What is a yarn bombing? Think of it as guerilla needlecraft with a tagline: "Improving the urban landscape one stitch at a time."
The Bemis School of Art became the site of a yarn bombing when Juanita Canzoneri installed "Hello Lamp Post" Oct. 15, 2010. For Canzoneri, a mosaic and fiber artist who teaches Mosaic classes at Bemis, yarn bombing is a chance to rethink fiber art by reusing video tape. The title was inspired by "Feelin' Groovy," the Simon and Garfunkel tune with the famous line, "Hello lamp post, what ya knowin'? I come to watch your flowers growin'."
What attracted a fiber artist to yarn bombing? In an Aug. 2010 note about "Becoming a Yarn Bomber" Canzoneri writes:
Yarn Bombing is the art of crochet and knit graffiti or as I like to call it, site-specific fiber art installations. Most yarn bombers work with conventional yarns. Many bombers/bombing groups have manifestos, and I'm working on mine. I'll release it when it's done.
Anyway, this past week I've found myself with time on my hands, no looming deadlines, and have been waiting on clients to reply to emails. I had recently checked out a book from the library called Yarn Bombing by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain and decided this was something I could get into. But since my current fiber of choice is video tape, that's what I'll use.

To make "Hello Lamp Post," her latest site-specific fiber art for Bemis, the artist used videotape from nine movies including "Blood Sport" and "Overboard." [Above: Close up of the installation and a six-legged visitor. Photo by Juanita Canzoneri.]
3 comments:
You should really check this out in person! It is a really beautiful object of art created out of video tape! Who would have guessed!
Loved this! I was pleasantly surprised by it last week when I dropped in to pick up my son from his class at Bemis. Very cool!! :D
I look forward to seeing in person.
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