gathering wildflowers while i may: A tour of Arnos Vale Cemetery & an introduction to Yarn Bombing

A couple of weeks ago my daughter-in-law took me and my two granddaughters to the The Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol; not the most conventional location for an outing, especially on a damp Monday morning (a school inset day), but I loved it there, as she doubtless knew I would. It has everything that I would wish for in one place, and even more than that as it turned out.

When I was told we were going out for an autumn nature walk around a cemetery I was intrigued. My experience of cemeteries to date has been limited to large areas of land filled with serried ranks of closely-packed graves placed in well-kept but characterless grounds on the outskirts of towns and cities. Practical for their purpose, but not the inspiring kind of place you would normally put high on your list of places to visit, unless it was the final resting place of a loved one or you were seeking long-lost ancestors.

The Arnos Vale Cemetery, located on the Bath Road in Bristol is however in a completely different league, and it is apparent as soon as you get your first sight of it, hidden behind its mellow old stone wall, that this is somewhere special. I have to admit I was both amused and slightly disconcerted by the interpretation board near the entrance that says boldly 'Welcome to Arnos Vale Cemetery'(?). But a little research quickly establishes that this historic place was recently almost lost to modern development and owes its continuing existence and current state of restoration to a dedicated group of local people that have transformed it from a neglected, overgrown, deteriorating space into a tranquil green one that is a now a haven for wildlife and local people and a fascinating place to visit. If it is to continue to survive and flourish, it has to be run as an efficient business and attract visitors and custom for its enterprises. http://www.arnosvale.org.uk/index.php

Planted flower-bed in its autumn glory.

"Arnos Vale Cemetery opened in 1839 as a ‘garden cemetery’, inspired by the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris and later, London's Kensal Green Cemetery. By then, Bristol's old parish graveyards were overcrowded, and a health hazard. The Bristol General Cemetery Company was set up to provide a stylish yet spacious alternative. It bought land in the (then outlying and picturesque) village of Brislington, and put forward plans for a cemetery that would be filled with sunlight, fresh air, trees and shrubs, and with its architecture, designed by and landscaping designed to echo classical Greece."

The architect of the buildings,Charles Underwood, (1791 – 5 March 1883, Clifton, Bristol) was a builder in Cheltenham who moved to Bristol, where he became a neo-classical architect. He designed the Greek revival buildings here in 1836 and the Royal West of England Academy (1857), as well as the impressive Worcester Terrace in central Clifton. (Wikipedia)

The first person buried at Arnos Vale was Mary Breillat, wife of the man who had brought gas street-lighting to Bristol, and there are now more than 60,000 graves and monuments at the 45-acre cemetery.

Among the most famous of the monuments is that of 19th Century Indian reformer Rajah Rammohun Roy. He challenged traditional Hindu culture and fought for women's rights, including an end to "sati", the practice of widow-burning. He was visiting Bristol in 1833 as a guest of a Unitarian minister when he suddenly became ill and died.

More than 600 British and Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen from both World Wars and older conflicts, are buried here, including three recipients of Britain's highest award for valour, the Victoria Cross, and veterans who survived the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo.

There are several huge old Yew trees in the grounds which are currently bearing berries

We had arrived during a sunny spell, but were just starting to find our bearings and getting a sense of the place when it started to rain heavily, giving us no option but to head for the on-site Atrium cafeteria for shelter and coffee and chocolate brownies.
Inside I was immediately impressed by the beautiful sculpted stone sycamore wings effectively suspended from the building's high ceiling.

Alyosha Moeran, 'Abundance'

The inspiration for the pieces came as a result of the artist being caught in a storm of whirling sycamore seeds one autumn. 'Abundance' is especially relevant to Arnos Vale , whose modern tree cover is mostly due to the effective dispersal of seeds from one old sycamore tree.

Set amongst trees and with floor to ceiling plate glass windows, this was a pleasant place to take a break, but it was a pity our exploration of the graves and memorials had been cut short. However, determined to make more of our visit, we waited for the rain to ease and set off for the wooded area on the higher ground behind the building.

Yarn bombs including a robin and a yellow duckling

As we sat in there I had spotted some intriguing colourful objects suspended from the branches of a nearby small tree which I just had to investigate. I was charmed to see that they were a collection of hand-knitted objects and included a robin, a snail and a yellow duckling and that there was also knitted fabric encasing part of the trunk of the tree. I had no idea why they were there, but was thinking they may be some whimsical gestures of remembrance or little offerings to please some passed soul, a child maybe... I had never before even heard of "Guerilla Knitting", or "Yarn Bombing," as it is alternatively referred to. The terms struck me as very harsh when describing what appeared to me to be a gentle, feminine act, particularly in this context, but I believe they are adapted from those used to describe the more masculine grafitti 'tagging'.

An intricate and colourful yarn bomb

We had been joined now by my son taking an early lunch break, who did his best to explain this genre of knitted grafitti to his bemused mother, who lives a sheltered life up in North
Wales. My first question was "Why would people want to do that?" I have done a lot of knitting in my time, and although I find the creative act enjoyable, for me the reward is achieving something wearable or otherwise usable at the finish. The fact that people had clearly put hours of work into these pieces, then more attaching them to tree trunks, (and some of them are large), then abandoning them to the elements initially seemed very strange. What did they get out of it? Of course as I was speaking I realised I was answering my own questions and that the pieces provoking my and others' interest and curiosity was probably at least one of the points. I also knew it was something I was going to have to investigate further.

A lot of work has gone into these extensive pieces

The Wikipedia entry offers the following definition and an explanation of the motivation behind woollen 'art attacks'.

Multi-patterned yarn bomb

Yarn bombing, yarnbombing, yarnstorming, guerrilla knitting, urban knitting or graffiti knitting is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk. While yarn installations – called yarn bombs or yarnstorms – may last for years, they are considered non-permanent, and, unlike other forms of graffiti, can be easily removed if necessary. Nonetheless, the practice is still technically illegal, though it is not often prosecuted vigorously.

While other forms of graffiti may be expressive, decorative, territorial, socio-political commentary, advertising or vandalism, yarn bombing was initially almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public places. It has since developed with groups graffiti knitting and crocheting worldwide, each with their own agendas and public graffiti knitting projects being run.

Yarn bomb - this looks like a new one

As I read more, (some 1,390,000 entries on the subject came up when I typed my query into Google ), I began to have a better understanding of this world-wide phenomenon, but it seemed to me that targets were more usually in urban locations or at 'hard' objects, examples being the statue of a charging bull in New York, a military tank in Copenhagen, Denmark and more locally, a wheelchair in Bristol. This peaceful wooded area within a Victorian cemetery seemed an unusual location to target, more so because the objects covered are growing trees and shrubs. I did manage to discover who did it through the following links and articles and understand that it was a community project encompassing this whole area of the city. It clearly worked out well and the graffiti pieces are still evident after almost a year, (with maybe the odd newer piece placed too?) I hope the artists achieved what they were hoping to; my thanks for them for the education.

Yarn bombs-knitted pennants and a mobile.

gathering wildflowers while i may

Thursday, 1 November 2012

A tour of Arnos Vale Cemetery & an introduction to Yarn Bombing

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