Akeen Kidder, known to many as the Yarn Art Guy, has a knack for turning ordinary yarn into extraordinary art. His unique journey began when he saw Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" and noticed that the iconic brushstrokes looked like strands of yarn. This spark of inspiration ignited a passion that would soon become his life's work.

Akeen's art isn't just about creating beautiful pieces; it's about inspiring others to explore their own creative potential. He believes that art should be fun, accessible, and a bit quirky—much like himself! With a playful approach, he challenges the norms of traditional mediums, showing that even something as simple as yarn can be used to create masterpieces.

Beyond the canvas, Akeen is dedicated to fostering a community of creativity. He shares his process and passion through online content, encouraging his followers to get crafty in any way that speaks to them. Join Akeen on his artistic adventure and be inspired to see the world through a yarn-tinted lens!

Website: ArtWithAnAK.com                        Instagram: @yarnartguy

Ann Cofta is a New York City based textile artist whose work combines sewing, embroidery and quilting techniques. Her art is focused on exploring relationships between architecture, time and memory, and how they connect to our sense of place. The imagery depicted in her work is both timeless and timely. She reimagines city scenes in multicolored fabrics. Water towers are a recurring subject, appearing alone and in larger cityscapes. These iconic structures are relics of the past that remain, even in a constantly changing skyline. Materials are carefully and deliberately selected. Many of the textiles are from different countries and regions of the world. Vibrant solids contrast with colorful patterns to capture the energy, vitality and diversity of the city. All of the works are embroidered and quilted by hand. The imperfection of the stitching reveals the significance of human touch, and references the roots of these traditional art forms. Cofta has had seven solo shows in the past six years. She has been awarded multiple artist residencies, including one this past fall on Governors Island with ArtCrawl Harlem. There she created her first interactive, modular cityscape. Cofta lives in Queens and has a studio in Brooklyn.

 

Website: anncofta.com  Instagram @anncofta

Anna Hrachovec is a Chicago-based designer and artist who is obsessed with knitting little toys and bringing them to life through stop-motion animation. She named her woolly world Mochimochi Land after learning to knit as an exchange student in Japan, which is also where she fell in love with the cute, minimalist characters that inspired her early designs.

She has written five books of knitting patterns (with a new one coming in 2026!) in addition to hundreds more independently-published patterns and knitting kits. Anna has also written two picture books illustrated by her knitted characters, 2023’s Catside Up, Catside Down, and 2025’s Short Dog, Long Dog.

Anna’s animation clients have included Nickelodeon, The Washington Post, and Sesame Street. An animated series based on her knitted world, Woolly Woolly, debuted on television in France and Canada in 2025.

Website: http://annahrachovec.com   Instagram: @mochimochiworld

Carmen Paulino is a visual artist who works on providing community art programming in hospitals, community centers around NYC. Raised in East Harlem NYC, Her love for the arts was inspired by her Grandmother, she was inspired by the murals in her diverse neighborhood. As a child, she watched her mother and grandmother knit, crochet, and sew traditional quilts and patterns. These experiences inspired her to develop her own techniques and produce her own mixed media works that incorporate her own life experiences, visuals from her immediate surroundings, and the inspiration that comes from living in a diverse melting pot of cultures. Paulino’ works have been exhibited Nationally & Internationally, and has been working to produce large scale crochet murals around NY, and nationally. Paulino’ recent works include a 20’ x 30’ Mural honoring Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor in collaboration with Harlem Community Boards and the NYC Parks Department, an artist collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum to produce a 10’x10’ “The Met” Yarn Bomb, and a 6’x30’ “We Care For Harlem” Community YB in collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center/ Ralph Lauren Cancer Center/ East River Esplanade.

 

Website: https://carmencommunityartist.com/    Instagram: @carmencommunityartist

Dante Cioffoletti creates soft sculptures, paintings, and objects for the home from Earth—works pulled directly out of the dirt that inspired them, a campy DNA franken-fusion between the work on the wall and what resides around us. While at the Rhode Island School of Design majoring in textile design, he created work centered around escapism and survival using weaving, industrial knitting, and crochet. The traditional techniques used to create these sculptures strongly contrasted the freeform dyeing and after treatments used to finish these works. So serious that it became silly, Dante defocused the sadness that fed his work, and prioritized the present. Back on the Jersey Shore, and in whatever way “grounded,” Cioffoletti uses his work to explore what surrounds him. What comes after survival? And, eventually, what comes after that? Often inspired by the alien ways of life in our ocean, and the endurance of the creatures who call her home, Cioffoletti explores the search for one's own niche in the vast world around us. Instead of floating away from the world that has been so harsh, what if we sink?

