When the 'Dude Chilling Park' sign went missing, it was a friend who suggested Deidre Pinnock create a replacement.
"And I was like yeah, why not?" she tells Vancouver is Awesome. "I went home, thought about, and laboured over it (the decision) and then actually laboured over it (the sign)."
Pinnock has a very particular set of skills that fit the situation. She's a yarn bomber, and a prolific one at that. She goes out around once a week, with a couple of her crocheted creations to set up around the city.
"I've been doing it for about six years now; I started when a friend committed suicide," she explains. "He thought he was alone and I wanted to put it out there for others that have that mindset that they're not alone."
It helped her, as well, as she had major anxiety after working for years on the Downtown Eastside; one year 13 people she knew died. The act of creating and sharing public art helped her move forward.
While her work can be spotted all over Vancouver, she lives near Dude Chilling Park (aka Guelph Park). It's central to the residents living nearby, she says, with a vibrant, active, friendly community. There's a certain "jocularity" there, Pinnock adds.
"It really is a community, you don't just pass [the park] by, you sit there," she says. "People are conscious of the park. We say hello to people, and there's a pleasantry."
After the most recent disappearance of the sign - it's believed to have been stolen, a parks spokesperson said it hadn't been removed by them - Pinnock was happy to fill the literal hole in the community.
"And now there's not a hole there, there's something green there that we can smile at," she says, noting locals have become a bit nonchalant towards the sign being stolen.
While she didn't get permission for her replacement sign, or for any of her other crocheted art, she says society seems completely okay with it. While she has been concerned someone would accost her for it, that's not been the case.
"I think the community and the world want to see more art," she says. "A lot of my slogans are 'be kind,' or 'you're ok,' just to put people at ease."
Often her pieces go up in front of construction signs or on chain link fences. In one case construction workers saved a giant heart she'd created when they took down a fence and moved it to the new fence. Another time, she yarn-bombed in front of the police.
"They just sit and watch because they're not going to arrest me for putting up a heart and the words 'be kind,'" Pinnock says. "No one tears down the words 'be kind' and a heart."
With years of experience with yarn-bombing and fans online, she's working on a book talking about her experiences, as each piece comes with a story. She points to the organization Employ to Empower as helping her along the way.
While she works on that, though, she plans to continue to cover Vancouver with kindly crocheted messages.
"I think it's a message that everyone has been saying for a while," she says. "I think it's part of our vernacular now; it's becoming popular to be kind.
"I think it's cool to be kind these days."
As of Thursday, Jan. 6 the crocheted sign was taken down and a regular 'Dude Chilling Park' sign is again in place.
