Aug

Yarn Bombing Has Its Purls of Wisdom

by Janine Boylan on August 19, 2013

Yarn bombing turns the Andy Warhol Bridge, Pittsburg, into creative public art. Image © Knit the Bridge

The Andy Warhol Bridge
© Knit the Bridge

Street Knitting As Public Art

The Andy Warhol/7th Street Bridge in Pittsburgh has been bombed!

So has the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.

And so have numerous trees, statues, railings, phone booths, bicycle racks, and lampposts.

Yarn bombing, or yarn graffiti, is often the work of stealth knitters who wish to beautify a public place with their artistic expression. This soft form of graffiti has become more mainstream in the last few years, though, and more communities are embracing it as public art.

Meet three creative yarn bombers.

Jessie Hemmons, The Street Bomber

Ishknits, or Jessie Hemmons, is a self-described yarn bomber who started her work in Pennsylvania and has recently brought it with her in her move to northern California.

Jessie Hemmons shows a unique artistic expression---yarn bombing to create public art. Image © Dustin Campbell

Jessie Hemmons, installing her work
Image © Dustin Campbell

Hemmons learned to crochet as a teen. A rough childhood led her to a juvenile detention facility where she had difficulty fitting in.

Eventually, she found crochet hooks and, through some relentless begging, got other girls to teach her the craft.

She explains how this experience became an Oh, I see moment for her, learning that “knitting and crocheting can be used as a language; a way to connect with people when other methods aren’t as effective.”

What motivates her? Hemmons shares more insights:

I have always loved graffiti and street art. I love the concept and the rebelliousness of it.
Street art resonates with me the most because I have always had this angst and a need to assert my belief that art should be accessible.
I have always struggled with accepting my place in society as a female. . . . I want to use a mockingly feminine craft to assert myself as a female figure in the world of street art.

This video shows Hemmons making and installing a piece in Pittsburgh.

If the video does not display, watch it here.

Yarn bombing of a Mayor Rizzo statue creates unusual public art. Image © Conrad Benner/Streetsdept

Mayor Rizzo, bombed
Image © Conrad Benner/Streetsdept

Knit the Bridge, Community Artists in Pennsylvania

Knitting can be a bridge to communication between people. Or knitting can just cover a bridge.

The Knit the Bridge group depended entirely on local communities’ support to accomplish their knitting project: a huge display and glorification of yarn work wrapping the Andy Warhol/7th Street Bridge, pictured at the top of the post.

Unlike traditional yarn bombers, the group sought permission to do their display. And they have a set time on September 6, 2013, when they will remove it. Oh, I (wish I could) see it!

Knit panels for yarn bombing the Andy Warhol bridge in a Pittsburg public art project. Image © Jay Ressler

Panels ready for hanging on the bridge
Image © Jay Ressler

Some number facts:

14 months was spent planning, fundraising, knitting, and crocheting
1,847 participants signed up to help
580 hand-knit 3″ x 6″ panels line the walkway of the bridge
3,000 linear feet of knitting covers the bridge towers
337 volunteers installed the panels on the bridge in two 15-hour days

After the exhibit, the group will be cleaning and donating the one-of-a-kind blanket-sized panels to those in need.

Installing knit panels as part of a yarn bombing public art project on Pittsburg's Andy Warhol Bridge. Image © Knit the Bridge

Workers install panels at the top of the bridge.
© Knit the Bridge

YBLA—Yarn Bombing Los Angeles

This group had done a number of displays throughout the City of Angels, but they had a new, ambitious idea: cover the Craft and Folk Art Museum with crocheted squares, donated by volunteers. It sounded rather straightforward at first.

Artistic expression of yarn bombing at LA's Craft and Folk Art Museum in a creative public art project. Image © Yarn Bombing Los Angeles

Craft and Folk Art Museum, Granny-Squared
© Yarn Bombing Los Angeles

And then the squares started coming in. Over 500 people from 25 countries donated squares—15,000 hand-crafted squares in all!

