Archive for the ‘Unusual materials’ Category

January Round-up: Part 1

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

It’s time for a January Round-up where I go through my inbox and send you links to amazing things that have been floundering in the shallows of my email archives. Here are the beauties that I have unearthed today:

Joann spotted these statues at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby (Canada) today and send these photos of the adorned “At the Beach” statue today:

Margaret send this image from last year’s Austin Limits Festival:

Lois sent me this image from Ogden Park:

She says: ‘Here is a little story of my brush with yarn bombing. In June of this year I met a woman called Patricia on the VIA train as we travelled from Vancouver to Edmonton… Anyway, this woman was knitting a curious item that would be installed on a bridge near her home in Southern California the same day, that she would arrive back home a couple of weeks from our meeting. That was my introduction to this happen’ thing. In July I was driving through to Jasper Park (I spent too much time in Northern Alberta this summer) and stopped at a viewing place in Mt Robson Park. Well! wasn’t I surprised to see a knit graffiti item on one of the support of the view’s sign.

Then when at Ogden Point in Victoria I found two more of these creations very near to one another. This is as much fun as geocaching seems to be. I’m about to give that a try. Maybe knit bombing sites need to be geo mapped, what do you think?

NIkki sent me a photo of her very first yarn bomb, and it is so pretty! She says:

‘I’ve wanted to yarn bomb something for ages, problem was working up the courage. Recently, I was teaching myself entrelac. As I knitted up my first square while visiting my grandmother she asked me what I planned to do with it. “I dunno,” I said, “Probably tie it to a tree or something.” She either didn’t hear me or thought I’d gone slightly round the twist because she didn’t question it. Here it is.’

And, other notable news of late:

A knitting project to cover Clitheroe Castle.

A ‘yarn bombing and geek’ exhibit at Lafayette College.

Val has created the amazing LEDFlower project which is yarn bombing project where she makes up kits of LED lights and yarn to send to knitters all over the world. The LEDFlower project combines social networking, regular old mail, and google maps to share tiny episodes of yarn bombing fun internationally and put them on a map. What an incredible idea! I wish I’d thought of this first.

Bali Twilight Taggers, in Melbourne Australia, are creating a public installation and running a series of workshops.
Yarn Corner

She says: ‘In January we are embarking on our biggest project to date. We will be covering all 12 trees in City Square [Cnr Collins and Swanston Streets, Melbourne] with yarn to promote summer in the city and also to bring more coverage of crafts in Victoria. The yarn bombing installation date is Saturday Jan 21 and on Sunday Jan 22 we will hold learn to crochet and knit workshops. We estimate that we will remove it one month later. We have close to $20,000 of sponsorship [mainly in yarn] [we were given $15,000 in yarn from Yarn Barn!!] for the project so it’s a big deal. Anyone wanting to help us out must sign up to the Yarn Corner facebook group [or if they don't have facebook then they can email me] and they can pick up their yarn from myself. If they are not local to Melbourne they can still join in but will have to pay for postage themselves or use their own yarn.

And in other news, I have scored a partnership between Yarn Corner and Spotlight [the biggest craft department stores in Australia] for 2012. We will be hosting two events for Spotlight. One in February will be to quietly open their new 2012 yarn lines. And a larger event in June 2012 will be to open their winter yarn season. We will be attempting two Guinness World Record attempts for yarn bombing [details still to be determined]. So it looks like 2012 will be a stellar year for Yarn Corner and yarn bombing.’

January Round-up: Part 2 will be coming soon!

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Hometown Pride

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

One of yarn bombing’s favourite correspondents (hi Mom!) recently sent me some images of tags in the Comox Valley, my hometown.

Pink tree warmer in front of the Courtenay Library on 6th Street, Courtenay. The tag has a little keychain attached to it which says ‘to have joy one must share it open handed’

Frilly tag at England & 5th in Courtenay

Who are these mystery taggers in my hometown? I need to meet them.

Meanwhile on nearby Denman Island, Carolyn, a fibre artist, decided to plant her first work of subversive art:

She says: Denman is a bit more slow-paced and as I was looking for something to do apart from read, I picked up a package of wool roving and a couple of hand-felting needles. While sitting outside the B&B in the evening I made this strange little character – he’s actually quite creepy looking – and in honour of yarn bombing, left him perched on the edge of a plant pot outside our host’s window.  I have no idea if/when they spotted him, and I’m not sure if they’d figure out who left him there, but it was really fun to leave my mark.

