Yarnbombing And Crocheting : Rockridge Library , Oakland

I taught my mother how to crochet when I was 9 or 10. I think small children should be taught how to sew , knit , crochet , bake bread , make shoes , play the piano and speak French and then they can go home and teach their parents . This will make the world a better place . This is my plan .

So any way I taught my mother to crochet and she made a white , orange and black acrylic afghan which we treasured and took to hockey games for years . I must have taught myself to crochet from a book . My crocheting career has had many highlights. I took a college course in crochet , I crocheted a lumpy pink bathing cap that looked sort of like a brain . I also crocheted my way through 2 encyclopedias of crochet patterns a few years ago , I really enjoyed that a lot . For yarnbombing crocheting is supreme for adding large , luxurious,Victorian looking flowers .

The vigerous right hand movement of crocheting makes me feel very busy and productive I . I notice that sewing , beading , knitting , drop spinning , wheel spinning , crocheting each have their own movement and each movement calms me in a different way like a special tuning of my body . Drop spinning clears my mind and lets thoughts form easily. Sewing beads is best for despair. Crocheting is beat for building enthusiasm.

I imagine people who play lots of instruments or like to do different kinds of exercise have these fine points too.

I sewed this yarnbomb up last Wednesday outside the Rockridge Library in Oakland . It’s the third in my Oakland library series. As I was sewing a young man in sunglasses sat down near me and started smoking a cigarette. He stared at me and then suddenly focused on what I was doing and said ” That’s vandalism you know . I should call the police . “

I stiffened for a second and then realized he was joking . ” The Oakland police don’t care . ” I said ” We had 7 police watch us put up a yarnbomb once ‘

“I know ” he said . ” I paint murals now but I used to tag . I loved it , but you can get sent to jail for it ! Jail for art , can you imagine ? ‘

I imagined and was very glad that I have never been .

A small article in the Piedmont Patch about the yarnbomb at their library.  here.

Some more crocheted flowers from my yarnbombing past.

Yarnbombing and How Art Sustains Us : The Piedmont Library Yarnbombing

” Oh streetcolor ‘ you might say ” What happened to your grand scheme to yarnbomb all the Oakland Libraries ? You make these big plans , where’s the yarnbombing ? ” Well my life went into an avalanche and I’ve been crawling around and occasionally spinning a little on my drop spindle . For 2 weeks . Then yesterday I was still  tired out but I thought I really wanted to yarnbomb . So I drove over to the Piedmont library in Oakland and put up this little bike rack. And after I had yarnbombed I felt so much better – tired but I felt energy in my body -I felt fed.

I knew that making art is a big energy source in my life but this was  experiencing art as food. Sometimes when I’m endlessly eating chocolate and peanut butter I think ” Maybe you should look at an art book ! “  I do and I calm down and feel full . Looking at art , knitting , spinning , drawing , beading , looking at my art books – I need hours of this every day to stay happy and content . Are you hungry for something ?

So this little bike rack came from a Toulouse  Lautrec print I liked . It was of a French woman in a ruffled orange shirt and a ruffled blue skirt . I wanted the ruffles to flow out of the knitting .

I seem fixed on bike racks  . I love seeing the knitting on the curve .  A woman was unlocking her bike as I sewed up this piece and I think she was sorely puzzled by my activity .

I look for activities that get me more into the moment . People have told me to be in the moment and I thought it meant- get into the moment and endure being really bored. But now getting into the moment feels like ‘”relax and enjoy how great life is  ” . I can feel energy flowing . When I was sewing up this yarnbomb I felt the sun on my body and saw shafts of light on the street. It was warm and cool and someone was playing the banjo. I like pulling a needle through knitting . The wool felt cushy over the cold hard metal. Very delicious .

This Piedmont Library yarnbomb is the 2nd Oakland Library yarnbomb in my series . The library was open  and all sorts of people were ambling in and out enjoying their books. Libraries are the best part of a community I think. I love them . Thank you libraries.

My link today is to a little article in Diablo Magazine about The Orinda Library Bike Rack  .  Here.