The stories behind the squares are heart-tugging.

A neurologist in Turkey encouraged her patients to make squares as part of their treatment. It offered them a familiar, but creative outlet. And they relished being part of a public art project!
13 squares arrived from Iran, but not by mail, since it is not possible to exchange mail between Iran and the U.S. Instead, the squares were transferred from traveler to traveler to reach L.A.
Instructors at the Braille Institute in Los Angeles held the hands of their visually-impaired students as they crafted their first-ever crochet squares for the project.

Incoming mail, containing knitted squares for a yarn bombing public art project at LA's Craft and Folk Art Museum. Image © Yarn Bombing Los Angeles

Incoming mail brings knitted squares from around the world
© Yarn Bombing Los Angeles

After fundraising, hiring engineers, processing city permits, and even fire-proofing the yarn squares, YBLA stitched their museum cozy together and unveiled their work. It will remain up until September 14, 2013.

But they won’t stop there. The group will sew the extra donated squares into blankets for people who need them on Skid Row. YBLA also plans to work with the Skid Row residents to create products for their store.

The Knits and Purls of It

Yarn bombing is a colorful, non-damaging form of artistic expression. It adds to a community’s public art. But the real purl of wisdom is how well this hand-crafted art pulls people, a community, and even the world, together.

Front Street in Pittsburg where a yarn bomber' Jessie Hemmon's showing artistic expression becomes public art. Image © Damon Landry/damonabnormal

Front Street, Pittsburgh, by Jessie Hemmons
Image © Damon Landry/damonabnormal

To watch a longer video about Jessie Hemmon’s work, click here.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Janine Boylan Comments

The World's Art & Design/USA

Aug

Art Goes Across Cultures in “Tribute to Mandela”

by Sheron Long on August 15, 2013

How is it that a Belgian emerging artist, working with Chinese seals, honors South African activist and former President Nelson Mandela with a monumental portrait in the streets of Shanghai?

The inspiration that comes from going across cultures is, at least, part of the answer. In this video, seal artist Phil Akashi, shows his creative process.

If the video does not play, watch it here.

Mandela, An International Hero

Nelson Mandela (1918– ) celebrated his 95th birthday on July 18, 2013.

Nelson Mandela, subject of Phil Akashi's "Tribute to Mandela," a portrait created with Chinese seals and illustrating the art of going across cultures

Nelson Mandela, 2008
© South Africa The Good News

His vision of equal rights for the citizens of South Africa led to resistance against apartheid policies and to his imprisonment for 27 years.

After his 1990 release, he and President FW de Klerk negotiated an end to apartheid for which they won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

At age 77, Mandela voted for the first time in the 1994 elections, in which he became South Africa’s first democratically elected President.

Sheron Long 2 Comments

China/Crossing Cultures/South Africa/The World's Art & Design

Aug

In Tune with Paris: The Music of the Eiffel Tower

by Meredith Mullins on August 8, 2013

Joe Bertolozzi with rubber hammer on Eiffel Tower railing, a unique form of artistic expression.

Hundreds of feet high, Joe Bertolozzi “plays” an Eiffel Tower railing.
© Franc Palaia

The Voice Inside The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower has been called many things. La Grande Dame. The Iron Lady. The ultimate symbol of Paris.

Several more imaginative names were provided by the artists and writers who protested its construction in 1887. A truly tragic street lamp. An ungainly skeleton. A half-built factory pipe.

Now, thanks to Joseph Bertolozzi‘s unique path for artistic expression, an even more inspirational name can be applied. The Eiffel Tower has become a musical instrument.

Oh, I see. There is music everywhere. You just have to be open to finding it.

rtolozzi with large mallet playing fence, artistic expression on the Eiffel Tower.

A musical fence . . . with quite a view.
© Franc Palaia

Tower Music

Composer/musician Bertolozzi has a penchant for discovering new ways of creating music. He has a long career of traditional composing, including orchestral works and choral music, but he is also inspired to find the voice inside inanimate objects and draw out natural sounds as the foundation for composition.

