Colorful yarn art display opening in downtown Canton for First Friday

CANTON − Natalie Starn knitted yarn around a light pole on Sixth Street NW.

Her fingers worked harmoniously, attaching the colorful coat in hues of red, blue, yellow, pink and green.

Starn, who has been knitting since she was a Girl Scout, said it's difficult to find an organized group of knitters in the Canton area. Not too many exist. One reason may the stereotype that knitting is for old ladies, she said.

"But you'd be surprised," the 32-year-old Massillon resident said. "Knitters are pretty young. There's an online knitting community ... so we're out there; it's a really robust community and it's accepting."

Starn ultimately found her group when she spotted a callout for knitters online to decorate Court Avenue and Sixth Street NW with an explosion of yarn in vibrant and varying patterns.

Coordinated by Vicki Boatright, owner of BZTAT Studios on Sixth Street, the knitting and crocheting contingent includes a core of eight people, but as many as 20 contributors overall who donated the yarn and artwork.

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This is the second year for the yarn artistry, which adorns poles, brick columns and buildings. The installation will be unveiled on Friday as part of June's First Friday activities in downtown Canton. Yarn art will remain on display until September.

"I think it's like breaking the tradition of what you think knitting can be," said Starn, who dyes her own yarn. "People think of hats, gloves, scarves and sweaters, and we do that. But this is a full art installation, and it takes dedication."

A yarn cutting ceremony is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Friday with Mayor Tom Bernabei outside BZTAT Studios, 209 Sixth St. NW.

Various city and building permits were required before the yarn art could be installed, Boatright said. Approval also was needed from the city's Architectural Review Board. Firefighters also reviewed the project, she said.

Here's a closer look at the yarn art extravaganza downtown.

"We wanted to bring people down here to Sixth Street," Boatright said.

The effort focused on two blocks of Court Avenue last summer, a project presented by Just Imagine gallery. Yarn art now is sprinkled on Court Avenue, from Fifth to Sixth streets NW and on Sixth, from Market Avenue N to Cleveland Avenue NW.

Also new will be yarn decorating the outside of buildings on Sixth Street NW, including woven pieces resembling paint splats.

"We wanted to do something different," said Boatright, who also coordinated last summer's yarn art project. "We wanted it to be over the top. Last year went so well that we had to top it."

Yarn art is also known as yarn bombing or yarn storming, a style of graffiti or street style art with a long history of livening up public spaces, including benches, trees and structures.

June 11 is National Yarn Bombing Day.

Yarn bombing is thought to have started in the United States with Texas knitters looking for a creative way to use their leftover and incomplete knitting projects, but it has since spread throughout the world, according to the website National Today.

Volunteers have been knitting or crocheting individual yarn art pieces since January, totaling more than a thousand hours, Boatright estimated.

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Scores of art pieces are decorating poles and buildings. A bicycle or two also will be covered with yarn and displayed.

More than 400 individual woven circles were made for the 54 paint splats being attached to buildings using 10 net banners, with the help of a lift provided by Coon Restoration.

This year's installation is named "Create the Possibilities Yarn Explosion."

"If you can imagine it, you can create it," Boatright said.

Passionate and hobby knitters or those who crochet include Boatright's friends, as well as volunteers who found out about the project through social media. The core group playfully refers to themselves as the "Sisterhood of the Yarn."

One participant, Carla Giacobone, is co-owner of Muskellunge Brewing Co..

"I like to sew," she said. "I'm usually a quilter. I have a bunch of quilts in the taproom. People need to smile, and there's nothing bad to say about this. Nobody's going to walk by and say this is a waste of space − it's just a positive everything."

Knitters include Deb Chance of Canton, Barb Resch of Canton Township, Laura Hollis of North Canton and Keely Serri of Canton.

Serri even spins her own yarn, a time-consuming labor of love. She also created a paint can made of yarn. Measuring 10 feet in circumference, it's the largest piece in the installation and features yarn meant to resemble paint spilling from the can.

Since January, Serri has spent an average of two hours a day working on her creation. Sometimes for up to six hours a day.

Everybody, Boatright said. All demographics, all income levels, every race, every gender, she said.

"We saw people of all walks of life walking around and enjoying it," Boatright said of last summer. "That's kind of the whole thrust − it's bringing people together ... to enjoy something that everyone can enjoy."

Reach Ed at 330-580-8315 and [email protected]

On Twitter @ebalintREP