was surprised to see that I’d never done an article about the amazing stuff that she does with organic materials and crochet. Well, here’s that post.
Crochet Around Leaves
I remembered Susanna’s work because for awhile there were a lot of posts floating around the web featuring her work of crocheting around leaves. It’s no surprise that these caught on … there’s something so special about the delicate, ephemeral leaf decorated with thread crochet.
She confirms on the FAQ page of her site that she doesn’t treat the leaves in any way to make them more durable, although she does wash and dry them using traditional botany techniques. They do sometimes break in the process, although not much anymore since she’s perfected the art of the work. What I discovered when I delved deeper into the artist’s website is that she has also done some really cool sculptural work making 3D crochet objects worked with leaves:
I can’t believe the ways in which she manipulates both the leaves and the crochet to create something so unique. This reminds me of what she so poignantly says on her website:
“There is a fine balance in my work between fragility and strength; literally, when it comes to pulling a fine thread through a brittle leaf or thin dry piece of wood, but also in a wider context – the tenderness and tension in human connections, the transient yet enduring beauty of nature that can be found in the smallest detail, vulnerability and resilience that could be transferred to nature as a whole or the stories of individual beings.”
Want to see more conventional crochet leaf patterns? Look here.
Wood + Crochet Art
Of course, most recently I was looking at her use of crochet combined with wood for my driftwood inspiration piece.
Crochet Stones
Susanna has also done work adding crochet to stones / rocks. Some is the traditional style I’ve seen from a lot of crochet stone art but a lot of it is truly original and refreshing. She is quoted as saying, “I find myself recharging with the quiet concentration, the time, and the calmness” that goes into her pieces.
More About this Crochet Artist
Susanna Bauer was born in Germany in the 1960s. She went to Camberwell College of Art in London a few years ago and now lives in the UK. She has had a number of exhibitions, especially in the past several years including participation this month at the Select Festival and a solo exhibit next month at Lemon Street Gallery. Her work has been written about widely in both online and print including a lovely article about her in the 2014 bonus issue of American Craft magazine. Want to own one of her crochet pieces? She has work available for sale.
Other Similar Crochet Artists
Some of the other artists that you might like if you enjoy the work of crochet artist Susanna Bauer:
I can’t imagine how hard it is to make those delicate leaf hole crochet pieces, amazing artist, great article Kathryn, thanks for share <3
Thanks!