Jonathan:

History of the Hats:

I began hooking hats in Vermont. I spent one winter, from the midst of my nationwide travels, reading astrology charts and Tarot Cards for Spirit Dancer Books and Gifts, in Burlington, VT.

One cold and dark night I asked two of my friends how to crochet. With 'cabin fever' setting in, I was ready to learn something new. One friend graciously enough to offer to teach me. By placing her arms around me she showed me how to hold the crochet hook. She was a good teacher and I got the basics two knots, perhaps quicker than I admitted. "I don't get it, would you show me again, please." I didn't want her to drop the hook for another minute.

I worked on my first hat for a month after her lesson to me.The women would tease me that my hook squeaked. I just kept practising. The resulting cap was 5'2". I practised every day until I got the increase and decrease. I worked on the sculptural part after that.

I took two years off from hooking. I did carry a blue #4 or #5 in my pocket that whole time.

When I did start again, I started experimenting with a fervor. I was living in Woodstock, New York. My yarn was from scraps and novelty yarn purchases. I made a hat with a design in mind and got it, but I didn't like the result too well. I showed it to Christina Varga, an American artist there. She shared her enthuisasm with me and she showed me more potential in that one hat than I had even seen. I left heartened and hooking.

Fast forward in time a year or so. I found himself dating a lovely Portugeuse woman. I was lucky in many ways. We used to spend time in coffee shops, crocheting. She would often knit. She made scarves and sweaters, hats and baby blankets -- she never bothered with a pattern and made perfectly satisfactory creations. She shared some traditional tricks and it took my art to a new level

Later, while I was courting a mathematician, I made one of my first non-hat designs. It was an endless and seamless knot, a gordian knot style -- or a single crossing knot, if you are a math geek. I began to integrate these more complex shapes into my hats. As time went on, my styles got more intentionally extravagant. One or two hats even got out of control and took on lives of their own. These are usually four or more foot tall hats.

During the final two weeks of my marriage, in 2005 (to the mathematician), I was contacted by a book publisher based in Asheville, North Carolina, asking me to submit some hats toward a book. I sent four, then rush delivered three more. They rejected four and took three. I was both startled and pleased.

Lark Books chose three of my designs for their hardcover compendium: Cool Crocheted Hats, 40 Contemporary Designs, by Linda Kopp. A special "Thank You" is in order for Linda Kopp. She is a wonderful editor and one of the easiest-to-deal with people I have had the pleasure of working with. I hope she enjoyed working with my hats. Also a HUGE thank you to Deborah Fairfield of Texas. She is the genius who reverse engineers my hats and makes patterns of them for my hookers and, of course, for the book!

Inspired by both unexpected success and the shock of divorce, I spent a lot of time crocheting, focused on my sculpting. I developed my new generation of wearable art in hats. The puppet hats started developing. Hats with complex knots looped through their tops were created. Something clicked.

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