65. Yarn Bombing - Mandy Moore & Leanne Prain

The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti
Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, 2009
paper, $19.95
(TPPL 746.43 M7851y)
230 pages

I stumbled across this book last Sunday as I wandered through the Valdez/Main Library in downtown Tucson. I don't go there much, you have to park underneath in this huge echoing parking garage. But I do love, on an occasional Sunday, to drive up and down the uncrowded-Sunday-downtown-Tucson streets, not worrying if you make a wrong turn, and watching the oneway signs with a little more ease since it's not as busy as other times.

That being said, this book fit perfectly with my mood. And I've taken all week to read through it and check it out. This is all new to me. And newS to me. I want to see this myself! How could I possible have been missing it? I KNOW I would notice knit or crocheted pieces decorating a lamp pole, or car antenna, or chain-link fence. And sure, I've never been to Sweden (where it appears a lot of this takes place), but I have been all over the U.S., where it looks like it's been happening, too. I think it's time for me to begin a Tucson trend.....

What is yarn bombing? What is crochet and knit graffiti? Just what it sounds like! The easiest way to explain is to quote directly from the book:

On city street corners all over the world, yarn graffiti artists snake their work around telephone poles, wrap it through barbed wire, and flip cozies onto car antennas. Originally started in Houston, Texas by a crew named Knitta Please (a.k.a. Knitta), there is now an international guerrilla knitting movement embraced by artists of all ages and nationalities. Knit and crochet graffiti has been seen in countries from Canada to Chile to China. This book has been written to inspire you to take up the needles (or hooks) and join us in world yarn domination!

Merging the disciplines of installation art, needlework, and street art, yarn bombing takes many forms. It generally involves the act of attaching a handmade item to a street fixture or leaving it in the landscape; however, this varies from artist to artist. Yarn graffiti can be aw complex as a sweater that has been created to cover a statue or as simple as a crocheted rectangle wrapped around a lamp post. Some artists tag items as tiny as door handles, others create works large enough to cover a public monument.

Yarn Bombing blog (written by the authors of this book).
An austratlian fiber artists "bombs" a VW bug!
The Knitted Mile - installed in Dallas, Texas this very weekend, 9/25 & 26, I think....