Grace Brett is a member of a secret band of guerilla Crocheters, who have bedecked their town in artful crochets. Called the Souter Stormers, the group hit various landmarks in Selkirk, Borders, with their yarn work last week, following hours of preparation. Members of the yarn bombing team are mainly over 60, but Grace – the oldest – has lived over a century.
Showing posts with label yarn Bombing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yarn Bombing. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2016
104 year old yarn bomber.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Yarn Bombing: a craft phenomenon that's gone from street art to community activity!
WASHINGTON -- Look closely , and you'll notice something special about the greenery at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts community center on U Street: It's made entirely of yarn.
"We wanted to play on the contrast and decorate the outside with something that you don't traditionally see in this urban jungle," says Stacy Cantrell, 41, the curator of the Smith Center's knit graffiti.
The nonprofit's display is the latest iteration of the craft trend that's been coloring city streets for about a decade; Yarn bombing, the act of crocheting and knitting unexpected pieces for public display. Leanne Prain, author of Yarn Bombing who may have coined the term, says "bombing" is a word often used in street art to describe "something explosive you do really fast," like "spraypaint subway cars" and now, cover public property in knitting. Hurry and take an iPhone picture, because the pops of woven color go up quickly and have limited life-spans.
"That's kind of the beauty of yarn bombing—it's temporary," says Beth Baldwin, 40, an arts coordinator who adorned a sign-less brown-brick bar in 2011 with knitted pink and red hearts. "Maybe you're noticing things in your neighborhood that you never noticed before, and then it's gone. It leaves a little hole in your artistic heart."
The artwork filling people's hearts, Twitter feeds, Pinterest boards and Instagram accounts, ranges from tube socks on parking meters, to accessorized statues and wrapped city buses.
Magda Sayeg, 39, is widely considered the first yarn bomber. She says she "wanted to add something that was a little more human and soft" to her Houston, Texas clothing store "on a boring, dreary day" in 2005. So, she knit a cover for her doorknob.
"People were walking in to look at it and asking me about it," she says. Later, Sayeg and a group of guerrilla knitters who cheekily called themselves Knitta, please, "wanted to gauge people's reactions" by knitting covers for car antennas and stop signs. Other international knitters have followed suit, leaving few cities safe from surprise attacks of yarn.
Sayeg
covered a Mexico City bus in psychedelic colors, yarn bombed part of a
Bali statue, wove a message into 250 rods on a Brooklyn bridge and
decorated a Sydney stairwell in stripes of yarn. "Even if you're a
grumpy person and hate my work, you end up sort of smiling" after seeing
it, she says.
Yarn artwork like Sayeg's is more than just pretty colors. Knit installations "can be absolutely subverting authority," says Nicholas Bell, curator of American Craft at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He says, for example, popular crochet artist Olek showed "underlying criticism of the economic order" when she yarn-bombed the Wall Street bull statue in pink yarn on Christmas three years ago.
In July 2012, Bell featured an Olek work in his 40 Under 40: Craft Futures exhibit at the American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery. "People did a lot of staring in disbelief" at Olek's installation, a yarn-bombed room which "rips the idea of knitting as your grandma's hobby," says Bell.
Lucia deCordre, urban design director at Virginia's Rosslyn Business Improvement District, turned to yarn-bombing when she needed a community-friendly way to highlight the path from the local metro stop to the Artisphere museum in Virginia.
"Yarn bombing could get that job done," while also bringing the community together, said deCordre. This summer, more than 140 volunteers hand-stitched tree covers and crocheted animals for the project, which earned deCordre a Downtown Merit Award.
Back on U Street, the knit cacti are about much more than grabbing attention and directing pedestrians; they're about healing.
Creating the public art brings people together "from all walks of life, ages and skill levels" for therapeutic knit sessions, says Cantrell, who curated both the Rosslyn and U Street yarn displays. The Smith Center, which is yarn-bombing in honor of its Against the Bias craft exhibit, is a non-profit community center for those affected by cancer.
Those that participated will "enter into this community of crocheters and knitters, and make lifelong friendships," says Cantrell.
Meanwhile, passersby can't help but turn their heads and smirk at the wild yarn flowers. Sheetal Patel, 33, stops to take a photo.
"I've never seen a yarn bomb before," she says after the term is explained to her. "It makes me so happy, because it's a drab street. Now, I can peek out my window" to see some "character."
"We wanted to play on the contrast and decorate the outside with something that you don't traditionally see in this urban jungle," says Stacy Cantrell, 41, the curator of the Smith Center's knit graffiti.
