Mar 10th, 2010
Words cannot express how much I love this video. Garbage reuse, singing, the crinkling of bags, soccer, this has it all!
Also inspiring, this 5-part video series of the documentary Threads of Hope about the Chilean arpilleristas.
Bonus: The narrator, Donald Sutherland, schools me on how to properly pronounce the word “arpillerista!”
Mar 3rd, 2010
The photo above changed my life. No, really. It was the beginning of my discovery of Riot Grrrl and DIY ethics. This picture made me realize that it was okay to be angry and confused and frustrated and loud as a teenage girl. It made me not feel so alone at 16 when I was angry at all the world’s problems and violence to women. Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna (the women in the photo above) had a scream that enveloped many of us in the early 90s.
Seeing these photos below made that 16 year old in me smile and wish nothing but happiness and strength to these women. I may not be wearing the same stomping shit-kicking boots and holding the same angst, but the part of me that knows what it’s like to be set free and not be scared to speak out feels like it’s just like 1991.
Ok, so technically it’s craftivism. FEMEN’s fighting back against the sex-trade industry. The sign above says “Ukraine is not a Brothel” and the bikinis below are not bikinis, they’re H1N1 masks sewn into bikinis as a statement against the H1N1 hysteria in their country. From their website:
WE ARE THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT:
*We unite young women basing on the principles of social awareness and activism, intellectual and cultural development.
*We recognise the European values of freedom, equality and comprehensive development of a person irrespective of the gender.
*We build up a national image of feminity, maternity and beauty based on the Euro-Atlantic Women’s Movements experience.
*We set up brand new standards of the civil movement in Ukraine.
*We have worked out our own unique form of a civil self-expression based on courage, creativity, efficiency and shock.
*We demonstrate that the civil movements can influence the public opinion and lobby the interests of a target group.
*We plan to become the biggest and the most influential feminist movement in Europe.
Mar 2nd, 2010
This Thursday come join me and Faythe Levine for a discussion on craftivism and a screening of her documentary, Handmade Nation!
Thursday, March 4, 3.30pm
Columbia College
600 S. Michigan Ave, Room 921
Mar 1st, 2010
One last check of the news before I go to bed tonight and the front page of The Guardian (online) has photos from past Holi celebrations.
I’m not sure how I’ve managed to entirely miss Holi, the Festival of Colors, until this evening. It is a welcoming of springtime by a number of Eastern religions, the “celebrated season of Love.” You can read more about various Holi celebrations here and read various legends surrounding its beginning here.
The photos in this post are taken from a photo gallery of Holi in 2009.
And seeing these photos makes me sad for everyone not choosing that wicked orange sweater they like because it will be “too bright” at the office or stuffing their hot pink tights in a drawer so as to not cause a commotion. Why don’t we celebrate? Why don’t we dive in and embrace hues that make our lives cheerier and more colorful more often?
These photos resonate deeply because they’re about open, honest, pure celebration. They make my feet tingle out of happiness. There’s a joy and a note of life that you rarely see captured. Today, as you’re wearing your khakis or perhaps whites, have a look online for photos from Holi today. And join in their celebration of colors, the bright, the bold and the awesome.
And don’t forget to take notice of how you (your mind, your eyes, your body) react to the photos, to their smiles and their tones. Chances are good, you’ll find yourself smiling back.
Want more color?
Feb 24th, 2010
More knitting soldiers! You may be asking yourself, “Why is this important?” Well, war and craft are two things throughout history found in almost every culture, and each of them got more or less “assigned” to a particular gender along the way. Women, the childbearers, needed to stay close to home to watch their babies, so war was pretty much out. Men, well, let’s just say there are loads of reasons why they ended up with war instead of craft. As they are prevalent throughout history, I’m interested in the links between the two, as if you look at America’s wars of last century, the rise in popularity in craft, follows the same timeline. Crazy, no?
The accompanying text is the only mention I’ve ever seen of soldiers knitting for evacuated children.
Two soldiers knitting in wartime, 31 October 1939. ‘If you drop in at ‘The Peggy Bedford’ on the Great West Road in Longford, Middlesex, the landlady will ask you to knit. She will hand you knitting needles with your drink, and the idea is that you knit a few squares between the orders. These squares are later made up into clothes for soldiers and evacuated children. Two customers in uniform busily knit after obtaining their drinks’.
Slowly, I’m discovering more evidence of soldiers being taught knitting in previous wars because of its therapeutic nature. The text below accompanies the photo below on the website for Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine:
Great strides were also made in occupational therapy. The men were taught new job skills that could be used once they were dismissed from the hospital. Subjects taught in the Fort’s vocational school included telegraphy, metal work, basketry, commercial art, shorthand and typing. Carpentry, upholstery, auto repair, bookkeeping and even knitting were also offered to keep the wounded occupied and provide them with a possible means of livelihood. It was the first serious attempt to give disabled American veterans real employment.
Probably the spirit of the hospital’s rehabilitation program was best depicted in an illustration on the anniversary cover of “The Trouble Buster,” Fort McHenry’s own magazine, printed on its own presses by it own patients.
There is more about “The Trouble Buster” in Carry On: A Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers, Part 1 published in 1919 by the Office of the Surgeon General. Not only does Carry On have awesome article titles such as “The Seas of Opportunity are Waiting for Specialized Brains” and “The Sluggard and the Ant,” it also provides a pretty interesting look at what returning soldiers were facing after World War I.
And lastly, the first thing I found online that mentioned teaching soldiers to knit because it’s a “mental stimulus.” From the Democrat & Chronicle, Rochester NY, February 7, 1918, page 12:
Rochester Women Have Proficient Pupils in Camp Dix Hospital
Rochester women are teaching soldiers in the base hospital at Camp Dix to knit. Wooford G. TIMMONS, of New York, and Elmer ADLER, of Rochester, were instrumental in procuring the instruments and a big supply of wool and the Y. M. C. A. has installed a number of small table looms. Among those who are teaching the soldier patients to knit are Mrs. Joseph ALLING, wife of Joseph T. ALLING, of this city, who is doing Y. M. C. A. work at the camp, and Mrs. W. J. WOOD; Mrs. ALLING is the chief instructress.
The physicians have declared that knitting is beneficial to the men as a mental stimulus.
I also really dig that Mrs. Alling is called “the chief instructress.”