This is a funny story -when we put up this bike rack I thought that no one would ever see it because it is so secluded . It’s in a in a sculpture garden off the street . And I thought ” It’s ok if no one sees it , I love this library and I want to honor it .

And this yarnbomb ended up In Diablo Magazine and in Time magazine .

You never know what”s going to happen.

Yarnbombing and De Yarnbombing – Pt. Reyes Station

You want to run and jump into yarnbombing . It’s really best if you don’t think much about what is going to happen to your yarnbombs , thinking will only slow you down. Make thrilling work – get it up . Later on different things will happen , some yarnbombs get taken right down by authorities , some are swiped by teenagers or even gangs , some will become famous and some yarnbombs will stay up  forever or until you take them down . I did not expect this at all and now I have many yarnbombs which have been up for months and months.

I put yarnbombs up to enjoy looking at them and at some point I don’t like looking at them  if they are getting ripped and smudged . I didn’t want to be sad when I took them down so I have started knitting replacement yarnbombs . A favorite piece of ours is a bannister we put up in Pt. Reyes Station , a tranquil little town along the coast  . We have gotten lots of blogs and remarks on this particular bit of knitting and we wanted to reward this loving energy . So we knit 2 new bright glass colored yarnbombs to replace the old bannister. We  had a calm and beautiful drive out and went excitedly over to see our old yarnbombs .

As you can see – the old piece looked pretty good still although all our tags had been cut off and it was a little shrucken from being outside and rained on for 8 months . Still – not bad ! We cut it down any way and sewed on our 2 new pieces . The Russian knit these pieces and I put on the ruffles. As we sewed the knitting on the bannister lots of people stopped to ask us what this was . I thought everyone knew what yarnbombing was and were already sick of it . So I was glad that yarnbombing was still news to so many.

I get a lot of energy from talking to people when I am yarnbombing , especially if they keep saying ” Beautiful Beautiful ! ” I realized a long time ago that life was simple -if you have too little energy you fell bad and depressed and if you have lots of energy you feel great . How do you get lots of energy with out becoming a wee drug fiend ? I always make art for energy but you can also eat chocolate , run around outside looking at trees , go look at art , visit babies , see your favorite people ,  take 3 breaths . Or go out and talk to everyone as you yarnbomb.

I know people who talk about their passions from the time they get up in the morning until they go to bed at night . This is an interesting way to get energy and I would like to try it .

When we were done sewing these yarnbombs the kind man who owns the Pt. Reyes Bookstore bought us 2 short bread cookies , one chocolate cherry cookie and 2 cups of peppermint tea as a reward for our street art . This is an excellent way to thank us if you ever want to.

So I took those old yarnbombs home and washed them. They are a little felted and full of holes but still quite beautiful.

This is a great Oakland blog with A zany yarnbomb of mine at the Oakland library here .

Yarnbombing With A Theme -The Oakland Libraries

I never thought I could feel guilty about not  yarnbombing . I didn ‘ t have the thrilling idea , that idea that makes you want to run out the door in your pajamas with out breakfast because you ‘re so excited and nervous that you have to yarnbomb right away . I had been in quite a lull .

It started when my internet connection went down 3 weeks ago and I intensely realized how addicted I was to checking Facebook . This was a slap and I decided to stay off the web ,  I felt that it was making me unhappy.

Yarnbombing had introduced me to the pleasures of the Internet , the slow heady , steady drip of attention , blog hits , Facebook friends and media attention . I got up every morning and went straight to my blog . Is this normal ? Does this make everyone happy ? I decided to look 4 times a day -no more . And then gradually I realized that I wasn’t yarnbombing anymore .

Oh I was still knitting and making art , you have to make art at all times , under all circumstances . But I wasn’t yarnbombing , putting it up . I thought of many ideas , redo my neighborhood , go yarnbomb  the Art Museums in San Francisco , drive down the coast of California and bother the people in Venice and Los Angeles . But I’d done most of that already . I continued knitting and in my spare time invented a new form of streetart . No yarnbombing .

