2000
Machine knitted wool, buttons, silk, wood, upholstery materials
990 × 490 × 260 mm
Private commission.
Collaboration with Mary Little, furniture designer and maker.

This commission came about in an unusual way. I had never met Mary Little before but we had a private client in common. The three of us were at the Jerwood Furniture Awards at the Crafts Council Gallery in London where Mary was exhibiting, having been short-listed for the award. The client introduced us saying that he had a plan for the two of us. He wanted to commission us to make him something although he knew that we had never met before and that we were unfamiliar with each others work. He rang Mary the next week with his budget and said that we were to make him a surprise. He did not want to see any working drawings or discuss the piece. We were just given a cheque up front and told to get on with it.

Mary and I met twice. The first time to brainstorm and to get to know each other and our respective work. The second time to come up with a final design. We phoned each other continuously and faxed and posted drawings and colour ideas. Mary also sent the client a contract. It was a straightforward process if a little slow. The collaborative design process was very inspiring. It pushed us further than we could ever have got alone and took us off in new, unexpected directions. Neither of us could have come up with the piece alone.

Our final design, “Footsie”, satisfied us both in terms of aesthetics, function and form. It was also a piece which fully represented both of us. We had conceived of it together but we now had to use our individual skills to fulfill it. Mary started by making the base and then it was passed backwards and forwards between us with me doing the knitting and Mary finally upholstering it.

“Footsie” is a large, lozenge shaped footstool on rockers. The upholstered stool has buttons sewn around the perimeter, onto which a knitted cover is buttoned. The knitted cover has two pairs of socks attached to it, one pair facing the other. When placed between two seated people they can rock it by putting their feet into the socks and moving their feet backwards and forwards. I also embroidered our names “Little Robins”, the word “Footsie” and the cleaning instructions onto the knitted cover in a contrasting colour.

(Statement originally written for “Artists’ Stories”, a-n website, 2000)

1999 Experimental website
http://www.iniva.org/xspaceprojects/robins 

Commissioned by the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) for X-Space, their experimental web space. Produced by Joanne Moore.

I have only recently become involved with new technology and am very excited by its artistic potential. I have started to familiarise myself with the debates around new technology and with computers in general. I have basic computer skills and am in the process of teaching myself how to use “Adobe Photoshop”. I would like to research into knitting and the internet as a way to explore and communicate my fascination with the process of knitting and knitted structures. There are many similarities between knitting and the internet. They are both physically solitary processes. Both are making sense of, translating and communicating information. Computer programs consist of long sequences of instructions that individually are very simple, so does knitting. Both can produce extremely complicated results. Computers and knitting patterns use grids, with coloured squares to relay visual information. With both mediums it is easy to “undo” or “unravel” your work. However knitting is an “everyday skill” of the past with social and cultural associations whereas computers and the internet are an “everyday skill” of the future which cross social, cultural and geographical boundaries. I would like to culminate my research in a web site which is controlled by the user and results in the production of a knitted structure – virtual knitting.
(Statement taken from application to inIVA for X-Space commission, 1999)


1999 machine and hand knitted yarn 
in acrylic cases
Each case measures 900 × 1200 × 100 mm 


Public commission by the London Borough of Hackney for Shoreditch Library
80 Hoxton Street, London N1 6LP


The knitted gloves that form the basis of this public art commission relate to a piece of local history and to a function of the library. Each glove is named after a local character, either historical or contemporary. For example: Guy is a pair of gloves with badly burnt fingers. The letter warning of the Gunpowder Plot was received in Hoxton in 1605 and Guy Fawkes was duly arrested in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament. Shoreditch Library can give you information on the government and basic legal advice.

Within this piece gloves are used to represent the hand, a universal symbol that cuts across age, race, sex, class and culture. The hand is also a symbol for much of what goes on within a library; finding the books, turning the pages, writing or using the computer keyboards. Woolly gloves are an ordinary items, worn for generations by ordinary people. Here the library and the knitted glove get given extraordinary treatment.

Freddie Robins’ first public art commission consists of two large wall mounted acrylic cases containing 17 “pairs” of knitted gloves. Explanatory panels, mimicking those used in museums, are hung next to each case. These contain the infomation that links each glove to the library and to the local area. The piece is hung either side of the main staircase down to the basement level of the library.
(Statement taken from Hands of Hoxton Press Release, April 1999)

Stories behind gloves
(Top row, right to left)
Thomas All library members have access to the library’s business library. During the 17th century Hoxton was renowned for its’ “green fingers”. Thomas Fairchild was the greatest of the Hoxton market and nursery gardeners. He was a prosperous businessman and had he been alive today he could further his success through use of the business library.

James 
This library holds local and national information on health. By the 19th century Hoxton had became home to a number of private lunatic asylums. James Parkinson was a local doctor who lived at 1 Hoxton Square. He initiated many improvements and pressed for the humane treatment of the patients treated within these asylums. The illness known as Parkinson’s Disease is named after him. He identified this disease in an essay in 1817.

Kate 
This library has a children’s library which includes books for the under fives. It also has a textbook and home work collection to help children with their schoolwork.
 Kate Greenaway (1846 – 1901), the famous writer and illustrator of children’s books, was born at 1 Cavendish Street in Hoxton.

(Middle row, right to left)
Henry This library has local and national newspapers and holds information about what’s on. 
In the 19th century Shoreditch had its own specialist Sunday morning bird market in Sclater Street. Henry Busby Bird was a notable local politician in the early 20th century. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.

Lakshmi This library stocks information on the world faiths and can supply information about local places of worship.
 Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth and good fortune.

Peter This library holds story telling sessions for children.
 Captain James Hook is Peter Pan’s adversary in J M Barrie’s classic children’s story “Peter Pan”.
Caroline
This library is free to join and there is no charge for borrowing books.
Thumbs up, the hand sign for “good”.

(Bottom row, right to left)
David 
This library works “hand in glove” with other libraries to give you access to books and information held there.
 David is the Head Librarian at Shoreditch Library (1999).

Andrew
 This library provides access to the internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) for all its’ members.
 These gloves represent the single-hand alphabet sign for “WWW” (World Wide Web).

All gloves were machine knitted by Freddie Robins except for Thomas which were hand knitted by Jean Arkell.

Photography: Jamie Thompson

1999
machine knitted wool
installed at the Crafts Council Gallery, London
Noway in the collection of KODE – kunstmuseene i Bergen, Norway
Legroom in the collection of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum

Photography: Ed Barber/Crafts Council

COSY NOSY 
, 1999
machine knitted wool, log 
180 × 410 × 120 mm

Private Collection

She’s Out of Her Tree, 1999
machine knitted wool, log 
70 × 520 × 70 mm 

Private collection