Carrboro explodes with creativity, color after yarn bombing

CARRBORO -- As the sun hugged the horizon Saturday morning, roughly a dozen guerrilla artists began "bombing" the town.

There were no cans of spray paint or protest signs. Instead, this graffiti revolution started with some knitting needles and bags of yarn.

The "yarn bombing" idea evolved over time and cups of tea and coffee shared at local cafes, said Laura Korch, who came up with it last summer after joining the Carrboro Arts Committee.

"It seems like everyone's always outside in Carrboro, walking around and riding their bikes, so I wanted to try to get together a project that would be outdoors, and a yarn bombing just seemed like a cheap, affordable way to spread a lot of color," she said.

The act is as much about knitting together a community as it is about creating art, the yarn bombers said.

Also called knit graffiti, the yarn bombing phenomenon was ignited decades ago by people and groups who wanted to give a softer, more artistic edge to urban environments. It became even more popular in 2009 when two women from Vancouver, Canada, published the book, "Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti."

Yarn bombing has since gone global - the first International Yarn Bombing Day was held June 11 - and the spontaneous art usually results in people stopping, staring and smiling.

Carrboro resident Lynda Baker said she leapt from the car her husband was driving Saturday morning when they passed a bench that was yarn bombed across from the Century Center on Greensboro Street.

"It's so exciting," Baker said. "It's instant art, and it's going to give people pleasure."

Although officials in some places consider yarn bombing littering or vandalism and throw away the pieces shortly after they appear, the Carrboro group faced the challenge head on. In June, they got permission from the Board of Aldermen and agreed to keep pieces less than 8 feet tall and only hang them on specific public spaces and structures.

They've met to work nearly every Monday since.

The installation will stay up for four weeks, and there has been talk about adding more pieces over time. Many yarn bombers said the hope is other people might feel comfortable adding their own work.

"It would be great if it just inspired some more people in town," Lauren Lickwar, 25, said. "It brings something that sometimes people don't consider to be a work of art."