Last night I was thinking about The Oakland Libraries -they just barely skirted a huge catastrophe this month . The mayor of Oakland had proposed almost completely shutting down the whole library system citywide to save money. Many ingenious protests erupted including a zombie walk for Libraries . Closing down all the Libraries ! Doesn’t that take your breath away ? Well this didn’t happen thank goodness but it made me pretty frantic . As  I was reading about the Oakland libraries my thrilling idea suddenly came . I wanted to celebrate Oakland ‘s libraries by yarnbombing them ,  hopefully all of them . I had the feeling -I wanted to yarnbomb in my pajamas .

This morning I printed out many maps and stuffed my purple back pack with plastic bags of knitting . I was very excited , probably too excited it turned out . I drove over the The Golden Gate Branch of the Oakland Library system , a place I had never been . I parked and noticed that I had spilled my water bottle all over my  car seat . I got out and looked all around . I wanted to yarnbomb the railing . I sewed a pretty wide strip on the railing folded up for a padded look using mattress stitch so it looks seamless . I was very nervous , there was a very clear sign saying ” No Graffiti ! ” It was fun to have that adrenaline . I thought the knitting looked fresh and clean on the beautiful old rusting railing . I thought it was the right combination of modesty and obviousness . It went so well that I decided to go off and yarnbomb again

Except I took the wrong freeway entrance and ended up heading off towards San Francisco . And in trying to get off the freeway I ended up driving  illegally onto the Bus ramp and onto the Bridge . There were lots of signs saying  ” Illegal !  Big , Big Fine ! “

So I drove to San Francisco and back and just went home . It’s so tricky to get just the right combination of excitement and sanity …..

This is a good article about yarnbombing  here .

Yarnbombing – The Word

The term ” yarnbomb ” comes out of graffiti , ” bomb ” means putting up a bunch of tags in one area . When people ask me what I’m doing  I say “Yarnbombing ” And often they quickly nod , they’ve heard of it . But I don’t think what I’m doing is graffiti really. It’s street art  made with knitting.

The Russian and I put up this rack on Sunday. We met at 2.oo and it was extremely bright and hot . I had forgotten we are so close to the Equinox ,  it was like sitting in a bowl of bright light for 4 hours. Some of you might recognize this rack-we put up a piece on this same rack 3 months ago . Someone had taken down part of the old piece and just left  one little strip . This is a strange story .  I had noticed that lots of my yarnbombs were coming down all at once -5 or 6 at a time , entire installations.  I thought the city was spring cleaning . This was nerve racking . This bike rack got only partly taken down which  suggested it wasn’t the city . I count on Berkeley’s tolerance to do my bigger stuff , so it would be bad if the city decided that there would be no more yarnbombing .

After some time I got an e-mail from an anonymous knitter saying that they were taking down my pieces and sewing a blanket with them as a commentary on public and private art . They showed me the blanket with my yarnbombs all cut up and sewn together .  I was so pained to recognize  so much of my work all cut up. I wrote back and asked them not to do this-I wanted to make something myself with the old pieces.  So all that made me want to put up another new piece on this same rack . Plus I just really like this rack .

So back to the word yarnbombing . This word is getting used for lots of different things -  for big legal public commissions , for gallery artists who crochet and knit , for knitting put up at big craft stores  , for knitting done for big corporations , for knitting in peoples’ gardens -I even saw someone describe a knitted dolls’ dress as a yarnbomb . All of this is good  and interesting and exciting but  I don’t think it’s exactly yarnbombing.

To me the word yarnbombing means knitting that is put up subversively-you don’t have permission , it’s done for free as a gift , it’s out on the street for everyone to see , it’s art without walls , art that’s not for sale , art just for pleasure .

   A funny Muni link about the Bart Seat here.

