YARNnYOGA

Thank you to the thousands of people who came to bid farewell to the historic Euclid Beach Pier during Cleveland’s first large-scale yarn storm and FREE yoga/meditation @ the beach!

And another one bites the dust: Euclid Beach Pier jutting out into Lake Erie in North Collinwood, Cleveland Ohio is a historic piece of infrastructure scheduled for demolition. The Cleveland Metroparks has great plans for the future of its recently acquired lakefront property, but for those who lived and loved on this pier, it’s a major loss.

YARN n YOGA is the realization of my dream and underscores my passion for the arts, community building and neighborhood revitalization. My team of local artists, activists, and community businesses prepared a proper farewell to the old pier with a yarn bomb (aka, a temporary, mess-free type of graffiti). The free, community-driven, interactive arts installation planned, marketing, and curated by me (Ali) was supported by Cleveland Metroparks, Waterloo Arts, Praxis Fiber Workshop, Blissful Yoga, The Cleveland Lakefront Conservancy and the Euclid Beach Blast!. Over one thousand people were in attendance and/or saw the temporary installation in August 2014.

…. this project underscores my passion for the arts, community building and neighborhood revitalization.

The juried “Call for Artists” resulted in 26 preselected artists/groups (100% of the successfully fundraised Kickstarter pledges funded participant stipends) installing 2’x2′ knit panels while the community-at-large weaves, wraps, and ties in the interstitial space.

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Following the knitted pier installation, a gallery show in the neighboring Waterloo Arts District opened in Fall 2014.

 

This project is awesome because (one) this was Cleveland’s first large-scale yarn bomb and (two) the FREE sunset yoga class was accessible to all ages and skill level.

And just as the process of multiple people weaving one strand of yarn demonstrates our connectivity, so does the process of a vinyasa flow and meditation release our collective goodbyes to the Euclid Beach Pier, a lakefront institution since 1905.

 

Together we can knit strong, vibrant communities.