Yarnbombing Los Angeles (YBLA) is a group of guerrilla knitters that have been collaborating since 2010. They are based at the 18th Street Arts Center in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

. YBLA stages public

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

and performances to help expand the definition of

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

to embrace

street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...

Urban Interventionism Urban Interventionism is a name sometimes given to a number of different kinds of activist design and art practices, art that typically responds to the social community, locational identity, the built environment, and public places. The goals are of ...

and

ephemera Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...

. Collaborative art making,

community building Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community among individuals within a regional area (such as a neighborhood) or with a common need or interest. It is often encompassed under the fields of c ...

public outreach Outreach is the activity of providing services to any population that might not otherwise have access to those services. A key component of outreach is that the group providing it is not stationary, but mobile; in other words, it involves meetin ...

, blurring boundaries between

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

practices,

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

and

craft A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale prod ...

are integral components to YBLA's practice.

History

YBLA organically grew out of a series of participatory

yarn bombing Yarn bombing (or yarnbombing) is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colourful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk. It is also called wool bombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urb ...

events in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. Inspired by the book ''Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti'' by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain, Heather Hoggan of Arroyo Arts Collective and Amy Inouye of Future Studio decided to organize Fig Knit On in October 2010. The event took place on

Figueroa Street Figueroa Street is a major north-south street in Los Angeles County, California, spanning from the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington north to Eagle Rock. A short, unconnected continuation of Figueroa Street runs just south of Marengo Driv ...

Highland Park, Los Angeles Highland Park is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, located in the city's Northeast Los Angeles, Northeast region. It was one of the first subdivisions of Los Angeles and is inhabited by a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups. His ...

and had 19 local participants. The group stayed together when Fig Knit On participant Arzu Arda Kosar invited Hoggan to another yarn bombing at th
18th Street Arts Center
on June 18, 2011 and 12 of the Fig Knit On participants signed on. What followed was a six month process of putting together Yarn Bombing 18th Street where local participants met monthly at Kosar’s 18th Street studio and some even developed additional projects such as the ''Empathy Circle''. Yarnbombing 18th Street formed a Facebook page and was soon joined by 50 local and international cohorts who signed up to create their own original site-specific installations. Due to the diversity of the participants, Yarn Bombing 18th Street ended up becoming an international survey of the yarn bombing movement showcasing a wide variety of installations that ranged from the highly political to whimsical to conceptual pieces. The event deliberately coincided with th
18th Street Arts Center's
''Debating Through the Arts'' event by Inez S. Bush &

Jerri Allyn Jerri Allyn is an American feminist performance, installation artist and educator based in Los Angeles, California. Biography Allyn earned an M.A. in Art and Community from Goddard College in 1978 and also attended The Feminist Studio Workshop at ...

, who was a member of the

Woman's Building The Woman's Building was a non-profit arts and education center located in Los Angeles, California. The Woman's Building focused on feminist art and served as a venue for the women's movement and was spearheaded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic de ...

, and so Yarnbombing 18th Street was therefore presented in relation to a movement that questioned established art practices on material, technical, and conceptual levels. The group then yarn bombed their own cars outside the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...

’s ''Art in the Streets'' show in August 2011 to bring yarn bombing to the attention of

lovers. By then the group adopted the collective name Yarnbombing Los Angeles (YBLA). The core members, participants and level of involvement among collaborators have been fluid based on project.

Art

YBLA activities range from knit graffiti workshops for

Los Angeles Unified School District Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in ...

teachers, students, and their parents, to installing hugging trees around town, ongoing participatory projects such as the ''Urban Letters'' and ''Forest for the Trees'' and interactive installations such as the ''Wishing Tree'' and ''“Wish I Were Here”'' pillows. YBLA’s largest endeavor to date is ''CAFAM Granny Squared,'' a self-produced

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

project that brought together an international community of over 500 artists and crafters to cover the

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

of the

Craft and Folk Art Museum Craft Contemporary, formerly the Craft and Folk Art Museum, is a non-profit, non-collecting arts museum dedicated to showcasing contemporary craft in Los Angeles, California. The museum is located on Los Angeles' Museum Row on Wilshire Boulevard, ...

with

granny square A granny square is a piece of square fabric produced in crochet by working in rounds from the center outward. Granny squares are traditionally handmade as crochet cannot be manufactured by machine. They resemble coarse lace. Although there is ...

s to make a statement about artistic and institutional identities. ''CAFAM Granny Squared'' was installed in May 2013 and dismantled in September 2013. Leftover contributions were assembled into blankets as part of a collaboration with the Downtown Women's Center. Christopher Knight, art critic at the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

, referred to the installation as "wonderfully weird," "jarringly playful," and "disconcertingly fuzzy," while placing it into a context with

Minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

repetition and

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

textile arts. YBLA has monthly meetings every 3rd Saturday from 2-5pm at the

that are open to the public.

Literature

Yarn Bombing Los Angeles released a self-published catalog of an exhibit held at 18th Street Arts Complex, Santa Monica, CA in June 2011 titled ''Yarn Bombing 18th Street'' by Arzu Arda Kosar. Another book, ''CAFAM Granny Squared: Yarnbombing Los Angeles'' was published in 2013, to document the event of that name.Carol Zou and Arzu Arda Kosar, eds., ''CAFAM Granny Squared: Yarnbombing Los Angeles'' (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2013).
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External links

References

{{reflist Art in California American artist groups and collectives 2010 establishments in California Knitting organizations Art in Greater Los Angeles Art galleries established in 2010