Felting offers a lot of possibility for yarn bombers. Anyone else out there use felt as a tagging medium? I want to hear from you.

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Water and Lace

Monday, June 28th, 2010

In the tradition of Janet Morton’s Linden in Lace Tree, artist Penelope Durston, of Fitzroy, Australia creates these beautiful installation pieces using doilies:

She says “I did a bit of ‘doily-ing’ whilst I was down in Tasmania  last August. Tasmania has incredibly very beautiful wilderness areas and (I) went down with the plan of taking a few photos in the bush but when it came down to it the moss and lichen and all were just so beautiful I had trouble doing much doilism- it seemed wrong somehow. This one I liked though… I took a rock from a beach in Devonport (north coast of Tassie), collected some doilies from an op-shop in Smithton (north-west coner of tas), stitched on in my room at Cradle Mountain (north central- world heritage wilderness area) and photographed it on a wild road just out of Cradle Mountain with rivulets of ice cold snow melt pouring over stones.”

Images courtesy of Penelope Durston

Stunning.

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identity school

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

student1
Images courtesy of identity school

Jessica Glesby is the creator of the knit graffiti classroom project identity school. With identity school, Jessica has taught the skills of knit graffiti to grade 9-12 classes at University Hill Secondary in Vancouver, Canada.

A graduate of Emily Carr University in Bachelor of Media Arts, Jessica has dabbled in film and video. However she found the greatest satisfaction in creative writing, bookbinding, collage, textiles and performance art. Most of all she enjoys interacting with the public and having discussions with strangers. She has just completed a Bachelor of Education, specializing in Art at UBC.

gym

Jessica says that identity project was inspired by a morning walk:

“I was on my way to an early morning course at the beginning of my degree and I found yellow yarn on the ground. Thinking to myself that it was definitely going to get dirty in Vancouver rain, I wrapped it around the nearest pole. The ride to school was glorious as I went over and over my first tagging experience. When I arrived at school, I discussed my experience with my friend Kathryn, and she pointed me in the direction of the yarn-bombing group Knitta. I couldn’t believe that others who were as excited about this idea as I was.

identity school is an idea that I have been developing for years, [it was] created as a response to my own educational experience.

At a time when the definition of art is constantly transforming, a well-rounded education in art history, conventional techniques, conceptualization and contemporary practices are essential to knowledge building. While I am fascinated by how learning is becoming post-institutional, and by how do-it yourself (DIY) culture generates unconventional learning experiences, with so many courses, lectures and learning materials now readily available online, how do I define my role as an educator?

It is important to bring DIY into the classroom (examples of DIY units I have taught in the past include graffiti knitting, independent publishing/zines etc). I have seen how it can make a student grow (and then grow their community) confidence in creating and developing. Students need to be able to increase their complex literacy skills to think outside of the box and I believe DIY can do that.

Identity school is an umbrella or vehicle to house my activities for the public and lesson plans/units for my students. The unit plan posted, so far, on identity school is “i-knit, u-knit”.

In a graffiti-knitting installation unit (“i-knit, u-knit”) I taught forty-seven mixed gender students how to knit and its history. I designed this unit to take knitting out of its traditional domestic context so that the students explored contemporary knitting transformations while challenging stereotypes about knitters and graffiti-artists. Empowered by their ability to revive and expand environments, the class successfully hijacked public spaces with non- permanent urban graffiti installations. They juxtaposed nature with nurture, altered urban landscapes by transforming cold spaces into warm inviting ones, and forced viewers to reconsider the cultural soma around themselves. This classroom project sparked impromptu conversations amongst participating and non-participating schoolmates and teachers alike, eventually becoming fodder for discussion throughout the neighborhood. Graffiti, usually viewed as pure vandalism, and knitting, usually viewed as a craft, had been successfully fused into the realm of art.

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Students had a quick learning curve, learning how to cast on, cast off, and garter stitch in three classes. The best parts of those classes were seeing the students helping each other. I then introduced knitting with different materials such as plastic bags, cloth, and even hair.

A challenge we had to work around was that the students during school hours represent the school. After visiting with the principal it was decided that the unit had a green light, but that students had to have permission before they installed their pieces. This led to further classroom discussions of the legalities of using public and private space + whether the assignment and graffiti knitting was an effective social intervention if we had permission. While some students were disappointed, one incredibly bright grade nine student asked a Safeway manager if she could install plastic knitting on their shopping carts, to remind shoppers how many plastic bags are wasted daily.

