Savery Knitting: Yarn Bombing

Week 14 = Knitting as Art
Day 4 = April 5, 2014

     What would you consider street art? A man playing his guitar on the corner, a woman doing a comedy act in the park, or a beautiful tree that has been yarn bombed? I would say all of these are street art.

     Here is Wikipedia's entry on Yarn Bombing:

Definition
          Yarn bombing, yarnbombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting or graffiti knitting is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fiber rather than paint or chalk.

Method and motivation
          While yarn installations – called yarn bombs or yarnstorms – may last for years, they are considered non-permanent, and, unlike other forms of graffiti, can be easily removed if necessary. Nonetheless, the practice is still technically illegal in some jurisdictions, though it is not often prosecuted vigorously.^[1]
          While other forms of graffiti may be expressive, decorative, territorial, socio-political commentary, advertising or vandalism, yarn bombing was initially almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public places.^[2] It has since developed with groups graffiti knitting and crocheting worldwide, each with their own agendas and public graffiti knitting projects being run.^[3]

History
          The practice is believed to have originated in the U.S. with Texas knitters trying to find a creative way to use their leftover and unfinished knitting projects, but it has since spread worldwide.^[1]^[2]^[4]
          Houston artist Bill Davenport was creating and exhibiting crochet-covered objects in Houston in the 1990s, and the Houston Press stated that "Bill Davenport could be called the grand old man of Houston crocheted sculpture."^[5] Artist Shanon Schollian was knitting stump cozies in 2002 for clear cuts in Oregon.^[6] The Knit Knot Tree by the Jafagirls in Yellow Springs, Ohio gained international attention in 2008.
          The movement moved on from simple 'cozies' with the innovation of the 'stitched story'. The concept has been attributed to Lauren O'Farrell^[7] (who creates her street art under the graffiti knitting name Deadly Knitshade), from London, UK, who founded the city's first graffiti knitting collective Knit the City. The 'stitched story concept' uses handmade amigurumi creatures, characters and items to tell a narrative or show a theme. This was first recorded with the Knit the City collective's "Web of Woe" installation^[8] in August 2009.
          The Knit the City collective were also the first to use O'Farrell's term 'yarnstorming' to describe their graffiti knitting, as an alternative to the more popular term 'yarnbombing'.^[9]^[10]
          Yarn bombing's popularity has spread throughout the world. In Oklahoma City the Collected Thread store yarn bombed the Plaza District of the city on 9 September 2011 to celebrate their three-year anniversary as a functioning shop.^[11] and in Australia a group called the Twilight Taggers refer to themselves as 'fibre artists'.^[12] Joann Matvichuk of Lethbridge, Alberta founded International Yarnbombing Day, which was first observed on 11 June 2011.^[13]

Yarn Bombing / Guerrilla