Andrew Salomone brings an irreverent point of view to CRAFT, but he never neglects technique. Fine art intrests him as much as rock stars, and the way he manages to combine the two is clever and creative. Did you know he once knit a Cosby sweater with Bill Cosby’s face on it?
One Project You Are Particularly Proud Of
1: A Jumper for Amy: I hand-embroidered a sweater for Amy Winehouse, with all of her tattoos on it in all the right places, so that she wouldn’t have to catch a chill in order to show off her tattoos. There are a lot of things I enjoyed about this project and the process of making it, but most of all, it’s just a thing that I like and I genuinely wanted for her to wear it.
Two Mistakes You’ve Made in the Past
1: I relied on other people to document my work: Documentation is all I have left of a lot of my projects and some of the things I’ve made have been lost because I relied on others to document them for me.
2:I tried to do too many projects at the same time: One properly executed project is worth at least one entire gaggle of improperly or unfinished projects.
Three Things That Make Your Work Unique
1:Commitment to Goofiness – I have a lot of goofy ideas, but I’m also really serious about the stuff I make. It can be hard to feel like I’m not wasting a stupid amount of time working on some of my projects, so I have to get really committed to finishing a project once I decide to make it, no matter how goofy it seems.
2: Tedium – I guess I must love doing tedious things, because everything I choose to make seems to require a pretty healthy dose of it. The tedium can be good, in a lot of ways, because it makes me think about what I am working on for a really long time and often leads to new ideas and projects.
3: Materials – I almost never make work that isn’t about the material that it is made from in some way. For me, the materials are always part of the idea behind the work, no matter what you make. I also like thinking about the history and tradition behind a particular material when I work with it.
Four Tools You Love to Use
1: Google Image Search: Most of my projects start here. I search for images of an idea for a project. If it’s been done, then I get to see how someone else executed the same idea that I had. If it hasn’t been done, then I get to figure out how to do it myself and maybe get ideas from other projects I might find that are similar to it.
2: My Sketchbook: I often don’t even know what it is that I’m trying to make until I write or draw the idea in my sketchbook.
3:Knitting Machine: I’ve been spending a lot of time working with a knitting machine lately and it’s becoming one of my favorite things to do.
4: Things-that-I-can-carry-in-my-pocket: It’s extremely rewarding to be able to work on a project with a tool that you happened to have in your pocket.
Five Inspirations
1: Internet Culture: I like when people make things just because they feel like it, sometimes without giving too much thought to what it really means, and this seems to happen a lot within internet culture.
2: Swap meets: These are some of the best places to find things that are like the stuff from internet culture IRL.
3: Popular Culture: I like to make things that other people can relate to and sometimes this means referencing ideas from popular culture as a point of departure for a project.
4: Chats: A lot of my best ideas have come from talking and joking with friends.
5: Boredom: It’s the deadbeat dad of invention.
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