Vonda Chandler, a key volunteer of the Poppy Project at Stonehenge Memorial, applies hand crocheted yarn poppies on basalt boulders. The commemorative art application is part of three yarn installations connected to Maryhill Museum’s “The Exquisite Gorge Project II: Fiber Arts."
The poppies are an example of a yarn bomb — a form of graffiti that employs knitted or crocheted yarn rather than paint, meant to make a statement and challenge the way we look at something, said Maryhill Museum of Art’s Curator of Education Louise A. Palermo.
The yarn bomb will be in place at Stonehenge until after Veterans Day. Additional yarn bombs can be found at Maryhill Museum of Art and the Goldendale Community Library lawn.
Vonda Chandler, a key volunteer of the Poppy Project at Stonehenge Memorial, applies hand crocheted yarn poppies on basalt boulders. The commemorative art application is part of three yarn installations connected to Maryhill Museum’s “The Exquisite Gorge Project II: Fiber Arts."
Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield photo
Summer visitors to Stonehenge Memorial, which overlooks the Columbia River near Goldendale, may have noticed some unexpected color among the site’s usual gray and brown landscape: Red poppies.
This is part of the Poppy Project, which is itself part of Maryhill’s Exquisite Gorge Project II: Fiber Arts (see related story).
It’s an example of a yarn bomb — a form of graffiti that employs knitted or crocheted yarn rather than paint, meant to make a statement and challenge the way we look at something, said Maryhill Museum of Art’s Curator of Education Louise A. Palermo in a blog post on the Maryhill website (maryhillmuseum.org/exquisite-gorge-project-2022).
The poppies are an example of a yarn bomb — a form of graffiti that employs knitted or crocheted yarn rather than paint, meant to make a statement and challenge the way we look at something, said Maryhill Museum of Art’s Curator of Education Louise A. Palermo.
Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield photo
This yarn bomb is an act of remembrance for people all around the country.
“This project began humbly with the idea to bring poppies to Stonehenge Memorial,” writes Palermo. “A small grant from Fiber Arts Now magazine and the collaboration of a few volunteers got the poppy-making started.”
Poppies were finished in time for Memorial Day ceremonies at the site, with founding president of the Society of the Honor Guard of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Gavin McIlvenna, in attendance. McIlvenna emailed the president of the Daughters of the American Revolution to see if a few more poppies could be made — and a Facebook post asking for poppies went viral.
The yarn bomb will be in place at Stonehenge until after Veterans Day. Additional yarn bombs can be found at Maryhill Museum of Art and the Goldendale Community Library lawn.
Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield photo
“From every corner of this country, and even a donation from Belize, poppies started arriving,” she writes. So many poppies were received that the group will be able to replace it for specific holidays “for a long time to come.”
The yarn bomb will be in place at Stonehenge until after Veterans Day. Additional yarn bombs can be found at Maryhill Museum of Art and the Goldendale Community Library lawn.
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