Another small spinartiste  yarnbombing  interview  here

Yarnbombing Bart and Power

  I’ve gotten interested in how art gives us this power in  the outside world . When I first put up yarnbombing on a street I was startled by how   the street changed , the domestic  colorful knitting made the street look new .  A lot of people stopped and fiddled around with the knitting for a moment , they would get in a more cheerful state .  I thought you had to go through layers of permission to change a city-with yarnbombing you don’t.  Yarnbombing didn’t hurt anything so I continued on with my strange new power.

I wanted to knit a seat cover for the sorry seats on Bart . We are famous here in the Bay Area for our disheveled  Bart Seats .  Man , I would have loved to knit the whole train – it would have been so graffitish -  but I’m going to need some help for that .  I began riding around on the train to get my measurements.

It’s interesting to watch people on Bart , everyone is trying to stay private with their books and newspapers , ipods and knitting , looking out the window, dozing .  Everyone is trying to make things a little more pleasant for themselves .We know we have this power to make our own lives a little happier. I wanted to suggest that we have a power to make the whole train better.

Have you seen the pictures of people bringing their own chairs on Bart ? Someone had even brought a padded armchair. I thought it would be fresh if we all made art covers and put them on the seats instead of waiting patiently and numbly for Bart to meditate itself to a solution . I would love to make one hundred covers.

So I have been riding around on Bart sitting on my nice clean knitted cover .   I fold it up and carry it off  when I get home . You can make any situation better with a little art.

Some links  Eastbay Express  here

Berkeley Patch here

Yarnbomber site here

Yarnbombing On International Yarnbombing Day – A Torrent of Knitting

I was standing on the Bart platform at 10.30 waiting for the train to come so I  could yarnbomb it. The night was balmy and  dark , everything looked vivid , bright and shiny. I was in that jittery ,  hyper acute state I get in before I yarnbomb . This is  state I treasure and also dread. I had knit a slipcover for a Bart seat for International Yarnbombing Day.

I had been riding the Bart train to no where a lot lately , measuring the seats repeatedly , making little drawings, taking pictures , draping bits of knitting here and there  . A  knitted cover for a Bart seat had seemed like a brilliant idea 4 weeks ago-such a witty comment on the collapsing state of the Bart seats .  How hard could it be ?

I had been knitting furiously all day and all month  .  I had knit relentlessly all through our vacation much to my partners surprise  . I had knit all the pieces when I noticed they were all curling up into little snails . Knitting curling at the edges  ! I knew about this but I had forgotten because I sew everything I   knit onto poles. So I had to very determinedly knit flat borders all around each piece .  And figure how the heck to make round corners.

  As I sat knitting and spinning all day for the last month trying to get this yarnbomb made by June 11 I often thought how ridiculous it was to be doing this . But I knew at a very young age that almost everything we do is just something someone made up to do – almost every thing we do is to entertain ourselves. We are all just trying to have  a good and happy life.

I like to yarnbomb.

So here it was Sat. June 11 and I had to get this yarnbomb on that train before midnight  .  Having to knit and sew seams so fast was making me much more confident and aggressive . This is an excellent reason to take on big projects. And there – I was done !

So we are back at the Bart station and the train comes along and I get on. I open up my little purple backpack and pull out this  big voluptuous piece of knitting .  Half way through knitting the slipcover I had realized  that I really liked it and wanted to keep it . Usually it is a mark of yarnbombing flair and confidence that you put up a piece and let it be taken down immediately if the fates decree .  But I couldn’t stand the idea of the knitting being up for only an hour and being thrown away.  So I had made a slipcover that I could put on and remove .  I took it out of my bag and slipped it on the seat.

” That’s a good idea  ” said the woman next to me. ” The seats are dirty ! “

‘I know ” I said ” This is my little artistic comment on the problem “

Everyone else very politely ignored us. I too k pictures and then folded the  cover back up to use in future yarnbombing adventures.

I want to mention that I was inspired to do this by Ish knits yarnbombing  The Blue Line in Philadelphia .  I like the idea of artists commenting on each others work .  I also want to thank The Russian and Brenda Loreman for helping me knit this.

I was in Time magazine this week here.

You should also see all the amazing yarnbombing that was done all over the world here.

