Over, under, through, we settle into a rhythm. Our click-click-clicking becomes a trancelike song. For perhaps half an hour we set about marking our territory, focused on one goal. As a police cruiser skulks past on the empty midnight street, we hurriedly stuff our tools into over-filled backpacks and scurry away like mice. Out here under a black sky, we are not armed with boxcutters or spray cans, but are vandals nonetheless. We, and our knitting needles and multicoloured balls of yarn, are considered criminals in the eyes of the law.
A mostly anonymous group of graffiti knitters, dubbed yarnbombers, have taken to tagging trees, fences, utility poles, buildings and vehicles around the world, but rather than spray painting nicknames and curses on the sides of brick buildings, they use lengths of colourful yarn. An alternative to the permanence of graffiti, these bursts of stitching are considered by its faithful to be “a method of beautifying public space.” Sadly, in some areas even in the U.S and Canada, their work is still considered vandalism.
No longer just the domain of our grannies, knitting has taken root in younger generations who strive to see the craft paint the streets rather than remain behind closed doors. Knitting can be calming and meditative; an exercise in being alone with one’s mind. Let out to play, it becomes a shared peace; a way to make an active change in ourselves and our environment.
In this increasingly digital world, where many people spend their days inside office blocks typing away, their environments consisting of air-conditioned cubicles and perfectly orderly processes, the yarnbombers offer a gentle reminder to pay a little more attention on the routes we travel every day. They encourage us to embrace their imperfect, handmade stitches as they soften our concrete streets. They prompt us to wonder: Are we missing something?
The rapid growth of this phenomenon would suggest that we most certainly are. The core group of yarnbombers has grown, and they are attracting other crafters to their cause of creative anarchy. Borne from the desire to do something with their half-finished knitting projects, yarnbombing has become a collaborative art project where knitters adapt the rainbow sleeves that once lay neglected in their homes into works of public art.
One of the most prolific yarnbombing groups is Texas-based Knitta Please, started in 2005 by Magda Sayeg. When clothing store owner Sayeg spruced up her shop one day by knitting a cozy for the door handle, an idea was born. Passersby commented positively on her decorations, photos cropped up on the internet and the idea spread. Soon, more knitters were taking part and the trend took hold in Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Sayeg has gone on to lead Knitta Please in tagging everything from an entire school bus in Mexico, to parts of Paris’ iconic Notre Dame and even the Great Wall of China.
Grainy, a member of Welsh yarnbombing collective Keep Cardiff Cozy, commented on her craft to online magazine Dazed Digital. “People don’t notice regular street art these days, it’s just become part of the landscape. This is something, and it makes people take notice. It changes people’s perception of graffiti—it can be something that’s pretty and elegant too. It also changes people’s perception of knitting, it shows it’s not just grannies who do it, there’s loads of young knitters out there too.” The craze has even resulted in a book, Yarnbombing: The Art of Knit Graffiti, written by Vancouver-based knitters, Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain.
Yarnbombers either reuse unfinished knitted pieces, or pre-knit scraps to be used in their public projects, and can be found recycling these overlooked pieces into larger-scale outbursts of art in our streets. They might cover a cold stair railing with cozy yarn, creating a pleasant warmth and texture to brighten up a cool day. Or they might take it slow on a longer project, like covering the entire trunk and branches of an unruly tree in multicoloured stitching.
All this is evidence of what can happen when we come together to create something. What began as an innocent creative moment in Magda Sayeg’s shop has become a worldwide phenomenon that is bringing smiles and moments of quiet contemplation to the people it touches. Alone, Sayeg might not have taken on that Mexican school bus, but with the enthusiasm of her fellow yarnbombers, it became possible, and caught the attention of people around the world. This contagious creativity reinforces the connectedness that creativity can encourage between us.
Above my head, a tangle of colours intertwine with leaves and branches. The leaves are beginning to flutter and fill the pavement under my feet, and flashes of bright blue, yellow and red peek out from the gaps they leave. In the grey-brown of late fall, these colours are a welcome contrast. They are a gift from the yarnbombers and a reminder to look a little closer at what we might otherwise pass by.
COLLABORATIVE JOURNALING
1000 Journals is an ongoing experiment created by Someguy from San Francisco. He sent 1000 blank sketchbook journals out into the world and now follows their progress through the website. The journals are requested by people through the site, passed on between friends and strangers, left on benches as an invitation to be picked up, and all things in between.
Each person who finds a journal adds something. They are filled with drawings, letters, poetry, photos and other creations, then passed on between the hands of those who are pulled to document their lives in some way.
Sometimes, journalers comment on past participants’ work, finding common ground on the pages and offering support and understanding to each other through their art. At other times, the work is a perfect whole on its own, each page reflecting the mind state of its creator at one fleeting moment in time.
Even though each of these artists create their page alone, they are part of something much bigger. They share the experience with the artist whose strokes and scribbles fill the pages before theirs, and with those who come after.
These journals have inspired both a book and a documentary, as well as countless spin-off projects. The journals can be a bit difficult to get your hands on as there’s quite a demand. If you’re interested in circulating a journal of your own, head over to sister site 1001 Journals and start your own work of collaborative art.
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]by Laura Underwood
image: Elvert Barnes via Compfight cc
