Jump to content

Knitta Please

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Magda Sayeg)
Utility pole warmer on New York City street corner.

Knitta, also known as Knitta Please, was a group of artists based in Houston, Texas often attributed with the creation of the yarn bombing movement, a type of grafitti where participants wrap public architecture—e.g. lampposts, parking meters, telephone poles, and signage—with knitted or crocheted material. Founded in 2005 by Magda Sayeg and Akrylik, the group held yarn bombings in several cities and continents, and were invited to stage installations

Knitta grew to eleven members by the end of 2007, and over the next several years held installations in several countries and on multiple continents. However, by the 2010s, membership had dwindled to just Sayeg.

History

[edit]

The group was founded in October 2005 by Magda Sayeg, also known as PolyCotN, alongside her anonymous friend AKrylik.[1][2][3] Sayeg knit the first piece, a blue and pink acrylic square around the handle of her Houston boutique,[2][3] It was received positively by a passerby, so Sayeg and AKrylik decided to turn their unfinished projects and stash into art that they saw as a response to the "dehumanizing qualities of the urban environment".[4][1] They and eight other knitters formed the first knit graffiti crew[2] and began tagging various parts of the Houston cityscape, including trees stop signs, and especially car antennas with knitting and crocheting.[4][5][6] This process would become known as yarn bombing and its creation is often attributed to Sayeg and Knitta.[7]

The group named themselves Knitta, in reference to the phrase nigga please (converted to "Knitta, Please" as their tagline), as used in the songs by Ol' Dirty Bastard and Jay-Z.[8][9][4] Members remained anonymous, giving themselves knitting-themed nicknames reminiscent of hip-hop and gangsta rap, such as Knotorious N.I.T., SonOfaStitch and P-Knitty.[4] Images of their work spread online, leading to increased attention.[10] Though received positively, some newspapers articles de-emphasized the political or artistic nature of their knitting.[7][4] Some articles instead chose to focus on the member's appearances and families.[7] Conversely, the group's name itself was debated by knitters, especially knitters of colour, some of whom felt that the group's name represented racism and was exclusionary of non-white knitters.[7][9][11]

At one point, the group had as many as twelve official members, with copycats in several regions of the world.[12][13] However, during the 2010s, membership in Knitta had shrunk back to just Sayeg. Sayeg, at this point, had become a full time knitter and artist[6][10] who ran a blog under the name Knitta Please.[14]

Art

[edit]

Usually tagging on Friday nights and Sunday mornings,[15] Knitta taggers would leave a paper tag on each work, bearing the slogan "knitta please" or "whaddup knitta?".[15] They tagged trees, lamp posts, railings, fire hydrants, monuments and other urban targets.[4] The crew would mark holidays by doing themed work, using, for example, pink yarn for Valentine's Day pieces and sparkly yarn for New Years. When Knitta was not working with a theme, they would work on projects, tagging specific targets or specific areas.[16] The group and their followers considered thei grafitti to be a statement against the unfeeling cityscape.[17] The illegal nature of graffiti in some US jurisdictions prompted police curiosity.[4] Sayeg initially feared that the group would receive pushback from those whose work it tagged, though in 2011 noted that "the very people [she] feared[she] would get in trouble with" had begun inviting her to set up yarn bombing installations on their property.[7]

Portion of an old trolleybus in Mexico City covered in crocheting by a Knitta Please crew, 2008[18]

In 2006, the group decided to visit Seattle, where they did their first large scale piece. Using more than 50 feet (15 m) of knitted material donated by volunteers of the crew's mailing list, they wrapped the top half of a Seattle monorail column.[19][20] For another large project, the group tagged all 25 trees in the median of Allen Parkway in Houston for the annual Art Car parade in May 2006, wrapping them in blankets measuring two feet tall by two and a half feet long.[16] In 2011, they were invited to stage another installation in Texas, this time outside the Blanton Museum of Art near the capitol building.[21] Again in the United States, the group and Saveg was paid by Etsy to yarnbom their officers in New York City.[7][21]

