Linked Together

Last year, artist Lacey Jane Roberts blocked Clarion Alley in the Mission with a chain-link, barbed-wire-topped fence, which was pink. It was pink because she covered every single hard, unyielding surface with "crank knit" yarn, resulting in just the most adorable industrial barrier you've ever seen in your life. She also knits her own colorful graffiti (using the name "Tink"), which she hangs on graffiti-strewn walls. Probably the cheekiest thing she's done, however, was her guerilla restoration of the California College of the Arts sign. Some of you recall the school used to be called California College of the Arts and Crafts, a name it had held since 1934. It was shortened in 2003, which caused a lot of people to think, My God, are you freaking kidding me with that? Of course you can imagine what Roberts did to her alma mater: "& Crafts," in bright red yarn, hung atop the building for a week in 2005. For her solo exhibit "The Master"s Tools (Decay Goes Both Ways)," she raises another fence, nearly 10 feet tall and covered in silver yarn, which spills out from the installation like overgrown weeds. Also appearing is an unsteady antique spinning wheel, deformed nearly beyond recognition and use.
May 3-31, 2008