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Young Mavis Stevens sat in the living room with her mother and a neighbor. It was July 20, 1969. On the television, Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. On the couch, little Mavis fiddled with knitting needles.
One small step for man ... knit one, purl two.
The needles clicked. The yarn took form.
"Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, I learned to knit," said Stevens, a fiber artist in Buford. "I've never stopped."
The night she and Armstrong both took giant leaps is depicted in one of the works she has assmbled for an upcoming show at Buford's Tannery Row Artist Colony. "Pure Mavis" begins with a 6 p.m. reception Jan. 21 and runs through Feb. 12.
The show consists largely of autobiographical works like the one showing the ladies, the astronaut and the little girl knitting. Another captures the day Stevens, who grew up in Taylor County in Middle Georgia, rode into Atlanta for her cousin's college graduation. ("It was like going to a foreign land," she recalled.) One shows the day her father took her to an art show in Perry. His car broke down and he had to pick her up in a borrowed dump truck. A self-portrait features Stevens' dog, Burton, her tattoos of flowers and a "Noah's Ark" scene, and her red toenails. In that piece, Stevens is knitting a scarf that seems to have no end.
"I cannot cook, I cannot do math, I can't spell," Stevens said. "I barely got through high school. No one knew what to do with me. I was always knitting and no one could get me to quit."
To create her pieces, Stevens uses a customized yarn sewing machine set up in her garage. It can take a few hours or a few days to complete a work.
"I've always gravitated toward yarn," she said. "I used to play with it before I knew how to knit."
Stevens, 46, moved first to Acworth, then Doraville, and finally Buford, for its growing community of artists.
"Mavis is adorable; she's a regular Buford fixture," said Amy Slotin, who with husband Steve organizes the Slotin Folk Art shows and auctions. She's commissioned Stevens to render her three daughters --- Taylor and Kelly, 9-year-old twins, and 7-year-old Chelsea --- in yarn. Their beagle, Little Bit, also will be part of the piece.
The yarn artist hails from a family of yarn-spinners: The Stevens clan was full of aunts and uncles and cousins with names like Evia and Idalyne (they were originally from Mississippi). Stevens talks about them in flowing reverie, revealing bits of color like snippets of her artwork. Evia Stevens, known as Big Mama to her grandchildren, had a dog named George she pretended not to love. A girl cousin named Mike carved her name into Big Mama's porch swing. Uncle Grady was diagnosed with a cancer so rare doctors asked if he'd consent to surgery that would surely kill him, but would make medical history. Uncle Grady rolled out of the operating room and lived eight more years.
In one of Stevens' pieces, her grandmother is on the swing with her aunt Idalyne Cooper, saying family should always stick together. Three days after the scene depicted in Stevens' art, the older woman died. The relatives she left behind have heeded her advice and they all are coming up for Stevens' show. Through her pieces, she wants viewers to feel how much she cherishes her relatives.
"I don't know how I'm going to get through the show without crying," Stevens said. "They'll be tears of joy."
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