Ninety-nine percent of students responded positively to graffiti knitting, enjoying the studio time that built community in the classroom, as well as their new ability to graffiti (knit) their neighborhoods with temporary materials/installations. The one percent of students who responded negatively to the project either had problems digesting men knitting (despite videos shown in class on the subject) or didn’t want to do the work (and therefore had someone else do it for them- eep!). Both student guardians/parents and the surrounding community responded positively to the unit, visiting the school to see final results and student’s artist statements.

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I started every class showing students different creative forms of knitting to get them inspired. Sometimes this was a PowerPoint full of other graffiti, knitting, and graffiti knitting images, and other times it was youtube videos to draw students back into the unit and away from social studies class, math homework, and anything else weighting on their minds, for the next hour.”

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Cone Cozies in the Wilderness

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

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Linda M. Cunningham, handmade book artist and installation artist from Calgary, Alberta, has been working on a series of knitted pinecone cozies. She says:

Choosing to pursue dual careers as both a writer and an artist has allowed me to engage in a long-time obsession with the texture of words and fibres, and to develop unique ways to integrate them. Whether adapting and recycling materials into books, or recreating articles of wood, glass, and ivory as knitted sculptures in wool, camel down, silk, and other fibres, I have worked hard to push against boundaries of how knitting and book arts are generally perceived.

Developing this collected/curated/installed work into more knitting-centered installations is an obvious progression of my interests. Recent ventures into public parks and private spaces to install, observe changes brought about by weather, and document these small-scale pine cone “coats” has given me the incentive to work at a larger and more public scale.

Cones create their own universe within the one we usually inhabit: they encompass genetic information from the past, they exist in our present, and they create the forests of our future. As indiscriminate as we are with our interventions in nature, I see as an opportunity to assist in the transformation of nature by recombining elements into new forms with their own rationale.

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All images courtesy of Linda M. Cunningham

Thank you Linda for sharing your work! There’s lots going on knit-wise in Alberta these days. I’ve just connected with the new knit graffiti group the Skeinstas 780. Be sure to check out their facebook group and their new blog: The Skeinstas: Yarn Bombing Spectacularz.

Also, for Vancouver Readers – be sure to return later this week as we will have a giveaway for tickets to the indie craft documentary Handmade Nation which will be showing in Vancouver on July 9th! This will be the only Canadian stop on the tour for this show, so if you are on the left coast, be sure not to miss it.

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Another Way To Do It

Monday, April 20th, 2009

I just found these articles about a beautiful installation piece in Oakand, made by university student Hye Jin Lee. You can see a large photo of it here.

Formed by weaving yarn into chainlink fences, the bold colours and geometric patterns used are reminiscent of quilt blocks and children’s crafts. With each motif standing several feet tall, the installation plays with scale in a really lovely way.

I like the idea of forming images this way, using the grid of a chainlink fence like a needlepoint canvas. It offers one advantage over other forms of yarn graffiti; it’s possible to make large, bold visual statements without a huge investment of time!

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Interview with Deeply Superficial People

Monday, January 26th, 2009
Knitted tag, cloth boxing gloves and a playdoh flag

Knitted tag, cloth boxing gloves and a playdoh flag

From the very first time I peeked at their blog, Deeply Superficial People inspired me. A marriage of knit graffiti and other textiles, stitching vigilantes SewJaBoy and Owl_or_Nothing’s unique pieces have been spotted around San Francisco and Sacramento. From tags shaped like boxing gloves and bear traps, to flags placed in trees to celebrate the love of PlayDoh, to simple knitted cozies – the work of these not-so superficial peeps will definitely bring a smile to your face.

Tell us about yourself.

SewJaBoy: I am 25, originally from Kentucky, but am now situated in Sacramento California (USA) and I presently make money as an environmental consultant. (not the most creative job ever)

Owl_or_Nothing: I’m 30 and was raised primarily in Sacramento, California I now reside in San Francisco, California while attending law school.

How did you get into textile graffiti?

SewJaBoy: Well, I guess we were influenced by Knitta and beer, plus our myriad of random ideas.

Owl_or_Nothing: I think that SewJaBoy sent me an email with a link to Knitta and I really liked the idea, I brainstormed a couple sketches and then one day over beer we talked about how the idea was really cool. It just kinda took off from there. I think that we both wanted to do a project that

How did you two meet each other?

SewJaBoy: We’ve been crafting since 8-8-08, and met in the cube farm at my current job. I’m not sure how we really began talking, but our art collaboration began with her taking photos and me modeling. Apparently I’m not model quality, lucky I don’t embarrass too easily.