The nonprofit's display is the latest iteration of the craft trend that's been coloring city streets for about a decade; Yarn bombing, the act of crocheting and knitting unexpected pieces for public display. Leanne Prain, author of Yarn Bombing who may have coined the term, says "bombing" is a word often used in street art to describe "something explosive you do really fast," like "spraypaint subway cars" and now, cover public property in knitting. Hurry and take an iPhone picture, because the pops of woven color go up quickly and have limited life-spans.
"That's kind of the beauty of yarn bombing—it's temporary," says Beth Baldwin, 40, an arts coordinator who adorned a sign-less brown-brick bar in 2011 with knitted pink and red hearts. "Maybe you're noticing things in your neighborhood that you never noticed before, and then it's gone. It leaves a little hole in your artistic heart."
The artwork filling people's hearts, Twitter feeds, Pinterest boards and Instagram accounts, ranges from tube socks on parking meters, to accessorized statues and wrapped city buses.
Magda Sayeg, 39, is widely considered the first yarn bomber. She says she "wanted to add something that was a little more human and soft" to her Houston, Texas clothing store "on a boring, dreary day" in 2005. So, she knit a cover for her doorknob.
"People were walking in to look at it and asking me about it," she says. Later, Sayeg and a group of guerrilla knitters who cheekily called themselves Knitta, please, "wanted to gauge people's reactions" by knitting covers for car antennas and stop signs. Other international knitters have followed suit, leaving few cities safe from surprise attacks of yarn.
Yarn artwork like Sayeg's is more than just pretty colors. Knit installations "can be absolutely subverting authority," says Nicholas Bell, curator of American Craft at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He says, for example, popular crochet artist Olek showed "underlying criticism of the economic order" when she yarn-bombed the Wall Street bull statue in pink yarn on Christmas three years ago.
In July 2012, Bell featured an Olek work in his 40 Under 40: Craft Futures exhibit at the American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery. "People did a lot of staring in disbelief" at Olek's installation, a yarn-bombed room which "rips the idea of knitting as your grandma's hobby," says Bell.
Lucia deCordre, urban design director at Virginia's Rosslyn Business Improvement District, turned to yarn-bombing when she needed a community-friendly way to highlight the path from the local metro stop to the Artisphere museum in Virginia.
"Yarn bombing could get that job done," while also bringing the community together, said deCordre. This summer, more than 140 volunteers hand-stitched tree covers and crocheted animals for the project, which earned deCordre a Downtown Merit Award.
Back on U Street, the knit cacti are about much more than grabbing attention and directing pedestrians; they're about healing.
Creating the public art brings people together "from all walks of life, ages and skill levels" for therapeutic knit sessions, says Cantrell, who curated both the Rosslyn and U Street yarn displays. The Smith Center, which is yarn-bombing in honor of its Against the Bias craft exhibit, is a non-profit community center for those affected by cancer.
Those that participated will "enter into this community of crocheters and knitters, and make lifelong friendships," says Cantrell.
Meanwhile, passersby can't help but turn their heads and smirk at the wild yarn flowers. Sheetal Patel, 33, stops to take a photo.
"I've never seen a yarn bomb before," she says after the term is explained to her. "It makes me so happy, because it's a drab street. Now, I can peek out my window" to see some "character."
Thursday, November 3, 2011
YARN BOMB'S
'Yarn bombing': Woman bundles downtown Bemidji tree in sweater
LAURIE SWENSON Bemidji PioneerBEMIDJI, Minn. — Passersby on Third Street in downtown Bemidji have been noticing a tree sporting a multicolored crocheted sweater that looks just right for the dropping temperatures of fall.
That is the work of Jen Pomp, co-owner of the Yellow Umbrella gift shop across the street from the flower bed she tends. She crocheted the tree sweater in a two-week period and installed it in sections in late June.
"I made it just to put smiles on people's faces and bring some conversation and a touch of handmade on the street," Pomp said.
She had read online articles on "yarn bombing" or "guerrilla knitting" occurring in large cities to bring color and beauty to urban landscapes of concrete and steels. She was immediately inspired.
"People will take city things and put a handmade fiber art touch," she said. "A lot of bigger cities will even organize it," having fiber artists create, for example, official parking meter covers.
The phenomenon started out like graffiti, Pomp said, adding that people would look at the knitted or crocheted item, smile, and wonder where it came from.
"Yarn bombs" have been found brightening up a railing at a mall in Duluth, hugging Minneapolis sign posts, covering the "Charging Bull" sculpture in New York, as a vest for the "Rocky" sculpture in Philadelphia, filling sidewalk cracks in Paris and adorning bike racks in Melbourne. Toyota commissioned a sweater for a Prius. June 11 was International Yarn Bombing Day.
