Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about online consumption vs. online production, and wondering how my view on both went so askew. As I’ve been puttering around with my own work, I’ve sorely been neglecting passing on what feeds me creatively, so here are a few examples. There will be more like that soon when the 1st newsletter finally goes out in December… forestalled by well, life, and family health things.

It’s ridiculous how often we forget that usually when it’s we start freaking out because we think we need to post/blog/tweet/reply and are having a hard time finding the time/energy/wherewithal, it’s generally because we’re worried much too much about production and not enough about feeding ourselves… Which leads to nothing much but feeling worse and hungry for sustenance.

While I know full well that craft and creativity can feed us, now that I work a full-time job and no longer have the time to devote that I did in academia (sniff!), I neglect to take the time to read and learn and digest and take in because I’m fretting about what needs to go out. [Note to those of you out there in academia who work and research full time on craft-related things: Embrace it. One day, perhaps I've have the chance to join you again!]

And thus, as it always does, the fretting takes 5 times the energy out of you than taking a few hours out to read, question, scribble and think. Maybe things in your world have gotten a little askew lately, too. If so, here’s a few bits and bobs that have helped me start to get back to balance.

1957. Rio de Janeiro. My mother, aged 15, looks out the window. She’s waiting for a chair. A chair that has been measured, designed and handcrafted in Jacaranda just for her by the local maker down the road. When my grandmother died, this chair was shipped from Brazil to Sydney, then down to Tasmania for my young daughter. Although she shouldn’t, she swings on it the just as her grandmother’s did fifty years earlier.

This is furniture with a story. Furniture made to last. Handcrafted, to be used and loved. In my mind this is deep sustainability. After all, an item that is made well can be mended and re-made again.

Fuad-Luke* nailed it in 2005 when he wrote: “What is clear is that modernist, organic, post-modern or any other doctrine with recognisable semiotics, is easily subverted in the service of industry and to the glory of consumerism and economic progress. … Corporate ambition, encouraged by the capitalist political doctrine, continues to ensure that inbuilt obsolescence, the touchstone of industrial design, keeps producers producing, consumers consuming and designers designing.” …. the question then becomes, what am I going to do about it?

Read the rest here. [Article written by Laura McCusker, which you can learn more about via @McCusker_Design or her website. Post written for Craft Australia Link: HT @namitagw.

Whenever yarn is donated to the group – which happens a lot – Evans has a rule they all follow: donated yarn becomes a donated project.

“It’s my opinion that if it’s donated yarn, you need to pay it forward and use that yarn not for yourself but for someone else,” said Evans, who became coordinator last year.

“Some of these people (in the group) are on a fixed income. They would love to make things for other people, but they can’t afford to go out and buy whole a lot of yarn.”

I think one of my favorite quotes of the article is, however, “Knitting is not just for grandmothers,” Evans said, “but we have lots of them, too.”

More here.

Also on the radar: Counter-Craft.org was recently created by for her DIY Cultures class.

*Alastair Fuad-Luke

The super special thing about this book (to me!) is that there is a CRAFTIVISM SECTION! A whole section, mercy me!! Not only is there a separate section, but it includes some brilliant essays: “Rebellious Doilies and Subversive Stitches: Writing a Craftivist History” by Kirsty Robertson, “Craft Hard Die Free: Radical Curatorial Strategies for Craftivism by Nicole Burisch and Anthea Black and “Loving Attention: An Outburst of Craft in Contemporary Art” by Janis Jefferies! Yeah!

If you ever want to learn about the long true beginning of craftivism, I knock it all out in an essay called “Craftivist History.” While the history of craftivism is not about me (don’t be silly!), it’s about what happens when you’re attributed to coining, fostering or publicizing a word that no one has ever heard of. Not to mention a word they’re not sure how to spell, pronounce or define. If anything, I’m a custodian of the word, so eloquently put in Greek here as the “godmother of craftivism.” As even though I don’t have a wand or can fly or even have a fancy, willowy dress, I am glad that there were some people out there who got sprinkled with a bit of ‘craftivism dust’ and agreed with me. To be added in such a book, with such astoundingly talented academics in a separate section is just mind-blowingly rad, it’s words like theirs and yours that constantly astound me every day, it’s such a beautiful things!

Speaking of beautiful things, here’s a beautiful documentary of the making of the Pink M .24 Chaffee, also featured on Marianne’s website, with the words below:

The pink covering consists of more than a 4000 pink squares- 15 x 15 centimetres – knitted by volunteers from Denmark, the UK , USA and several other countries. People were invited through Cast Off Knitting Club, from friend to friend either by word of mouth or over the internet, and by a number of knitting groups made for this specific project, or other already existing knitting groups.. The physical and personal acknowledgement in all of these knitted patches are, when joined together, a powerful visualization of thoughtfulness. The main impression of the knitted tank is that it consists of hundreds of patches knitted by many different people in different ways: single colored, stripes with bows or hearts, loosely knitted, closely knitted, various knitted patterns, … They represent a common acknowledgement of a resistance to the war in Iraq.

Between the 7th – 11th April, 2006, the tank was placed in front of the Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center in the heart of Copenhagen. There were 4-5 permanent volunteers sewing the squares together to cover the tank and many of the people that passed by also helped sew and crochet the pieces together.

