Lost Coral Reef

Our Nature Gathered theme this month is the sea. I've always been captivated by the Institute for Figuring hyperbolic crocheted coral reef exhibits. Margaret Wertheim from Australia started the project to make others aware of how fast the earth is losing its coral reefs. When a coral reef dies, it loses all of its color. I crocheted one of these bleached coral reefs. The branched coral is machine felted with wool roving on Lutradur. Everything else is crocheted.
Here is a close up view from the side .

I keep a sketchbook with ideas and inspiration for projects and here is one of the pages I used to design the "Lost Coral Reef".

Free Form Crochet and the Coral Reef Project

A couple of years ago, Robin Olsen taught me how to free-form crochet. It's funky, uses up a variety left over yarn, creates wonderful color and texture.
Here's a information about the Coral Reef Project from the Institute for Figuring. Click on Coral Reef and enter another world. Exhibits are listed for NYC, Chicago and other locations. The larger than life "Coral Garden" created by an Australian artist, Helen Lancaster, really stands out. Locally, Gossamer supports this project to get the word out about the rapid destruction of world coral reefs through global warming. Can you believe these are crocheted? Get out your crochet hook and make coral reefs.
More sketches for this week-