Mark Newport

Flashy capes and skintight garments are the usual accouterments of comic book superheroes. But artist Mark Newport has some fun with these larger-than-life characters with his soft, hand-knit costumes, which are on view through January 3 at the Renwick Gallery's "Staged Stories: Renwick Craft Invitational 2009." He spoke with the magazine's Jordan Steffen....

Who taught you how to knit?

I learned to knit twice. The first time was when I was a kid and my grandmother, who was a first grade school teacher, taught me. I think I was ten or something. I probably forgot because there were no knitting needles or yarn at home. In 2000, I wanted to include knitting in some undergraduate classes I was teaching. My wife is a knitter. She gave me a couple books and said, "Here get to it." The first thing that I had to do was learn how to make a couple of different things. I could knit and create cables and stuff, but I hadn't made any functional garments. So I made a pair of socks and a pair of gloves. Once I learned to knit in the round, it all made sense....

http://www.gregkucera.com/newport.htm

I found a website full of male knitters, here is an artist called Mark Newport, going back to the accidental gender reference i made during my public art project...