Website: DanteCioffoletti.com     Instagram: @PraiseForTheUrchinEel

 

Hi, I’m Ellie d’Eustachio, a Brooklyn-based textile street artist. My solo and community yarnbombs have been published in the AP and Gothamist and are seen by thousands on scaffolding across NYC. I have been commissioned to produce large-scale installations for live events at Lincoln Center and in Prospect Park, and my art has been on exhibit both here and abroad. I am the recipient of an Awesome Foundation NYC grant and I run a community art project teaching knitting and making yarnbombs for Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Whether leading others in creating public art or crafting complex knit pieces that uplift, I believe art is vital to our wellbeing. Many of my projects are driven by working collaboratively with others and creating meaningful, emotional visuals accessible to children.

Buy my art on my website, purchase knitting patterns in my Ravelry store, or stickers and patches of my yarnbombs on Big Cartel. 

 

Website: www.elliedeustachio.com    Instagram: @MadeByEllieBklyn

Emma Oliver is an artist working primarily in sculpture through fiber who lives and works on the North Shore of Massachusetts. After earning her BFA from Alfred University she spent three formative years in the Midwest while earning her MFA from Illinois State University. Her recent work explores themes of vulnerability, communication, personal relationships and the difficult but necessary act of “putting yourself out there.”

 

Website: emmaoliverart.com  Instagram: @emmaoliverart

Erin Lee Gafill is a museum-exhibited artist, author, and award winning teacher dedicated to helping others awaken their creative spirit. Her fearless use of color in her paintings and textiles was profoundly shaped by her uncle (and sometime baby-sitter) designer Kaffe Fassett. Erin and Kaffe spent fifteen years of stolen weeks painting (and knitting) side-by-side. 
These works — both paintings and textiles — were celebrated in their coffee table book, Color Duets - Kaffe Fassett | Erin Lee Gafill, and featured at the Monterey Museum of Art in the Summer of
2021.

Erin teaches creativity workshops both online and in-person in Mexico, Italy, and Big Sur, California. 

She is the author of the inspirational memoir, Drinking from a Cold Spring, a Little Book of Hope; Jane Gallatin Powers, a California Modernist; and Color Duets.

 

Website: https://eringafill.com/   Instagram: @erinleegafill

Jordy is a self taught Philadelphia based multi-medium artist who primarily works in needle felting. She's been making goofy little guys and faces for roughly five years with the hopes to inspire others to create art just as silly as hers. If you ever happen to be in the area, you might find her vending at a local event or out supporting the many other talented artists that Philly has to offer.

 

Instagram: @20.regular

 

Sue Hunter and Karima Sundarji began the collaboration for the Straphangers Lounge while standing on a New York City subway platform admiring the mosaic tile signs.  They had long admired the gorgeous artwork of the mosaics in the subway stations—they would visit new ones as they were installed, admiring them as though they were an art exhibit in a museum. The women found it thrilling to see this ancient technique continued in new subway platform designs like those by Vik Muniz, Xenobia Bailey, William Wegman, and Nancy Blum.

 

Realizing the graphic quality of subway signs and the square motif of the mosaic tiles directly relate to knitting graphs, they began to ideate. It was a natural leap to represent these familiar and appealing mosaics in a textile format, to follow the mosaic pattern as a knitted object. Acknowledging the time, handiwork, and artistry that went into creating those mosaic signs, they were inspired to dedicate the same to their textile arts. Rendering the mosaics in a textile format evolved into the idea of recreating the subway in textiles as a reading and knitting space, and the Straphangers Lounge emerged. With the Straphangers Lounge project, they created a textile installation of a New York City subway car and platform.    
 

While it started with the mosaic tiles, there is so much more to the subway. There is Poetry in Motion, MTA arts, the graphic design of the subway map, the different color palettes of the subway seats, and advertising posters within. It’s an inspiring muse: in fact, a mobile museum. The Straphangers Lounge is their homage to the many artisans who created this mobile museum.
 

Sue and Karima met through an Astoria, Queens-based knitting group. One of their favorite places to knit is on the subway. their favorite places to knit is on the subway.

 

Website: straphangerslounge.com     Instagram: @straphangers.lounge

Yarn artist and muralist Kern Myrtle creates large scale works made of crocheted acrylic yarn, spray paint – or both. Their work has been shown in Germany, New York, Italy, Canada, Mexico City, and Miami, where they currently live. Kern’s yarn-based street art began in 2019 when they started crocheting small abstract sculptures (that some say resemble jellyfish) and leaving them to be found on the streets. Strongly influenced by the graffiti culture in Miami, Kern began to experiment with writing their name in crocheted yarn on the street. Kern began to merge yarn and spray paint, designing murals that include both spray painted yarn designs and glued or hanging crocheted works. Like many street artists, Kern Myrtle chooses to remain anonymous, but regardless of Kern's identity, this work emerges to take an unlikely place as a traditionally female-created art form in the mostly male-dominated world of graffiti and street art.

