DINA

DINA KNAPP

Rose Zgodzinski writes about a pioneer of the 1970s art to wear movement

who creates mixed media work through crochet and collage

After attending a reggae music festival in New York in the 1970s, Dina noticed that the tam-style hat that Bob Marley was wearing on stage was a dull beige colour. She felt his hat didn't fit his music or his spirit, so she crocheted a more appropriate hat for him. It had a red star at its center, anchoring an explosion of colours. She managed to pass the hat along to Marley through a Jamaican friend in Miami. The hat became one of his favourites. He even sent it back to Dina to enlarge in order to “accommodate his growing Rasta locks. After Marley died, a friend who had been at his open casket wake revealed to Dina that Marley was wearing her hat.

During a trip to New Orleans in the early 1990s, Dina and Jeffrey wandered into the backroom of a small gallery in the French Quarter. It was filled with African sculptures, Haitian paintings and Vodou flags and artifacts. They were both attracted to the bold symbols on the flags that represented the spirits that encourage luck and a vital life and provide deliverance from a difficult life. They bought their first flag in New Orleans, and the rest were acquired through various Haitian sources in Miami. The current collection numbers at about 50 flags.

The flags represent transcendence from the physical world to the spiritual world. They were originally created and used by priests as part of Vodou ritual; either draped across shoulders (another form of art to wear), tied to crossed poles that serve as a gate to walk through or untwirled at the beginning of a ceremony as an invitation to the spirits to take part. The flags began as just paintings on cloth and later were enhanced with embroidery and beadwork. Sequins were adopted after an impressive display of Afro-Brazilian sequined costumes came to Haiti for carnival in the 1940s. Eventually the entire flag's surface was covered in sequins. During the 1960s, sequins and beads were plentiful in Haiti, which had become known as a source of talented and inexpensive embroidery work for the US fashion industry. As the shimmering medium became popular among tourists, flag-making evolved into a commercial enterprise. Flags were now created and sold by priests in order to support their congregations. Eventually the iconography of the sequined tapestries moved away from religious symbolism toward symbols and scenes of everyday life and popular culture in Haiti.

Uppercase Magazine #18, Summer, 2013 Photo credit (crochet): Tom Salyer