knitta: bombing the neighborhood with fresh, aerosol-free knit graff!
A Houston press article on Montrose’s craftiest taggers is getting a lot of play online as it interviews two members of the knitta crew:
“We’re taking graffiti and making it warm, fuzzy and more acceptable,” says AKrylik.
“It’s considerate to the victim,” says Poly. “If they don’t like it, they can just unbutton it.”
“It’s not vandalism,” adds AKrylik. “I almost wish there was a little more permanency to it, that it was a little harder to remove.”
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See also Meredith Warner’s site-specific knitting work at knittingcommunity.org. She actually knits these in the round on location and the knitting has a real permanence (no buttons)–the work has to be cut away and is sometimes left in place for months. There is also a publically performative dimension to these projects which contradicts the usually clandestine nature of graffiti.
I’ll also plug an essay of hers entitled “Bearing Meaning: Women and the Perception of Handicraft” which applies a Feminist Aesthetics critique to the mystification of women, craft, and the “warm and fuzzy.”