YARN BOMBING

Yarn Bombing is…

A type of street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fiber rather than paint or chalk.

• Although still considered a type of graffiti, yarn bombing is widely accepted in the regular and art communities since it is NOT permanent, won’t damage the object being covered and can be easily removed.

Yarn Bombing has been attributed to Magda Sayeg, 37, from Houston, who says she “first got the idea in 2005 when she covered the door handle of her boutique with a custom-made cozy”.

“Yarn bombing transforms knitting from a domestic endeavor to public art, recontextualizing both knitting and graffiti, both of which are marginalized creative endeavors that fall outside “high art.”

Yarn bombing was initially almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public places. Now, organizations all over the world yarn bomb for many different reasons.

• “Some engage in yarn bombing as a fun and creative way to use up left over yarn, others consider it an urban intervention to personalize otherwise cold and impersonal spaces or to make socio- political statements. Humor is often a major component of yarn bombing, which by its nature embodies contradictory idiosyncrasies within itself”.

- Knit the Bridge is a vision for a grassroots, community-led arts project that would bring the many diverse communities of Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania together to create a large-scale, aesthetically stunning, fiberarts installation on a bridge in downtown Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Yarn Bombing

• http://www.yarnbombinglosangeles.com/about.html

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarn_bombing• http://knitthebridge.wordpress.com/tag/pitts

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