 

Website: kernmyrtle.com         Instagram: @kernmyrtle

Beastly Crochet is an amigurumi pattern designer who has been designing for over 20 years and has been an active guild member in the NYC Crochet Guild. The NYC Crochet Guild is a hobby organization with members from the tri-state area focused on promoting a love of crochet.

 

Instagram: @beastly.crochet

 

The International House of Crochet is the creation of Chicago-based crochet duo Preeti Samraj and Jade Carrico. Together, they transform the art of crochet into a world of playful abundance through their ongoing series of installations. For this iteration, they reimagine the classic dinner party in yarn. Guests are invited to explore a candlelit table scene brought entirely to life in crochet. The table overflows with colorful appetizers, entrées, desserts, and drinks, each carefully crocheted by hand. The scene comes alive when a toppled wine bottle spills yarn “wine” on the floor, while a curious mouse scurries beneath the table in search of crumbs. The International House of Crochet invites visitors to touch, explore, and revel in this tactile feast for the senses that is sure to leave you hungry for more. Preeti Samraj and Jade Carrico are Chicago-based fiber artists whose collaborative work explores storytelling, play, and tactile experience through crochet.

 

Instagram: @internationalhouseofcrochet

Sarah Divi creates hand-knit artwork that blends the comforting feel of a beloved sweater with the vibrant energy of graffiti. Her unique fiber artwork transforms entire spaces into captivating, immersive experiences, ranging from living room walls to chain-link fences to multiple city blocks.

 

Sarah's passion for fiber art began when she unraveled unwanted sweaters to knit into a maze for her college thesis. Since then, she has continued creating innovative site-specific installations using traditional craft techniques on a grand scale. Her work is not just to be viewed from a distance but to be experienced up close, inviting viewers to complete the artwork by stepping into it and becoming part of it.

 

Sarah holds a BFA degree from the Purchase College School of Art+Design and resides in Westchester, New York. She has completed art fellowships and teaching residencies with several organizations, including ArtsWestchester, Hudson River Museum, and WUJS Arad.

 

Website: www.SarahDivi.com                Instagram: @SarahDiviArt

Veryl Clark is an artist specializing in digital and fiber art, based in New York. Primarily self-taught, he has studied at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts. Combining his skill and training with his love of fiber arts, he uses freeform crochet to create images that synthesize past and present. In both his digital and fiber work, he draws on photorealism, pop culture, classical art and cartooning to create pieces that evoke emotion and exist in the space between abstraction and reality. A previous showing of his oil paintings was presented by Jadite Galleries in New York. 

 

Website: verylclark.com            Instagram: @verylclark

Through his crocheted portraiture and other textile art, Will's work explores the connection between tradition and innovation. Will is particularly drawn to using texture to influence the perception of his work: each individual stitch is a part of smaller shapes that make up a complete image. Will hopes to reinvent the way that crochet is viewed in the world of crafts and fine art by using his skills to experiment with size, shape, color, and texture. At 12, Will taught himself to crochet: selling at farmers' markets and sharing his work on social media through school. He began crocheting portraits during the pandemic, and has worked on about fifteen pieces over the last five years. Will grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and recently graduated with a BFA and AAS in Fashion Design in New York. With each piece, he spends many hours planning and designing, but works spontaneously once picking up his crochet hook. Will has found so much of his purpose in the fiber community, and is always creatively looking to further his message. With much of the textile industry becoming more and more commercial, his emphasis is always tied to the handmade and cultural origins of crafting.

 

Website:  https://www.wc-crochet.com/   Instagram: @wccrochet

 

Nacinimod Deodee is a visionary multidisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural architect, and the Founder & CEO of Nassat Nation. Born in Dominica and raised in the Caribbean diaspora of Flatbush, Brooklyn, his work bridges ancestral tradition and contemporary expression. Working across crochet fiber sculpture and wearable art, jewelry, poetry, performance, and public installation, Nacinimod uses art as a tool for healing, education, and social change. Internationally recognized for his avant-garde crochet craftsmanship, his creations have been worn by cultural icons including Erykah Badu, Common, and Mos Def, and featured in Essence Magazine, Vogue Knitting, The Source, HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness, and the Oscar-nominated film Judas and the Black Messiah. “Be Brave, Be Fearless.”