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A Sculpture Divides Oakland & Berkeley, Knitters Protest

by Hrag Vartanian on June 10, 2010

Knitters protest Berkeley's order that they remove a tea cozy they knitted over the T in the "Herethere" sculpture. (Photo: Brant Ward / SF Chronicle)

Don’t mess with the knitters of Oakland. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Rogue knitters encamped along the Berkeley-Oakland border with lawn chairs, tea cakes and knitting projects to protest the city of Berkeley’s order that they remove an 8-foot knitted tea cozy they sewed over the T in a public sculpture they believe insults Oakland.

The sculpture depicts two 8-foot-tall steel words, “Here” and “There” [and was installed by artists Steve Gillman and Katherine Keefer in 2005]… the work is a riff on writer Gertrude Stein’s famous description of Oakland, her hometown, as having “no there there” … proud Oaklanders have dotted the city over the years with signs and flags proclaiming “There.”

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