Yarnbombing and Art – Phase 4

One morning a woman in Alberta , Canada  named Joann Matvichuk got out of bed and announced “June 11 shall be International Yarnbombing Day. “

And knitters all over the world murmured ” Ok- Good. We’ll get right on it ” and started knitting yarnbombs. Really , all over the world . This is fascinating , provocative and a little surreal.

I am one years old today- I started yarnbombing a year ago -June 2010. Like all one year olds , I am reflecting deeply on the meaning of life and I have some thoughts on the meaning of yarnbombing as an art . I went to art school and  I have theories.

Yarnbombing Phase 1.       ” Wow knitting looks great outside ! ” phase.

The first yarnbomb I made was 12 inches long and was yellow stripes. I thought it looked fantastic and looked out my door every 10 minutes to admire it. Knitting on a pole-How astonishing ! Why didn’t I ever think of that before !

Yarnbombing Phase 2.   ”   Yarnbombing Everywhere as a Celebration of Place . “

I got the hang of spending all my time thinking about yarnbombing and knitted non stop .  I looked at all my favorite places in Berkeley and went around decorating them with knitting. It was like a knitted map of how I travel to the same gardens, shops,and bakeries. I loved seeing my knitting all over town , loved the cheerful personal look of the knitted street and loved that everyone was accepting me doing this.Yarnbombing Phase 3       ” Knitting can be Fancy “

I loved knitted color on a pole and the  protected , soothing, relaxing sensation that I got looking at the wool.   I wanted to get more dimensional and show off some knitting tricks.  We began knitting in ruffles , loops , pleats , gathers ,bobbles and a very few cables. { By we I mean The Russian , my assistant was  too. } This was a long phase, poles look so good in ruffles -the foundation of the fashion industry! We were blitzing certain favorite Berkeley areas-putting up 5 or 6 pieces at a time. This was also the phase when newspapers and blogs started mentioning us. This is totally addicting. As if the yarnbombing wasn’t addicting enough already.

A lot if this was fueled by a long standing passion for knitting and spinning-I handspin all the yarn to get the 7o colors I want. I think a lot of yarnbombers need to knit a lot and yarnbombing gives a limitless scope. It also gives a yarnbomber an audience for knitting that is brand new and often enthusiastic. Who would have thought so many people would  like knit graffiti ?

I went to Paris twice in phase 3 and yarnbombed that glorious city. I’d never imagined a city that was a work of art and so devoted to leisure. The whole city had the exciting and peaceful quality that I loved in my knitted installations.

And finally-in phase 3 I started Facebooking and blogging and entered that world of steady , constant, shallow pleasure.

Yarnbombing Phase 4     “Yarnbombing  As Art  “

Somebody decided that Berkeley needed bike racks on every corner and bike racks appeared everywhere. I thought it would be better if they were knitted , especially the long waving racks. The long curved shapes had more surface to cover with color and pattern. They looked like sculpture to me when they were done. I loved looking at them and wanted to camp at their base to study them . The really big racks had a presence that charged the street up. I started to think about what makes something art and I felt that the racks had   qualities of art-they were beautiful , challenging , powerful  and the knitting made them charming and inoffensive .

Yarnbombing is Art With Out Walls , a  preoccupation of art for the last 80 years.

Yarnbombing Orinda and Cheering Up

” Do you know I’m crazy?” I ask my partner as I come in the door.

“Oh yes ” he says matter of factly as he looks into his silver computer. ” But it’s a good kind of crazy . “

I had realized I was crazy when I was  measuring the Bart train. I have this idea of yarnbombing a Bart train -which is completely ludicrous , which makes me think it’s a great idea. I  crawling around  behind the Bart seat measuring and I noticed the other passengers were looking at me a little nervously. It made me want to laugh because I looked so silly but I thought that might worry every one  even more.

So you all know there was a New York Times article on yarnbombing and I wasn’t in it. I really moped about this , moped and also pouted. I tried many  methods to cheer myself up.

1. I looked at pictures of my baby friend smiling at me. I also watched a short video of her chewing on her small suede shows.

