Community Commentary: Yarn bombs brought art back to community

Editor’s Note: This letter was addressed to Michelle Boyd of Twisted Stitchers and printed with permission from the author.

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I read with bemusement about the unraveling of your tree cozies by fellow artists and the politics of art at the Sawdust Art Festival (“‘Yarn bombs’ stolen from Sawdust Festival,” Aug. 12). Though not new, it is always shocking.

Take heart, there are those out here who see between the stitches and offer our sharpened needles for you to use.

While the festivals continue to serve repackaged fries, freshness hasn’t been available for decades. The paucity of courage and imagination staggering our mind also stagnates the very place that built its reputation on art.

By design or accident, those little wrappers — knitted and stitched — somehow became a symbol and challenge to the status quo.

You and your Twisted Stitchers offer a new way of seeing, perhaps beyond what was expected from such a homey medium.

How dare you be so bold?

Those charming antimacassars became so much more — wrapped around trees, speaking for that which cannot speak for themselves.

They became the essence of art, beyond the medium and frame, bypassed glossy perfections and rehashed idioms, and found themselves a focus of discussion and art.

Knitting, crocheting and stitching wraps as guardians for trees are metaphors for protecting life and highlighting ignorance; the concept is pure inspiration.

In finding what you and your Twisted Stitchers placed around the Sawdust, it did much more than elevate overly trodden sawdust — it also suggests what is missing.

Hopefully and carefully, you will stitch together something fresh and delight us again.

Happy knitting!

LEAH VASQUEZ is a Laguna Beach resident.