At the Evanston retirement community where he taught art, Pate (pronounced “Patty”) Conaway used herbal tea and show tunes to lure his students into his basement classroom. “The ladies,” as he came to call them, sipped their tea and listened patiently as he presented workshops on bookbinding, papermaking, collage making, and drawing. But the ladies found the vats of paper pulp too messy, too cold. They didn’t like getting graphite under their fingernails. No, the ladies were quite content with their own form of artistic expression, thank you very much: knitting.
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After months of failed attempts to capture their attention, a vexed Conaway threw up his hands, pulled out a chair, and asked one of the women to show him how to knit.
“The majority of people that approach me usually say they’ve always, always wanted to learn how to knit.” If anyone has seemed put off, it’s been other gay men, a few of whom may consider knitting an expression of femininity and, possibly, weakness.
