THESE days, the interior of Margaret and Christine Wertheim's rambling Highland Park home resembles an eccentric cross between an undersea documentary and a neighborhood yarn shop. Like the bottom of the ocean, most available surfaces appear to be covered with sea life of all colors, textures and varieties: corals, kelp, anemones, jellyfish and other aesthetically pleasing sea species.
However, these forms are created not by Mother Nature but with a crochet needle: Australian-born twin sisters Margaret and Christine, 48, with the aid of an international cadre of collaborators, are crocheting a coral reef. The project, as they describe it, pays "woolly homage" to an endangered natural wonder, Australia's Great Barrier Reef, through the traditional craft of crochet.
Lawrence Weschler, artistic director of the Chicago Humanities Festival, likes to call the project "the AIDS quilt of global warming."
Crochet reef: An article in Sunday's Calendar section about the "Hyperbolic Crochet Reef" art project said that Margaret and Christine Wertheim purchased their house with Margaret's "beau" who "has since moved on." In fact, the person is Margaret's husband, Cameron Allan, who continues to be part of the Institute for Figuring, which is co-directed by the sisters.
Crochet reef: An article in the May 6 Calendar section about the "Hyperbolic Crochet Reef" art project said that Margaret and Christine Wertheim purchased their house with Margaret's "beau," who "has since moved on." In fact, the person is Margaret's husband, Cameron Allan, who continues to be part of the Institute for Figuring, which is co-directed by the sisters.
Crochet reefs: A May 6 article about the "Hyperbolic Crochet Reef" art project said that Margaret and Christine Wertheim purchased their house with Margaret's "beau" who "has since moved on." In fact, the person is Margaret's husband, Cameron Allan, who continues to be part of the Institute for Figuring, which is co-directed by the sisters.
The sisters agree. "Coral reefs are, as it were, the canaries down the mine for the global warming system," Margaret says with characteristic urgency during a conversation at the kitchen table. She is surrounded by bits and pieces of crocheted "coral," including reconfigurations of doilies snapped up at swap meets and craft fairs, as well as beaded wonders sent unsolicited by one of many crocheters who have become aware of the project.
"Coral reefs are dying out in part because of chemical pollutants and in part because coral reefs can only survive a temperature rise of about 1 degree for a short period of time," Margaret continues. The crochet reef, she says, "could potentially take over our lives -- it's already taken over our living room."
Still in the concept stage is what Christine calls the crochet reef's "satanic twin," the "Rubbish Vortex," a huge hanging sculpture to be crocheted of yarn created entirely from plastic bags by Helle Jorgensen, a Danish-born biologist-turned-artist who lives in Sydney, Australia, and was discovered independently crocheting sea creatures from yarn made from reused plastic bags.
The sisters are also creating an adjunct "Plastic Reef," much like their coral reef except that the material will be fabricated from plastic trash. Plastic is already piling up at their residence, where they have vowed to save their plastic refuse for a year as a towering example of modern society's dependence on the stuff.
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