You may know Sam Barsky from his viral Instagram posts showcasing his pictorial knit sweaters. In February, the Baltimore-based artist’s latest museum exhibition, “Sam Barsky: It’s Not the Same Without You,” opened at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wis. We caught wind of the show and reached out to Sam to learn more about his craft and experience.
Congratulations on your museum exhibition! How did it come about?
They contacted me one day. I can’t remember if it was on Instagram or somewhere else, but I get contacts like this pretty often, so it’s something I’m used to. Whenever I get them, if I see it’s something feasible, I’ll go for it.
How did you choose which sweaters to show?
It was actually quite a lengthy process. I had a bunch of meetings with them, and I wanted to show those sweaters that I’m not wearing on a regular basis — ones I wouldn’t miss — and ones that I thought the public would like.
I saw on the museum’s website that you were hosting several artist talks and knitting circles along with the exhibition. What will these be like?
I’ve done them on a regular basis over the years. In this location, I’m doing it in May because that’s when I’m going there. I’m going to do it the way I always do: I bring a lot of sweaters with me besides the ones on display, and then I tell my story, pretty much in chronological order, just interesting stories that have happened as I’ve been knitting. And afterwards, I have a Q&A session, and I try to do a social period where I can meet and greet people.
“Sam Barsky: It’s Not The Same Without You” installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2025.
When did you start knitting?
For many years, before I actually got to knit, it’s like I had this dream of doing so. I think it went back to high school for me. When I was in high school, you had the choice of joining one of four different clubs, and three of them didn’t appeal any bit to me whatsoever. But the craft club… it had some appeal, so I joined that one. And in this craft club, there was this girl who taught me how to do this thing with yarn: wrapping it around your fingers and carrying it over and making chains. It’s like finger knitting, and that’s all I knew how to do with yarn for many years thereafter.
Then, throughout the time I was in college, I would see people knitting or crocheting from time to time. I kept thinking, “I wish I knew how to do that,” but I didn’t know how to find someone to teach me. I kept signing up for classes in all different places, but they would always get canceled due to low enrollment — sometimes that enrollment was just me. I took books out of the library. I didn’t know the difference between knitting and crochet, that they were two different crafts, and I went to Woolworths because I knew they would sell yarn and needles. Well, they had two long sticks or one short stick, so I thought, “Oh, I’ll just buy the one short stick,” not knowing what the difference was. Then I was looking at these two-dimensional books and I still really couldn’t figure it out.
I dropped out of nursing school in 1999, and that’s when I saw some people at a flea market who were selling yarn. I asked them, “Where can I go to learn how to do that?” And they said, “We can teach you for free under one condition, which is that you buy our yarn!” Of course, I said yes, and that was just the beginning. They only taught me how to make a solid-colored scarf, and I wanted to make multicolored sweaters. There was a lady I met through them that I became friendly with, and we exchanged numbers. She told me over the phone that there was another yarn shop I should check out. I went there, and that’s where I learned how to make sweaters, finally.
“My Stonehenge sweater. The first I made specifically for a trip overseas somewhere after I had the idea of wearing sweaters at landmarks.”
How has your practice changed since then?
The first two sweaters I made in the first year were of a solid color. I wanted to do something a little more interesting. I saw a Vogue subscription card with a picture of a sweater called Map Of The World. I thought I’d like to do that, but the lady who owned the shop discouraged me and said I needed more experience first. I wasn’t ready to take no for an answer, so I went ahead and did it — successfully — after five months. After that, I wanted to do something even more interesting, so I took graph paper and started to draw a picture. As I was doing that, I thought, “I could just freehand this picture without graph paper,” and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
That’s an incredible skill. You’re able to essentially paint the picture in your head and it comes out with your knitting needles.
Pretty much so. The more I’ve done it, the more I figured out how to do different things. Every sweater, every time, nowadays, I think, “This will be the theme of the sweater,” and then I’ll have to figure out what to use to make something with that theme.
Sam wearing the Map Of The World sweater, his first multicolored sweater. “This sweater is not my own design. It was the first multicolored sweater I made before I started knitting my own without a pattern. I found the perfect place to take a picture while wearing it too.”
When you’re making a landmark sweater, what comes first, the travel or the sweater?
I wasn’t originally active in doing that. There were a number of times when I went to a place and I just happened to have a sweater of it and it seemed natural to wear that sweater there. Like when I went to Venice for the first time, I wore my Venice sweater. Then one day, I realized I had maybe 10 to 15 pictures like that, and I thought it looked like an interesting form of art on its own. From then on, I started purposely making sweaters in advance of trips I was going on. So, when I went to Stonehenge, I made a Stonehenge sweater in advance. Since then, every time we had a trip planned, I would get to work and make a sweater — one, or even more, if I had time — for where I was going. Before long, people started sponsoring or requesting that I make sweaters, and they would pay my way there.
When the pandemic came, that shut down for a number of years and it’s starting to pick up again, so I’m hoping to do a lot more of it in the future. I have a long wishlist… Since we’re going to be going to Milwaukee, I’m currently working on one of a place there, called the Domes. It’s these three greenhouses, a conservatory, and each one is a dome. The front of my sweater shows the domes, and on the back, I’m going to put the interior of the place.
Sam Barsky’s John Michael Kohler Arts Center sweater displayed at the entrance to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, which it depicts. During the run of the exhibition, visitors can check out the sweater and take a selfie of their own in front of the Arts Center.
How many have you made to date?
I have made 171 and counting! This one [his disco sweater] is the most recent one I’ve finished. I’m hoping that when I get to number 200, maybe within two to three years, I’ll have a big celebration.
Do you wear them regularly, or do you preserve them as art?
I wear them every day. I don’t own anything else to wear. Obviously, no one else has anything like this so for that reason, I’m standing out in a crowd wearing them. Sometimes, when I’m just by myself in the house, I’ll wear a T-shirt, but other than that, I wear these everywhere I go, 365 days a year. It isn’t a common fashion or anything.
The ones I’ve decided to keep and not exhibit at the museum are the ones I wear the most often. They are some that are, in my opinion, maybe not the most attractive or the most stand-out, but they’re the ones that I wear on a daily basis — I have ordinary days!
“Sam Barsky: It’s Not The Same Without You” installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2025.
What inspires you to keep creating and sharing your sweaters online?
This is what I enjoy doing, this is me doing the thing I enjoy doing with my life. The internet is not the only thing that can be scary. No matter what you do, there’s some danger involved, you just have to keep doing what you enjoy!
[Editor’s note: Sam can be found on most social media sites by searching his name, his Instagram is @SamBarskyKnitter and his website, on which you can purchase T-shirts that feature his sweater patterns, is www.sambarsky.com.]
—Carly Timpson