Along with the essays mentioned above, the book also includes work by M. Anna Fariello, Dennis Stevens, Louise Mazanti, Paula Owen, Karin E. Peterson, Elissa Author, Betty Bright, Jo Dahn, Lacey Jane Roberts, Andrew Jackson and Maria Elena Buszek!

**The book holds a special special joy for me, as many years ago, Maria, Dennis Stevens, Garth Johnson and Tsia Carson and I started some amazingly powerful email conversations on craft. We dubbed ourselves the Craft Lab. Those conversations fueled me at a time when I was really needing it, and for that, I can never thank my Craft Lab co-conspirators enough! I love you kids and miss our conversations!**

Yesterday I received my copy of the new book, Craft Hope, on my doorstep, and it is so incredibly lovely and just, well, perfect! I am so honored to have been included as a designer in this book, along with some amazingly and incredibly talented people.** I whipped up some easy peasy fingerless gloves to donate for people who might want to do some mindless knitting for the greater good and just have a small bit of time and/or a small bit of wool.

Even though they don’t know who to thank, there are thousands of people out there with items obtained from Craft Hope projects (like the recent project collecting hand towels for the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies to help clean animals effected by the oil spill, over 65,000 items!) whose days you’re making brighter.


More info:
*Craft Hope over on Facebook
*Interview about the book with Jade over at Lark Crafts
*All month this month over at Craft Hope: Month of Hope! Giveaways! Links! More about my fellow designers!
*BOOK GIVEAWAY! I’ll have an extra copy of the book to give away, and am not sure what I’m going to do with it yet, as I’ve been working on other things than the blog the past few months… Give it away here? Donate it?

**Who are the other designers? They’re Stefani Austin, Ellie Beck, Amanda Carestio, Christina Carleton, Lisa Cox, Maya Donenfeld, Malka Dubrawsky, Molly Dunham, Celine Dupuy, Cathie Filian, Wendi Gratz, Jenny B. Harris, Vickie Howell, Rebecca Ittner, Rebeka Lambert, Kathy Mack, Kaari Meng, Manda McGrory, Jhoanna Monte, Aimee Ray, Eren Hays San Pedro, Amanda Blake Soule, Blair Stocker, Amanda Swan, Beth Sweet, Susan Wasinger, Dana Willard, Rebekah Williams and Geninne D. Zlatis!

As for what these designers made? That’s for you to discover in the book for yourself!

To a Lady Knitting
Little woman, hourly sitting,
Something for a soldier knitting,
What in fancy can you see?
Many pictured come to me
Through the stitch that now you’re making:
I behold a bullet breaking;
I can see some soldier lying
In that garment slowly dying,
And that very bit of thread
In your fingers, turns to red.
Gray to-day; perhaps to-morrow
Crimsoned by the blood of sorrow.

It may be some hero daring
Shall that very thing be wearing
When he ventures forth to give
Life that other men may live.
He may braver wield the saber
As a tribute to your labor
And for that, which you have knitted,
Better for his task be fitted.
When the thread has left your finger,
Something of yourself my linger,
Something of your lovely beauty
May sustain him in his duty.

Some one’s boy that was a baby
Soon shall wear it, and it may be
He will write and tell his mother
Of the kindness of another,
And her spirit shall caress you,
And her prayers at night shall bless you.
You may never know its story,
Cannot know the grief or glory
That are destined now and hover
Over him your wool shall cover,
Nor what spirit shall invade it
Once your gentle hands have made it.

Little woman, hourly sitting,
Something for a soldier knitting,
‘Tis no common garb you’re making,
These, no common pains you’re taking.
Something lovely, holy, lingers
O’er the needles in your fingers
And with every stitch you’re weaving
Something of yourself you’re leaving.
From your gentle hands and tender
There may come a nation’s splendor,
And from this, your simple duty,
Life may win a fairer beauty.

Also, check out this awesome article about green knitting!

A long time ago, my always intrepid friend Muffy Bolding wrote her favorite poem was “60 Yard Pass,” by Charles Bukowski. Bukowski not being one of my favorite poets, I was at the time, unfamiliar with his work.

Ever since then, “60 Yard Pass,” has been on a desktop sticky just within a second’s reach. Today I came across it after not reading it for awhile… Given the new year, found it especially poignant. Perhaps this poem is just the medicine you need today, too.

It reminded me of the astounding feats, adventures, failures, confusion, joy we all face. How we all carry them stoically and hold them inside. How we all house so many stories within us. How we walk around town as a container of our defeats and triumphs, silently hoping someone would ask us to share.

60 yard pass
by Charles Bukowski

most people don’t do very well and I get discouraged with
their existence, it’s such a waste:
all those bodies, all those lives
malfunctioning: lousy quarterbacks, bad waitresses,
in-competent carwash boys and presidents,
cowardly goal-keepers inept garage mechanics
bumbling tax accountants
and so forth

yet

now and then

I see a single performer doing something with a
natural excellence

it can be
a waitress in some cheap cafe or a 3rd string
quarterback
coming off the bench with 24 seconds on the clock
and completing that winning
60 yard pass

which lets me believe that
the possibility of the miracle is here with us
almost every day

and I’m glad that now and then
some 3rd string quarterback
shows me the truth of that belief
whether it be in science, art, philosophy,
medicine, politics, and/or etc.

else I’d shoot all the lights out of
this fucking city
right now