Pomp was asked in mid-June if she would be interested in tending the flower bed through the Bemidji Downtown Development Association's Adopt-a-Garden program.
"I love to garden and have been so busy with the store that I haven't been able to do much of it at home lately," she wrote in the Yellow Umbrella blog on June 16. "So what's better than a mini garden across the street? It will be nice to get some fresh air and play in the dirty throughout the week while I'm 'working."
After she took over the spot, she wondered, "How do I make this garden cool and different?"
"I found myself wanting to do something really special in this space that would sort of reflect the fun crafty creative feel that is Yellow Umbrella," she wrote in the blog. "And then it hit me . MAKE A TREE SWEATER!"
After she got the idea, she called Linda Autrey, the volunteer coordinator of the Adopt-a-Garden program.
Pomp was nervous, she said: "Is the going to think I'm nuts?"
But Autrey encouraged her to go for it.
"I certainly know it wouldn't hurt the tree and it would add even more art to our streets," Autrey said. "I thought it was really neat."
Autrey has 43 groups of people who plant, weed and water the gardens all summer long. She has been coordinating the program for 12 years.
Pomp chose a yellow, orange, cream, pink and lemongrass green color scheme, using Lion Brand Thick & Quick yarn that is 80 percent acrylic and 20 percent wool and will hold up well against Minnesota weather.
She crocheted the tree sweater in sections - two sections for the trunk (above and below the branches) and sections for the four branches emerging from the trunk. She measured the diameter of each section, leaving a little room for growth, and, when finished, placed the sections on the tree and closed up the seams.
Occasionally, she would go out and do fittings, and people would ask what she was doing. Even more questions came while she was doing the seams.
Pomp noted that some people knit or crotchet right on the piece they're covering, but that takes considerable time on the site.
She said she is enjoying seeing pictures of the tree sweater on other people's Facebook pages. Pomp also likes that she can see the tree from the store, where she brings her 1-month-old daughter, Millie.
Pomp would love to see more yarn bombing in Bemidji, she said, adding that she would be glad to organize an outing where people could, for example, put sleeves on trees in Library Park or do a project during Art in the Park.
"I would like to be part of it," she said. "it would be so striking and so fun."
Pomp owns Yellow Umbrella with her sister-in-law. They share the same name, but her sister-in-law goes by Jennifer. Jen is married to Jon; Jennifer is married to his brother Andy.
Yellow Umbrella opened Dec. 5, 2009, in Nymore and moved to its current location on Third Street on June 3. The Nymore location is now Red Umbrella, an upscale thrift store. Pomp said Yellow Umbrella sells the yarn she used for the tree sweater. She and her sister-in-law use it to make cowls and hats for the store.
To see how the tree sweater came together, visit the Yellow Umbrella blog at http://yellowumbrellashop.blogspot.com and look in the June archives for three blog posts titled "Getting Creative."
--LAURIE SWENSON Bemidji Pioneer
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/b32e8d557d1a442ea2bf9f360420c4f7/MN--Exchange-Yarn-Bombing/
Monday, September 6, 2010
Yarn bombing in Philly
Philadelphia light poles get all cozied up
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
By: Peter Crimmins
pcrimmins@whyy.org
Those who have an eye for graffiti may have noticed downtown Philadelphia is getting fluffier. Some scofflaws are using yarn and knitting needles to wrap sidewalk poles and bikes racks with cozies, scarves, and socks. A Chinatown art gallery gives guerrilla knitting the highbrow treatment.
Jerry Kaba strings up yarnwork for his artist girlfriend Jessie Hemmons
Jessie Hemmons wrapped two light poles on Juniper Street near the Convention Center in cozies knit from bright pink, orange, and green yarn. The streetlights are about 30 feet high, requiring a motorized cherry picker to get to the top.
"This is an opportunity I wouldn't be able to do on my own, because I don't have the resources, like being able to go up in a cherry picker."
Hemmons was invited to cover two light poles by an art gallery called Jolie Laide. Director Travis Heck likes the contrast of candy-colored yarn in a post-industrial urban block.
"It's this grungy, broken windows, all the doors are messed up. And to make it a little more beautiful – brighten it up a little with her stuff."
The covered light poles are the largest pieces of yarn bombing in Philadelphia. Hemmons did not install them by herself – she sent her boyfriend up thirty feet in the wobbly cherry picker.
The yarn will remain on the pole until it rots off – but Hemmons says when it gets faded and dirty she will cut it off.
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