[Kern] When you find, like you find something cool on the street or anywhere, you have this feeling, it's like, oh, what's this?

You know, this is, oh, I can take this?

This is for me?

That's something that you don't find very often in life.

I am Kern Myrtle, and I am an artist.

Well, I do a lot of weird things.

I use yarn as a form of street art, which is known around the world as yarn bombing, where you put your yarn in a public space for people to find or see.

The way I tend to do it is leaving little pieces for people to find.

And with the intention of spreading joy and having that joy of discovery.

There's a tag on it and it says, "Hello, this is for you.

Please take it with you.

Or please give it a home."

And it has my name and my social media on it.

And so if people find it and they wanna tell me they found it, that's great.

I moved to Miami a few years ago and I didn't really know people and it was a new place to me.

And I was very, I was trying to find my place here.

It just occurred to me that I needed to do something and that I can't, I mean, the only way I can explain this is I was sort of called to do it.

I felt compelled to do it.

I was like, I need to make something and give it out so that someone can find it and maybe their day's a little bit better.

And if their day is better, then maybe that spreads.

These little weird, they kind of look like jellyfish, these strange organic little objects.

And I had a few of 'em and that was what I just decided.

I was like, I feel I have to do this.

I put it out the first time in May 9th, 2019 is my street art birthday.

And the person who found it, it posted it on Instagram and I had like zero followers.

But I had started a little account, and it turns out he is a really important graffiti artist and general creative, amazing creative person.

And I was like, well, if he thought it was art, maybe it is.

And so I was like, well, that was fun.

I'm wanna do that again.

And I just started doing it.

I mean there, I've probably left, I think by the count it's around 300 or more pieces like that on the street to be found.

So that's just something I haven't, I haven't stopped.

I still do it.

It started with yarn and then over time I began to work, well I got to know other people who painted here in Wynwood, because Wynwood is really where this all starts for me.

It's a story about yarn, that one-to-one dialogue with one person finding it.

But then starting to meet people who taught me about spray paint and taught me about the world of graffiti and street art.

So in 2020, I did an installation all by myself called, "This is For You" with Giant letters that said, "this is for you".

And all the little things I like to give out.

I probably put out 50 of those throughout that week.

And I just did it.

I was like, I'm gonna stage my own art show on a fence.

You know, I'm not really waiting for somebody to tell me it's okay, or this is art or whatever.

And the reaction was great.

I mean, people were taking stuff and then watching it change through the week.

'cause I didn't know if anyone would even notice it.

And then over the week, almost all of it was gone.

And I just kept rearranging it and playing with it.

And so that was my first time doing that.

And then in '21 I started to meet some more yarn artists on Instagram, which is kind of where our community hangs out.

The yarn community that I'm a part of.

And I just sort of, kind of casually said, Hey, anybody wanna join me?

I'm gonna do something called, why not?

And you can send me anything you want based on the prompt why not?

And I'll put it up with my thing.

And I got a lot of responses.

And these are not people who I knew personally, or I've never met most of them in real life.

And they were so excited.

They were like, we're in Wynwood.

I'm like, yeah, you're in Wynwood.

You're at Art Week.

You're at Art Basel.

And that was really cool to see that.

And I did a small one last year in '22, but it was smaller 'cause I was doing two murals at the same time.

So I didn't have as much time to do that project.

But I did put out a few from people, some of the same people.

And we call ourselves the yarn weirdos, because we're not really following the yarn rules.

In 2023, we did, "Yes, yes, yes."

So I said, same thing, the prompt is so simple, it's just respond.

I'm gonna do something about yes or a yes no choice.

And I got all kinds of things.

I got more than 20 pieces from the UK, from Mexico, from all over the US, and some people again who I don't know, I've never met in real life.

And they just send me their stuff and we put it up and then watch people respond to it, take it, and then I rearrange things and we just keep it going as long as possible.

When I was putting this up the other day, a little girl, the original stuff I put up, a little girl walked by, and she goes, "What is this?"

And I go, it's some art made with yarn.

She was on her way to school.

She was like, she went, "Ah, I seen my grandma do that."

Okay, you hear that a lot.

Every time I do an installation like that, a bigger installation, I make a sign just like a gallery sign, that explains what this piece is, gives it a name, lists the artist, and, and shows a QR code to my Instagram where I'm always talking about all the other people who are involved.

Because I think it's important for people to understand that you don't have to be in a place with white walls or a place where a curator said it was okay to show your art.

I mean, I wanna show my art to everybody.

I want anyone who's walking down the street, no matter whether they care about art or think they're going to see art that day, I want them to have a chance to see it.

And if they respond to it, that's great.

And if it doesn't strike their fancy or they even notice it at all, that's also fine.

But I think every person should have a chance to see it and experience it and touch it.

I mean, you can touch it, you can take it down, you can just touch it, you can take a photo with it, you know, I wanna share it that way, completely open to all.

So knowing people who are expert muralists helped me take an abstract design that I was doing based on my yarn, on paper with watercolors, and then bring that onto a wall.

And I'm interested in that design and how this abstraction based on these yarn patterns is a whole nother thing.

You know, it's a whole nother place to go.

And it isn't, it isn't anything.

It is not trying to be something.

I'm not painting a flower or a house.

So it's living way out in abstraction, but it is grounded in this reality.

It's grounded in this reality.

Very much so.

And if you look at my wall, different walls I've done, you'll see this, you know, these elements, this kind of, the holes in the strands, it's part of it.

It's interesting.

And I like that it comes from a real physical item that I made.

So it isn't just like a random design or like a pretty piece of lace.

It's something that I made and now it's huge on a wall.

And I love it.

I want to do more.

I wanna do more of everything.

The joy of discovery is really where this is at for me.

And this extends to all everything I do.

When I do my name in yarn, it is, I am writing my name in yarn.

If you call it graffiti or not, you can whatever, but I'm putting my name there.

I'm not just putting flowers.

I'm not just wrapping a pole, like a lot of people do, which is fine if that's what they wanna do, but I wanna put my name out there.

And that's that part of graffiti, that's why we're here at the Museum of Graffiti, because graffiti is part of what influenced this whole process for me.

Like appreciation for the history of graffiti, appreciation for people who really know how to use paint, spray paint in a way that, I mean, you wouldn't believe.

And I just didn't know about all this before, none of this, Miami changed everything for me.