2017 has so far been a breakthrough year for Samuel Barsky. He became known all over the world as “the guy who knits sweaters of famous places, and then takes pictures of himself wearing those sweaters at those places.”
CLICK TO ENLARGE: Samuel Barsky in front of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, London’s Tower Bridge and in New York City’s Times Square.
Barsky of course also quickly caught the eye of Resource Travel. So we reached out for an interview, eager to find out how, when and why he got into this thing that has now made him famous.
I started knitting in 1999, with two solid colored sweaters and a multicolored sweater from a commercially available pattern. After that, I decided to design my own. As I was looking at the graph paper, struggling to decide how it should look, I got the idea that I could knit a picture without a graph.
CLICK TO ENLARGE: No more knitting commercial patterns or graphs after Samuel Barsky switched to real life objects.
Many years later, long after Barsky got married, he rediscovered a small collection of pictures of himself wearing some of his sweaters in the places or around the objects they represented. He realized there was a significance to this, and conceived the idea to start doing this for all of his sweaters.
Anything that crosses my eyes is a potential sweater. In the past, I often made a sweater after having been at some place. Now, since I want to have a picture there while wearing it, I try to knit such pictures befóre I get there.
CLICK TO ENLARGE: Sam Barsky’s knitting has taken him (and sometimes his wife) from the Niagara Falls to Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall.
Each sweater takes, give or take, about a month to make. Since Barsky is disabled, he doesn’t have a regular day job, but since he puts so much time and effort in his knitting, he considers it to be his de facto profession.
I keep all my sweaters and wear them myself. But I share pictures of them for others to see. And I occasionally lend them out to be displayed somewhere, such as a museum or gallery.
CLICK TO ENLARGE: Curvy roads, war tanks, pirate ships… Sam Barsky has done it all!
Barsky tells Resource Travel he likes to travel as much as he likes to knit. He doesn’t really have one favorite destination, and his plans for the future is to just “keep on doing what I’m doing.” Eventually, he does want to make his work available for sale in some form, but his main intention is to keep inspiring people and to teach his skills to others by giving speeches, doing TV appearances or giving interviews.
Glad we could help with the latter, Mr. Barsky!
CLICK TO ENLARGE: Proudly showing a sweater showing the sweaters he already made, in front of those sweaters.
Want to see more of Sam Barsky’s knittings and travels? You can follow everything on his Facebook Page.