2. I told myself ” You win some  , you lose some. It’s not about winning or losing , it’s how you play the game. I just want to win one for the team. Soon I was happily imagining myself as a baseball player.

3. I whined and complained on Facebook.

4. I asked everyone for sympathy. This was actually extremely satisfying.

5. My best friend told me  “Go home and think about The Civil War! ” I always like to think about The Civil War.

Then  I went out to The Orinda Public Library and yarnbombed their bike rack.

My partner The Pied Piper and I had driven all over the Diablo area looking for good bike racks for me to yarnbomb. We went to Lafayette and looked at their library which had beautiful railings but no bike racks. We went to 2 Bart stations but they were too harsh. We were driving back to Berkeley when my partner said ” How about Orinda ? “

So we pulled off   Highway  24 and drove into Orinda.

What a sweet place! Lots of big, green, rustling trees. Great old theater , a cupcake store and ” Europa “-a European Hofbrau with the best reuben sandwiches. We had  a chocolate and a vanilla cupcake and we started to leave and I said  ” Can we just stop for a sec and look at their library? I hear it has a cafe ! “

So we raced over to the library , I ran over to the entrance and there was a big court yard full of sculpture  and a 4 loop bike rack , my favorite kind. Amazing.

So I went back on Sunday and yarnbombed it.  Betsy helped me , she says she doesn’t have a library degree so I shouldn’t call her The Librarian. She does have fantastic sewing skills.

I like this bike rack but it is a little busy. I seem to be  entering my rococo phase.

  Today’s blog links- An Italian blog about yarnbombing  here .

Another yarnbombing blog here .

Yarnbombing, Dating and The New York Times

Several weeks ago  I got an inquiry from The New York Times about my yarnbombing and I swooned. The New York Times!  My father would be so happy! I had wanted to be in the New York Times but I hoped that it would happen Someday , not so soon. I savored the swoony feeling and thought pleasurably about how an article in The New York Times would probably give me everything I ever wanted.  I also had a sinking feeling that this might be  hard and end badly.

I set up a phone date with the reporter and sat faithfully by the phone  for 2 hours and waited for her to call .  She didn’t call.  I e-mailed her and she quickly responded that there had been an earthquake and tsunami in Japan and that she would call me another time . Well . Japan , yes , that did seem more important. So I waited  and waited and waited and she didn’t call, she didn’t write , despite my checking my mail  obsessively. One morning as I was staring fixedly at my e-mail I thought  “This is such a familiar awful feeling. What was it reminding me of ? “

Then I realized it . I t was just like dating. I hated dating.

It was the waiting around that I hated. So what I did when I was dating is-I picked who I wanted to date and I called him. I didn’t need to have that ” Oh he has to pick me” feeling to feel wanted.

So I gave up on TNYT and thought  ” I  don’t need them , I  am just great with out them . ” So then they called.

So I did an hour interview on the phone on the way to the airport and my teeth only chattered a little bit. I gave her a list of other people to call and flew away.

Then another really long time went by and I gave up again . After a n interminable time the reporter wrote me and said ” My editors need to know your real name or your age , one or the other. Tell us.”

Terrible-I am totally wedded to my anonymity  but I really wanted to be in TNYT. Since this was dating I cornered a girlfriend and talked her ear off for 2 straight hours and then decided I couldn’t tell them my age or name, that I would be betraying what I believed in. So I wrote a little impassioned plea for anonymity and then waited for several more weeks and heard nothing. Then I heard that the article would soon be coming out and I kept checking for it . And then it came out  And everyone I had suggested to the reporter was in it and I wasn’t.

Oh man . Rejected . They broke up with me ! And they had started it ! The reporter told me that her editors had wanted it to be more international. Oh there’s always some reason the other person has to leave you.

I hope to get over this eventually

This flowery piece is my first commission , for Harvey, who waited 7 months for it. We all wait and make others wait.

I know it seems a funny contrast to The New York Times but here are 2 good articles an AOL   P atch website.

Berkeley Patch here.

Palo Alto Patch here.