Lara Knutson

Posted on September 26, 2011 - by Kate

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I probably get 40 shopping emails a day from all sorts of sites – group buying, discount, just awesome – and I hate to say it but rarely is there a day when I have time to open any of them except for the home decorating ones. Today I really didn’t have time but I’d seen people raving about Fab.com on Twitter so when it came into my inbox I took a peak thinking maybe their user interface was just too cool to miss. There I found Lara Knutson and became a fan of Fab myself.

These are Lara’s knit vessels.Initially they just look like super cool knit structures, which of course I love but then you get to the heart of the matter – the material from which they’re made. That’s reflective glass fabric. As Lara explains on her blog, “Typically found on fire men’s suits, traffic cops, sneakers and athletic clothing, so that cars can see them at night with their headlights, this fabric is comprised of 50,000 microscopic glass beads per square inch that are mirror backed and magnify light 100 times.”

The way she explains the pieces is just so cool. This one she says looks like it fell from outer space and washed up on shore. I love that visual. The yurt would look awesome made of this stuff!

I couldn’t help wondering how Fab.com found her, or vice versa. These seem to me like art objects and yet they’re on sale online. Is that a new norm we should start to expect? I’m used to seeing the occasional poster sale on One Kings Lane but to have actual contemporary art objects seems new. Some of her works she weaves other materials into including mohair, nylon thread, cashmere, feathers, etc.

I love that her work is called “soft glass” – something that seems like an oxymoron but that is obviously quite tangible.

I wonder if this fabric is able to be colored itself, not just added / woven with other colored fabrics but actually not produced in this gunmetal tone.

I really recommend reading her blog, I’ll never be able to show or explain what these pieces do when light hits them, especially in a flash! Also, Fab.com just seemed to have updated their sale page to show each piece they’re offering both with and without light on it, that’s awesome!

They look like the above – how cool! Lara also keeps a blog about her “material adventure” called Aurora Materialis, also worth a deep read. One of the best parts about reading her blog was the subhead, Light Should Be Considered a Material. I’ll drink to that!