I arrived back in the USA after a visit to London to begin phase two of 34South|61North, the USA and Canada. Week one in Dallas and as I explored the down town part of the city I was impressed with the museums, galleries and public space sculptures.
On Elme street in-between a hipster district and the down town arts mile I saw some eye catching installation art, comishioned by the city made created by The Dallas Yarn Bombers.
These knitted and crocheted pieces were attached to the parking meters and gave them a non-urban eye-catching look. As I gave the work a good look I realised that the artists had been given a grant by Dallas City to make the installation. This is the open call that they responded to.
Laminated tags were attached to the sides of the meters with information about the bombers. So I looked them up and Sally or, K-Witta, got in touch.
We arranged to meet on saturday at the museum of art in down town Dallas. The day was perfect sunny and not too hot. We sat in one of the court yards inside the gallery building. Sally explained how The Dallas Yarn Bombers began. In 2011 Sally became board with the city scape and became interested in ‘making people see the cold hard surroundings differently’ and began to street bomb her neighbour hood. This means simply to attach a hand made item to a fixed public structure, Sally told me she once tied a sweater to a fire hydrant. After some time of this bombing a local newspaper featured an article on her and that was the beginning of larger scale and specifically made installations.
The Yarn Bombers have worked all around Dallas covering the Winspear Opera House, bombing the Klyde Warren Park (twice) and are now looking to work with the citie’s farmers market.
Yarn Bombing is not exclusive to Dallas its a world wide sensation and I am very happy to have met someone so passionate about public space art and changing cold city scapes.
More about the Dallas Yarn Bombers here!
34South|61North 