(gentle electronic music) - So I knit cozies for people.

Think tea cozy, ("Rule, Britannia!")

like a British tea cozy, just a warm covering to keep something warm and snugly.

But my cozies are a little more aggressive in their cozying.

(laughs) They are full body coverings that covers most of their identifiable features.

The legs, they're almost always bare because I find that hysterical to feel like people aren't wearing pants under the cozy.

And I also think knees are kind of funny.

(whimsical music) I love art history in general.

So I was really inspired by portraiture painting and estate painting with people showing off their estate by posing in a painting.

And so I thought of these very constructed, very posed, very formal photographs, and that's how I kind of begin to think of them not as cozies but as cozy photographs.

So for me, the photograph is the piece.

The cozy is a part of the piece.

Through that, I kind of have this conversation with them about how they present themselves to the world, what's important to them, and how we communicate to an audience, who they are as people.

(whimsical music) It started with my friends and family because they are very willing to go along with my ideas.

Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Yeah, there you go.

My crazy artist things that I come up with.

So they're used to that.

This is very first of the series, and it's my mother and dad.

And basically how it went was, mom, dad, can you tow your Airstream to the Walmart parking lot and stand in these knitted things for me?

Okay, fine, I guess.

I had planned their cozy colors to coordinate and also go with the silver of the Airstream a little bit and feel a little mid-century in palette.

I wanted you to know where they were and I wanted the mountain landscape in the background.

And then this yellow stripe up front is just a nice pop of color.

This was kind of at the height of that like a culture of RV people who would camp out in Walmarts which felt very Americana to me.

It just felt like a portrait of a certain segment of America.

And now every time this is shown in a gallery or I sell a print of it, like my dad asks for a commission, I'm like, that's not how this works, but thanks.

(laughs) (ethereal music) Once I had done a few and people saw the photographs and saw what I was doing, I had some requests, I had other friends wanting to be a part of it.

Usually it's somebody I know and have a wonderful idea in mind for them.

This one was particularly made for the Alabama Theater in Birmingham, was my good friend Pat who I worked with.

And she always had cargo pockets full of stuff so I couldn't imagine like making a cozy that it didn't have pockets for her.

So that's how that design decision came about.

But I also do cozies for people who I've never met before until we have a conversation about the cozies and I'm excited about them or they're excited about me and we have a really interesting dynamic and we can do wonderful photographs that way.

So it's grown and sort of changed over the years.

If I cozy you, it's meaningful to me as a person to be like, I want to cozy you because it means you're sort of important in my life.

This is one of my newer photographs, Jay in the Dismal Swamp.

And it's an interesting story.

We went and scouted this location, clouds were puffy and perfect and the sky was blue, and we had this beautiful horizon line and I thought that would be a wonderful shot.

And then I knit the cozy, we go out there the sky was overcast and moody and cloudy and where I had framed it up, it was much flatter.

It was on a dock and they had replaced the railing and it was just not the same shot and I was very disappointed.

And at the last minute I was like, go stand on this boat ramp.

And I saw this corner and I saw the trees and I saw the really dramatic clouds and I think this photograph is better than what I imagined it to be.

And I love when that happens.

I think this one just has so much drama, the way the light is hitting, and the cloud.

I do love this photo.

The way my projects come together sometimes feels more perfect than others and I think this one, just all the elements wound up being there for me.

(gentle music) (knitting machine clacking) So the actual sitting down and knitting is when I get to go to my studio.

I can't even really listen to music or podcasts or anything because I have to keep count.

So it's a lot of setting up the machine which, she is old and finicky.

so you know, I have to oil her down with WD40 before we begin and make sure she's ready to go.

The stitch pattern is pretty unique.

It's something I developed early on in the series and it's like two stitches, skip a stitch, one stitch, skip a stitch, two stitches, and it's just something I made up.

I liked the pattern, I liked that it was a little, had a little gap there and created a vertical stripe.

So that is, in everyone is always that sort of three stitch pattern.

And then I have to do the threading and make sure it's just right before I start knitting.

(gentle upbeat music) I start it the same way every time.

(knitting machine whooshing) I have a very specific pattern to begin with.

I do sets some 20 and I always start on the same side because I do have ADHD and if my mind wanders and I lose count, I have to kind of start all over.

So I have a clicker and I have a system so that I keep myself on track.

It's very meditative and just emptying my mind and counting is nice to do.

Anytime my mind wanders, I am in trouble so I have to, it is very much a practice.

That's the second half.

I'm always happy to have like a whole conversation and see what kind of interesting things we can come up with 'cause it's so fun.

And I enjoy talking with people and working with people and I like to facilitate these experiences.

I think it's memorable and interesting and I like that people are a part of my work.

(whimsical music) I never thought that people would be as weird as me and I love that they want to just get on board with this strange, cozy train.

(upbeat music) (lively music)