Less than three weeks before the Wheaton Arts Parade and Festival, someone has been vandalizing the organization’s yarn bombs that are on display throughout the area surrounding the Marian Fryer Town Plaza.
Yarn bombs are colorful crocheted decorations attached to streetlights and other poles.
Recently, yarn bombs decorating the pedestrian walkways to the Metro and around the Fryer Plaza have been partially ripped down, according to Paige Friedman, an artist and Wheaton Arts organizer. Yarn bombs have been destroyed along Grandview Avenue, Reedie Drive, Georgia Avenue and other areas surrounding the Wheaton Triangle, she said.
The yarn bombs were cut and then pulled down, often leaving the very tops of the artwork standing. The yarn was discarded randomly on the ground or in dumpsters, she said.
“It happened several times over the course of days—it did not happen all at once—which means whoever is doing it did it, then went back and did it two more times, at least,” Friedman wrote in an email to MCM.
“It was a decision made by someone to do this senseless thing,” she wrote.
Although disappointed, Friedman is hoping the vandalism will be a catalyst for the Sept. 28 Wheaton Arts Parade and Festival. “We can show that Wheaton really is an arts friendly community,” she said.
The festival includes decorated floats, musical entertainment and lots of artwork.
Volunteers are needed to help pull the large floats.
