A fibre artist from Truro, N.S., has gone viral again after a photo of celebrated actor Timotheé Chalamet surfaced recently in what appeared to be one of the sweaters she created.
Grace Tompkins’s phone exploded with notifications about her Three Black Cats-inspired sweater. Three Black Cats was painted by Nova Scotia artist Maud Lewis in 1955.
This is the second time Tompkins has gone viral on the internet for her design.
The photo of Chalamet was posted to Instagram and it quickly gained attention. People asked where it could be purchased. Others were tagging Tompkins.
“My initial reaction was, where did Timothée Chalamet get one of these sweaters?” said Tompkins.
It turns out Chalamet isn’t wearing her handmade feline design. The sweater he’s wearing doesn’t really exist.
“It was a pretty good photoshop job, but [he’s] definitely not wearing one of my creations,” said Tompkins.
The celebrity’s photo was uploaded on a fanpage account dedicated to digitally dressing Chalamet in various works of art.
The photo of Chalamet was taken from a post on X. He’s wearing a knitted sweater in the original photo, but there aren’t any cats on it.
guarda chi! <a href=”https://t.co/uzTuRiIH0B”>pic.twitter.com/uzTuRiIH0B</a>
—@Ahrtics
The Instagram account’s owner didn’t know a Three Black Cats sweater actually existed, Tompkins said. It was just a coincidence the photoshopped knitted sweater looks similar to the one she crocheted.
Tompkins said despite comments and messages from people asking where they could buy her sweater, she only sells the pattern she created.
“I’ve probably sold over 200 patterns,” Tompkins said.
She said in a typical month she will sell a few of her patterns. But she had a bunch of Maud Lewis-design sales when she woke up the morning after the post was made.
In total, she said she sold at least 300 patterns and that 80 per cent of them are Maud Lewis based.
Even though Chalamet wasn’t wearing her crocheted-cats creation, she said the attention it brought to the Thee Black Cats and her own design has made for a great couple of days.
“A lot of people were really excited to see such an iconic Nova Scotian painting on what appeared to be a very famous celebrity,” Tompkins said.
Said Tompkins: “Some people just really like cats! Some people really just like colourful, whimsical photos. It’s kind of cool to introduce people to Maud that way.”
