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The Beauty of Yarn-bombing

Knitters yarn-bombing a dead apple tree in Devon, England. Photo by Steven Haywood

Yarn-bombing is a form of guerilla art in which the creator covers ordinary objects not with paint but with yarn.

One particularly ambitious and creative interpretation of yarn-bombing was on display in Killerton, Devon, English. In preparation for the Killerton Cider and Apple Festival in October 2014 fifty knitters from a variety of places extending from England to Oregon endowed a dead apple tree with colorful and fuzzy new life. They adorned the tree with 400 knitted leaves, 50 apple pompoms, and an assortment of woolly wildlife, include birds, frogs, hedgehogs, and even a swarm of bees.

One yarn-bomber, Lisa Tricoteuse from Exeter, said, "A good yarn-bomb will trigger interaction with the community and a smile from the public."

At Radical Joy for Hard Times we make beauty for "wounded places." And a wounded place need not be as large as a clear-cut or as famous as a nuclear power plant. It could be something you care about in your own back yard, like a dead tree or a garden devoid of honeybees. No place is too small or large, public or private to receive attention and beauty.

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Radical Joy Revealed.

Radical Joy for Hard Times is a global community of people dedicated to finding and making beauty in wounded places. Reconnecting with these places, sharing our stories of loss, and making acts of beauty there, we transform the land, reconnect people and the places that nourish them, and empower ourselves to make a difference in the way we live on Earth.

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