12,000 “Granny Squares” Will Cover Museum Facade

A Miracle Mile institution gets a new (and temporary) look.

If you know about the yarn graffiti or yarn bombing movement, you know that a deep streak of whimsical, beauty-minded mischief runs deep in its temporary-art heart.

This can lead to crochet strands crisscrossing some random light pole or a bike rack transforming into something akin to a giant flowery pot holder. And, just sometimes, if the stars align, it can lead to the front of a three-story museum being covered by 12,000 individual "granny squares."

The brightly hued squares, which usually can be found in blankets and made-with-love sweaters, don't normally cover sizeable structures. But that will all change on Saturday, May 25 when the Craft & Folk Art Museum is thoroughly and completely granny-squared.

And who is doing the granny-squaring? Yarn Bombing Los Angeles, the knit graffiti collective that is behind a lot of art-pretty, idea-filled happenings around SoCal.

"CAFAM: Granny Squared" brims with ideas and questions. The notion of covering the museum, which is smaller than the other museums of Miracle Mile, with something craft-based, which is too often considered a smaller artform, is one of the hearts of the mega project.

And it is mega. The squares will hail from every state and 25 countries. So when you see it, consider the many hands and minds that went into one unified vision. A vision that is truly whimsical, yes, but asks big questions in the way that art can do best. By pleasing us first visually, but leaving us to consider what it ultimately means.

The Scene

Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.

Flurry to a local LA County park for free and frosty snow play

All aboard: The Queen Mary ‘sails' into a season of holiday celebrations

The project is set to move to Skid Row after it wraps at CAFAM. Oh, and the wrap date? July 1, 2013.

Contact Us