It was a big week for art in Hamilton, but a lot of it was underground.

Or on the ground.

Last weekend, Sue Samoviski of the City of Sculpture committee witnessed two women putting shopping bags on the ground next to the “First Ride” sculpture in front of the Fitton Center for Creative Arts.

Curious, “I watched them as they lovingly put hats and scarves on the little girl and her father,” she said. “I thought it was just charming, that they were so concerned that our statues would be chilly.”

The next day she noticed that the figures in “Legacy of Literature” in front of the Visitor’s Center and “Snapshot” in front of the County Administration Building had been similarly dressed.

Little did she realize that the City of Sculpture had been “yarn bombed.”

Yarn bombing, also known as “yarnstorming” or “grandma graffiti,” has become something of an international craze. In a 2011 Style feature, the New York Times traces the movement to a Houston artist who knitted something like legwarmers for the stop signs in the neighborhood around her boutique. It was further popularized by the 2009 coffee table book “Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti,” by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain, knitters from Vancouver, Canada, who included a how-to guide for guerrilla knitting projects.

The women that Samoviski saw dressing “First Ride” turned out to be Kelli Johnson, an avid knitter and professor of English at Miami University Hamilton, and her 12-year-old daughter Reilly. Johnson said she initiated the effort as a way to draw attention to National Homelessness and Hunger Awareness Week.

Johnson said that she had about a half-dozen knitters help her create around 40 items, mostly hats and scarves, but also a set of leg warmers for Alexander Hamilton in the middle of High Street.

At every site, she and Reilly put up a sign that gave some facts or details about the problem of hunger and homelessness in America.

This weekend, she plans to gather up the items, along with some of the leftovers, and donate them to local food pantries and shelters.

Because it is technically graffiti, Johnson said she was a little nervous about dressing the “Protector” figures in front of the Hamilton Police Station, knowing that it would be under observation. But so far, no warrants have been issued.

“My mother was certain that she would need to come up with bail money for us, but it’s not really vandalism,” Johnson said. The installation is purposefully temporary and no statues were harmed. “And it’s for a good cause in the end.”

“It warms my heart,” Samoviski said, “to have our statues make such a worthy social statement.”

Meanwhile, across the river in Veterans Park, New London Road resident Gregory Henderson decided to turn an eye-sore into an art project.

There are several hedge-apple trees (Maclura pomifera, also known as osage-orange or horse-apple) on the hillside at the park, and they tend to make quite a mess this time of year.

“I drive by this park every day on my way to work, and I thought it would be really cool to try this artwork and hopefully put a smile on people’s faces,” Henderson said in an email exchange.

So, one Monday evening, he loaded up the car with his wife Donna, son Noah and the two grandkids, Braylon and Brooklyn for a family art project.

“It took about 45 minutes to arrange the hedge balls into this smiley face version,” he said, estimating it to measure approximately 30 feet across.

Turns out, they really started something.

“The next day we noticed someone took the two strands of hair we had on it, and changed it to be more like a pumpkin stem on top,” Henderson said. “Later that day we noticed someone added a tongue sticking out!”

“This is really kinda what I hoped would happen,” he admitted.

By Wednesday, it had morphed into a turkey, and on Friday he witnessed a family adding a new piece of art work: a cross, with the word “cancer” above it.

But wait. There’s more.

“Saturday morning, when driving by, we noticed that the turkey turned into the big ‘Jesus Saves’ message, and there was an added ‘be gone’ at the cancer cross, and then a nice ‘Amen’ with a heart,” Henderson said. “Saturday evening my wife and I went back over to add a flag for people to enjoy for Veterans Day on Sunday.”

Although someone seems to have shaken Henderson’s hedge apple etch-a-sketch, he said the strange fruit is still there, waiting for the next phase.

“It’s giving people an opportunity to be creative and have some family fun!” he said. “All for free using some slimy, sticky, ugly hedge apples.”