Like any percussionist at heart, he has a tendency to beat out rhythms on whatever is handy—the dinner dishes, doorknobs, railings, and any nearby surface that attracts him.

Enter—the Eiffel Tower . . . and the idea to play its surfaces. The seed was planted back in New York with an innocent comment by Joe’s wife in front of an Eiffel Tower poster. She pointed at the poster and made the sound “bong.” Joe’s imagination took over.

Couple that with Joe’s desire to explore an object’s inner rhythms and to let it speak. Add his persistence with layers of French authorities to get permission to “play” the tower.

It took years to pull it all together. He even had time to “practice” with the Mid-Hudson Bridge, an adventure that produced the lively Bridge Music composition.

Finally, all the elements aligned. The result: The Tower Music Project.

Joe Bertolozzi swinging a log into the Eiffel Tower structure, artistic expression in natural sounds.

An Impressive Range of Tones

Everything vibrates. And 7,300 tons of wrought iron is no exception. The tower has music inside.

“We often bang on it,” said one of the tower’s chief engineers, “to make sure the material isn’t defective.” But safety-check banging is different from Joe’s vision.

For the 12 days he was authorized to collect sounds at the tower, Joe and his team worked hard to leave no surface unbanged.

He tapped railings with assorted mallets at varying intensity. He used drumsticks on girders and spindles. He heaved a log into the sturdy iron legs.

He climbed secret spiral steps and elicited bell-like tones from their underside. He struck panels attached to a security fence and heard sizzle cymbals combined with a thunderous bass drum.

Joe Bertolozzi playing spiral stairs, artistic expression making music with the Eiffel Tower.

In all, he estimates that he collected more than 10,000 sounds (and managed to pause every now and then to savor Paris unfolding before him).

“I used to think of the tower as one thing, like a single brushstroke. Now, I look at it and see all its individual components,” Joe says with the admiration reserved for a complex literary character or multi-layered painting.

Joe Bertolozzi hammering with two arms, artistic expression on the Eiffel Tower.

Who’s That Man Beating on the Eiffel Tower?

Music is universal. Rhythms are primal and contagious. So the passersby and onlookers during Joe’s percussive riffs often got involved in the action.

A pair of teenage tourists started rapping to Joe’s beat as he improvised. A tower security guard showed Joe pictures of himself playing the djembe (African drum)—perhaps hoping to play some tower parts himself?

Most everyone was curious, as the team of eight seemed dedicated to a quest, and were hard to miss with their microphones, recording gear, and the strange musical “tools” used to strike the tower.

The Tower Music Team in front of the Eiffel Tower, artistic expression from teamwork.

Back Home in the Studio

Now the cataloging of sounds and notes and the subsequent composing take place in the quieter environment of the studio. More long hours are needed, as Joe hopes to complete the final piece and an album in time for the 125^th anniversary of the tower next year.

Ideally, too, there will be a live performance. But that would take hundreds of musicians and more authorizations from the French government. Another goal would be an audio installation at the tower so visitors could hear the composition.

Eiffel Tower, an inspiration for artistic expression.

Brothers in Vision: Eiffel and Bertolozzi

Just like Gustave Eiffel in the original construction of the tower, Joe says, “There were delays and missed deadlines and push back. We were in good company. We both demonstrated perseverance and conviction of purpose to achieve our goals.”

For Eiffel, the tower has achieved a lasting legacy and the appreciation of architects and engineers as well as throngs of Paris visitors (7 million per year).

Bertolozzi, too, hopes that his artistic expression will have a lasting legacy with his completed composition, Tower Music.

And we hope that the OIC Moment of this story lives on. There is music everywhere. You just have to be open to finding it.

See Joe in action at the Eiffel Tower.

See Joe in action at the Mid-Hudson Bridge.

OIC thanks Franc Palaia for the use of his photographs.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Meredith Mullins 8 Comments

France (Paris)/The World's Music

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