The Knitta collective also worked internationally. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Bergère de France, the first manufacturer of French yarn, the company invited Knitta to Paris in 2007.[22] While there, they tagged the Notre Dame de Paris.[23] They held installations in several other European countries, as well as in Australia, El Salvador, Canada, and, in Asia, on the Great Wall of China.[6]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Kock, Christian; Villadsen, Lisa S., eds. (2015). Contemporary Rhetorical Citizenship. Rhetoric in Society. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-94-006-0191-8.
  2. ^ a b c Mattern, Mark (2016). Anarchism and Art: Democracy in the Cracks and on the Margins. State University of New York Press. p. 85. doi:10.1353/book45133. ISBN 978-1-4384-5921-9.
  3. ^ a b Duncan, Savannah (June 21, 2007). "Off the hook street art". Vox. Archived from the original on 2008-10-12.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Miles, Amber (August 9, 2006). "Guerrilla knitters tag Houston with yarn". San Antonio Express-News. Archived from the original on February 25, 2007. Retrieved December 20, 2007. Retrieved from Internet Archive.
  5. ^ Bjortomt, Olav (March 11, 2006). "Knit Wits". Times Newspapers, Ltd. Archived from the original on May 17, 2011. Retrieved December 20, 2007.
  6. ^ a b c Mason, Sarah (2014-08-07). "Pulling the thread". The Daily Astorian. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-07-15 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Closee, Samantha (2018). "Knitting Activism, Knitting Gender, Knitting Race". International Journal of Communication. 12.
  8. ^ Willis, Kerry (2007). The close-knit circle : American knitters today. Westport, CN: Praeger Publishers. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-313-08477-5.
  9. ^ a b Hahner, Leslie A.; Varda, Scott J. (2014-10-02). "Yarn Bombing and the Aesthetics of Exceptionalism". Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. 11 (4): 301–321. doi:10.1080/14791420.2014.959453. ISSN 1479-1420.
  10. ^ a b Ross, Jeffrey Ian, ed. (2016). Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art. Taylor & Francis. p. 105. ISBN 978-1-317-64586-3.
  11. ^ Gruwell, Leigh (2022). Making matters: craft, ethics, and new materialist rhetorics. Logan: Utah State University. ISBN 978-1-64642-254-8.
  12. ^ "Magda Sayeg is a badass yarn bomber —". www.dumbofeather.com. Retrieved 2025-07-15.
  13. ^ Creagh, Sunanda (January 14, 2009). "Graffiti artist spins a new kind of yarn". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved January 14, 2009.
  14. ^ "Knitted graffiti: Crafters take activity to the street". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Retrieved 2025-07-15.
  15. ^ a b Plocek, Keith (December 15, 2005). "Knitta, Please! Hitting the streets with Montrose's craftiest taggers". HoustonPress. Archived from the original on May 12, 2013. Retrieved December 20, 2007.
  16. ^ a b Maltby, Anna (June 14, 2006). "Knitta, please!". Venus Zine. Retrieved December 23, 2007.[dead link]
  17. ^ Harper, Marques (April 20, 2010). "Artist adds color to city's fabric". Austin Statesman. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  18. ^ Saidi, Nicole (December 4, 2009). "Urban knitters spin yarn into graffiti". CNN. Archived from the original on April 21, 2010. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  19. ^ Reighley, Kurt B (August 1, 2006). "Daylight Broads". The Stranger. Archived from the original on March 30, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
  20. ^ Martinez, Mario (May 14, 2007). "Grafitti knitting it's warm, fuzzy, colourful and illegal". SUBvert Magazine. Archived from the original on December 1, 2007. Retrieved December 28, 2007.
  21. ^ a b Cvetkovich, Ann (2012). Depression: A Public Feeling. e-Duke books scholarly collection. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-8223-9185-2.
  22. ^ "Bergère de France tricote finement son avenir". Les Echos (in French). 2007-11-26. Archived from the original on 2021-09-20. Retrieved 2025-07-15.
  23. ^ "KNITTA PLEASE: Graffiti You Can Cuddle Up To". inhabitat. January 11, 2007. Archived from the original on November 30, 2007. Retrieved December 22, 2007.
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Knitta.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Knitta_Please&oldid=1301056928"