If there are two subjects Linda Björk Eiríksdóttir is passionate about – they’re knitting and Prince (not necessarily in that order). It stands to reason that when news of Prince’s passing broke, Linda decided to represent her admiration for the artist through the medium of crochet. Linda, who is a member of the Reykjavík Yarnstomers team that transformed a Strætó bus into a cozy-quilted conveyer of the masses, said she got the idea to create a piece for Prince the day following his death on April 21st. “He meant a lot to me, so it was kind of my way of, you know, I wanted to do something to remember him,” Linda explained.
Linda has been partaking in the art of yarn graffiti, which entails placing yarn pieces in public spaces, for five years. The piece, which can be seen knitted to a lamp-post while walking up Bankastræti on the left-hand side, was created over the course of three days. “It is also a bit risky to put it up in such a public place, because off course I want it to stay there for as long as possible. But that’s the chance you take with yarngraffiti, and all graffiti,” Linda said. “You are just speaking to the public and leaving it in their hands.” The crocheted commemoration is simple, yet undeniably Prince, with variants of purple yarn and his iconic astrologically-inspired Love Symbol. “I knew that I wanted it to be purple, to have the Love Sign on it, to have his birth year and year he passed,” Linda said.
Linda listened to Prince on and off throughout her childhood but morphed into a super-fan once she hit her teenage years. “I remember playing his Diamonds and Pearls album, the first one I bought myself, constantly when I was about 13 or 14, and from there the obsession just grew.”
The construction is Linda’s first in honour of an artist, although she is thinking of creating one memorialising David Bowie. For now, the little piece of purple adorning Bankastræti sits alone – the perfect representation of one artist using her skill and creativity to thank another for his.
See more of Linda’s creations on her Instagram page.
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