Formed in 2008, Boston, MA, live and work in Boston, MA
The South End Knitters
Thanks to the home-grown talents of The South End Knitters, greater Boston can claim a connection to the International sensation known as Yarn Bombing (also referred to as Urban Knitting, or Graffiti Knitting). This stealth movement exists as a kind of hybrid between the worlds of guerilla/graffiti art and contemporary craft; but takes a decidedly softer approach to tagging the symbols and surfaces of our cities.
Kindred spirits to such stitch-happy artists as Knit the City (London), Masquerade (Stockholm), and Olek (New York City)—many of whom secretly slip their colorful hand-sewn creations on fences, statues, street signs, hydrants, bicycles, and buses under cover of darkness; The South End Knitters are part of a legacy traced to Magda Sayeg, whose works with Knitta Please (founded in Houston in 2005) are credited with bringing sewing from the domestic circle to the street.
So much more than cosmopolitan cozies, the products of such collectives reaffirm the importance of individual creativity and handicraft in our highly manufactured world; they humanize and prettify the urban realm; they decorate, swaddle, and in some cases, protect. They call attention to the forms they cover and remind us about our relationship to our surroundings in ways that seem far more innocuous and temporary than their painted graffiti counterparts.
