FLY’s weekend was inspiring and magical.  We made a web of interconnectedness at DIYpsi, which we titled “Untied-United.”  It’s now hanging on our wall but the process was interactive and thoughtful. About 100 visitors contributed to the yarn-bomb over the two day event, and many many others peered in the door.

Given the divisive climate in our country this year, we wanted to do something special to help kids feel connected to our community, and when presented with the opportunity to take over a classroom during DIYpsi, I thought a lot about how to do that.  Could we use blocks, cardboard, and insulation to build a village and play in it?  Could we do a large scale painting or drawing with all the guests?

One of the things that has always drawn me to Fiber Art is the way that from lines of just thread, there forms a structure.  The interlacing of threads in knitting, weaving, and crochet tie together into a variety of bonds creating different properties and making different kinds of fabrics, which in turn have their own properties of texture and flow.

In addition to choosing colors that resonated, each of the 100 or so people (mostly kids) who interlaced yarn had a different way of experiencing the yarn. Some were playfully tossing; others consciously created patterns of wrapping and weaving; still others decided to poke balls of yarn or thread through and make windows. These different approaches contribute to the structure, but because they happened over and around each other, the resulting fabric is still fully interwoven.

Our community is like that, we are all different and we all make different choices, but because each one of us is part of the community, the choices that we make affect all of us. Pulling one thread in the web moves the whole cloth.

In part Untied United was inspired by my Fiber background, but also by a fun project by Polyglot Theatre that happened at A2SF in 2014. We modified the project because we were using different materials, but it was important to us to have an artifact to share with kids who come to FLY so they can see a tangible result of their collaboration as it warms our office space.  It is currently stretched on a PVC frame hanging near our office.

I’m paraphrasing, but, at the end of Sunday, one family was talking about the project together and the dad said, “What do you notice about the yarn?”
Kid said, “it’s like a trampoline.
“What else do you see?”
“There’s a lot of it, about a million colors!”
“The interesting thing… how strong do you think one piece of this yarn is?”
“Not very strong”
“But wow, the first people to come through wouldn’t really get this, but we are lucky to be here towards the end. All those different pieces of yarn are stronger together.”

Thank you to all of you who helped us create tangible evidence that our community is stronger together: To the participants; To DIYpsi and the Riverside Arts Center who allowed us to share the space with them; To everyone who has given us financial and volunteer support this year; and especially for the generous donations of yarn in the last two years from Ruth Boeder, Monique Bourdage, Mel Drumm, The Ypsilanti Heritage Festival, and a few other smaller individual yarn donations.