The art of crochet and more

Artistic creativity accented our weekend with family; it first caught my attention driving through Eureka Springs with a splash of color breaking through the forest of leafless trees. “Look! At that,” I commanded granddaughters Daisy and Caroline who were making pinwheels in the back seat.
“Stop. Let’s go see it.”
The van turned into the small parking lot of the pocket park. I grabbed a camera. The girls followed me to the half dozen trees wearing afghans. A thick trunk wore a colorful arrangement of yarn hexagons and the crocheted words, “Art of Crochet.” The brilliant pink, red, green, purple and blues contrasted sharply with the barren branches. Each of the half dozen trees wore distinctly different sheaths. The pair of trees fused at the base like Siamese twins shared a half pink, half green tree sweater stitched together at their shared trunk. I took and posted pictures on Facebook of the granddaughters and the trees. A friend highly skilled in all sorts of needlework commented, “It is called Crochet Bombing.”
Although I had seen a video of a person crocheting up the poles in a subway car, this was my first personal experience with crochet bombing which is also called yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting or graffiti knitting where knitted or crocheted yarn cover statues, trees, park benches, cars, bikes, just about anything. For those obsessed with yarn work, the park provided an outlet.
That’s what happens when a person’s artistic bent needs to be shared – even if the person is a grandchild simply drawing a picture. They always want to give their creation to another person.
In preparation for time with grandchildren, I had packed a box of crafts. No yarn, but plenty of markers, paper and idea books. Eli claimed the paper and pens and began a detailed drawing. Olivia found lock blocks and created a Dr. Seuss tower. Titus chose the printed paper airplanes and folded one. It needed the tape I had forgotten.
I had, however, tossed in an obscure plastic bag filled with a collection of smaller bags of colored sand and small containers. Even with half a dozen kids pawing through the craft basket, no one noticed it until So and I had a quiet afternoon.
“Can I do this?” she held up the bag.
“Sure. Take it out to the table on the porch.”
She read the instructions, figured out how to use the sand, the funnel, the tiny shovel and the plastic jars to make a necklace for herself, a twisty jar for her brother, Sam and a flat circular container for little brother, Henry. When Henry showed up with his mother after nap time, he declared, “I want to do it. Let me do it.”
I found a clear Christmas bulb for him to fill with the leftover sand. Henry liked the half full status of his ornament. Forget the artistic layers of colored sand, with the little shovel he had a sandbox in a ball.
He played in the sand. Sam found the pile of printed paper airplanes, and with Grandpa’s help, they folded several engineering feats of paper art secured with the tape someone had bought for us.
By the end of our visit, we had airplanes, pin wheels, bottles of sand, pages and pages of drawings and had seen a variety of block buildings. My basket of craft bombing materials was depleted and taken home to refrigerators in the grandchildren’s home. Not exactly yarn art wrapping a tree in the park, but the perfect gallery for our budding artists.


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