Owl_or_Nothing: Actually, he’s not that bad of a model, mostly because of the fact that he will comply with all my random requests (like the time I had him wear a life vest and told him to pretend swimming in a office complex hallway) and he is game to go along with all the random ideas that we come up with.

What sort of materials do you work with?

SewJaBoy: Mostly yarn and fabric, she’s been doing the knitting, and I’ve been sewing, but times are changing, we’ve got all sorts of ideas involving cardboard, paper, electric fans, etc. When we started we didn’t want to limit ourselves to one specific type of media, so we settled under the broad term “Craft Graffiti”, but time will tell. We might turn into a 2 piece string quartet. That doesn’t even make sense.

Owl_or_Nothing: To date I’ve done mostly yarn, but did my first sewing graffiti project a couple of weeks back. I’ve got some ideas for new sewing projects as well as other media including popsicle sticks, recycled CDs, and paper.

Wind sock for a traffic light, cloth bear trap on bike rack

Wind sock for a traffic light, cloth bear trap on bike rack

What are your favorite objects to tag? Do you have a signature style? How do you attach your tags?

SewJaBoy: I wouldn’t say we have a style yet, our venture is still young and we have plenty of work to do. I don’t even know if I want a style. I had an art teacher tell our class that if you make the same thing over and over again your whole career, chances are you’ll get famous, but I think I’d get bored. Well, I guess that worked for Thomas Kinkade, but I hate that guy, hopefully he’s bored. Then again, he’s rich so whatever.

Owl_or_Nothing: I agree that we haven’t hit our stride yet or developed a real style. To date we’ve primarily attached our projects to objects with zip-ties or by buttons and buttonholes and used tags that we use an old school typewriter that SewJaBoy has to write our name on.

How often do you tag?

SewJaBoy: We attempt and tag once a month, we would like to accomplish more, but it’s tough with other projects/work/school/travel, oh and being lazy. There’s a lot of that on my part.

How do you get your inspiration for tags? What inspires you?

SewJaBoy: Daydreaming at work. Well in truth I try and think of something completely random and yet easy enough for an amateur sewer like me can do. I just started sewing, only made one item before this project. Things have been working out for the most part. Now I’m coming up with more intricate designs. I really think our projects are going to start getting pretty cool if we actually sit down and work on them.

Owl_or_Nothing: Most of my knitting projects don’t have much forethought to them. I went out and measured a bunch of objects so I know approximate diameters of many of the poles around town. Usually I just pull a skein of yarn out of the huge garbage bag of free yarn that was given to me and start knitting. I have ideas for some more intricate projects, but need to buy a larger set of knitting needles so that I can whip them up more quickly. I’ve got some ideas for some larger projects that have come from looking at objects and daydreaming about things that could be done with them.

Do you have any other words of wisdom for other Yarn Bombers out there?

Owl_or_Nothing: Go out and have fun. It’s a great way to bring a little piece of art to a boring urban environment.

Owl_or_Nothing (top), SewJaBoy (bottom)

Owl_or_Nothing (top), SewJaBoy (bottom)

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Random rainy day update

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

Art Yarn 1
Image courtesy of ArtYarn

I’ve been cooped up in the house over the last week. Vancouver has hit monsoon season and predictably, I came down with the flu. While watching an unreasonable amount of television during sick days, I began to knit Wendy Bernard’s Le Slouch which I found via the ever-stylish Jenny Gordon. I find seed stitch hard on my wrists but I like the way the beret is shaping up.

Yesterday I found out that the designer of our book is the uber-talented Diane Yee. I have to say that I’m thrilled! Diane and I worked together several years back and I know that our book is in good hands.

On the yarn bombing side of things, I’ve been meaning to blog about the folks at ArtYarn for quite some time. They have launched several new projects which are worth a look.

As part of the Liverpool Biennial, they have recycled plastic shopping bags into knitted works of art. I adore the washing tags that they have attached to provide information on the project.

Art Yarn 2
Image courtesy of ArtYarn

I love the idea of knitting or crocheting with unusual materials. Strangely enough, I came across a tutorial on how to use plastic bags to create pompoms this morning. These could be used to create some flashy, weatherproof work while recycling.

ArtYarn is also knitting a jumper (that’s sweater in North American terminology) for a shed that they will reveal on December 18th. How exciting! You can read all about it at this link.

And, in random knitted news, a friend of mine sent me this fantastic link today of a music video that is animated with machine knit stills: http://drawn.ca/2008/11/09/knitted-animation. Amazing!

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