craft + activism = craftivism.

Reflecting on the death of his friend, Gilgamesh decides to search for the key to eternal life, an ultimately futile quest. “Gilgamesh, what you seek you will never find. For when the Gods created Man they let death be his lot, eternal life they withheld. Let your every day be full of joy, love the child that holds your hand, let your wife delight in your embrace, for these alone are the concerns of humanity.”

It’s funny how sometimes there are no words, sometimes there are too many, and other times the only words that seem to fit are someone else’s. Lately these words from The Epic of Gilgamesh have been ringing through my head, as late last week my grandfather and uncle (father and son) both died of separate illnesses within 10 hours of each other. So, maybe today, after reading the above, you’ll go hold a hand, or hug someone or just smile at someone who looks like they could use it.

And also of note, two lovely books out of late that you might want to check out:

Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery

and Craft Activism.

Full Disclosure: I was asked to write the foreword for the first book and a blurb for the second, so am foregoing reviews, because, yes, I AM BIASED… because I LOVE BOTH BOOKS AND THEIR AUTHORS!! You should no doubt go check ‘em out and see how crafting can be more about just, er, crafting.

In case you missed it… PBS is doing an amazing interactive series right now, PBS Arts, which includes an online component of videos. The latest features interviews with two of my favorite makers, Olek and Swoon.

In the latest “Off Book” feature, PBS explores the work of two unique artists who use the streets as their canvas: Olek, who wraps everyday objects (and even people) in layers of colorful crochet, and Swoon, who pastes large-scale paper drawings on peeling city walls and in public spaces. Equally at home in museums and galleries, both artists create installations that challenge the formats of traditional art spaces. With powerful layers of meaning, beautiful aesthetics, and unique media, these two prolific creators are pushing the boundaries of contemporary art.

Oh, and thanks so much for the super kind emails, comments and Tweets to my last two posts. They have not gone unnoticed, and have warmed my heart lately at a time when it needs a little extra warming. Just got one of the phone calls I’ve been expecting, which was only joyous as it signals the end of someone I’ll miss dearly’s pain. And currently the screensaver on my phone is my teeny tiny little niece smiling, ever reminding me that things ebb and flow, from happy to sad to happy again. As they will always.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, for the past chunk of time, I can’t write. Not a depression-made can’t write kind of thing, or a writer’s block thing, but “let’s just focus on getting through the day” kind of way. I’ve been cross stitching and walking and listening to a freakish amount of Deep Forest and crying and taking deep breaths as I watch those close to me go deeper into helplessness and loss and fear as two loved ones simultaneously get weaker and sicker as time goes on. As health things often do, it brings a crystal clear clarity to everything, what we’re here for, what we’re meant to do, how to best spend our days, what to really, truly appreciate.

And those questions I’ve been turning around in my mind, much like the way leaves twist and fall off the trees in autumn, they’ve been swirling around me and floating and crunching under my feet to not let me forget that they are the real fabric of life. I’ve been pursuing various paths of research and asked questions and reached no headway in certain areas and wondering if I’ve hit an impasse and need to redirect my course and if it’s the universe’s way of making sure I really want it. I wonder where my career is supposed to go and my family life and if I’ll ever go on even a date with someone who simultaneously makes me feel and laugh again. And, just as the leaves do, these questions get stuck in my hair or hitch a ride on my purse or stubbornly get stuck to my shoe. They float and they caress and they follow their simple path of gravity. Their written path of gravity, following the law of gravity.

We all have our own leaves falling, hitting us, reminding us, nudging us, asking us various questions about our lives. Sometimes they’re crystal clear, other times they’re kinda fuzzy and unsure. As I look into the face of my brand sparklin’ new baby niece and hear the excitement in my brother’s voice when he talks about his new role as father on one phone call and then hear tears of sadness on the next, as one watches a loved one fade away, the leaves seem to fall faster and clearer. And all I can think of is that this clarity is no mistake and of some grand design, that these are the moments we should pay attention to and the questions we should pay attention to because they are the quilt we wrap up in when we’re unsure of what to say, what to do or which way to turn.

Each leaf represents a choice that either we grabbed or let float away, and when raked into a giant big pile at the end of the season… We’re met with the important moments and we jump into the whole crinklin’ earthy heap of our lives, our loves, our fears, our regrets, our laughter, our mistakes, our joys and most of all, the snippets of clarity that we were lucky enough to witness because we dared to participate in it with our eyes and hearts open. And therefore, we don’t sink to the bottom, we’re held amid this big pile of leaves, buoyed by all the good stuff that was made sharper by the not-so-good stuff and squeal in delight at just how big and varied it is and how just okay we are.

So I guess I’ve been unable to write because I’ve been too busy watching the leaves fall and not busy enough deciphering what they’re trying to tell me. Instead of running from them and dodging them, I should be welcoming the way they tickle my neck and crackle when I step on them. Because just as each stitch helps me move towards completion of a project, each leaf is just as significant in creating a full and unique tapestry that will keep me warm, buoyed and safe in the knowledge that I’m still moving forward.

Also… something amazing you should check out… this video from the brilliant Reel News of the construction of Carrie Reichardt’s amazing statue of suffragette Mary Bamber.

Mary Bamber: A Revolutionary Woman from Reel News on Vimeo.

I’m waiting in the car dealership. My car alarm has being going off at random, pissing off my neighbors as well as myself. There’s a guy yelling at his wife in either Ukrainian or Russian and the television is on the news which is warning us (always warning us!) and informing us of war, fire, 9/11, fear, terror, sturm und drang, good, evil. The businessman is finally off the phone, where he was talking of meetings and sales and circuits and tradeshows and now he’s just staring at the cheap carpet, his hand resting on his chin, his phone still held up to his ear. It’s raining outside and the Ukrainian (or Russian) woman sighs loudly.

I have emails to answer and am so behind trying to do so much at once, frustrated that I’m not able to answer students anymore (well, I do, but there’s a looong response time) or sleep enough or fully concentrate on my volunteering or research what I want because I’m working full time and the day to day life that we all encounter loves to get in and muck things up. It mucks all of us up. We’re all yelling or sighing or staring at the carpet in some way, even if we don’t look like it from the outside.

Lately I’ve had more time out because I’m still somewhat getting used to my “new normal,” from the fact that I lost a great part of the last 15 years of my life to depression and anxiety. Told what I thought was 100% was actually 80% most the time, dipping down to 60% for periods of up to 3-4 months and that literally I was going to have to “re-learn how to be happy.” That there was a reason why my relationships, energy, sleep, and everything else suffered, all down to a little pill that needed to be switched to another pill to react not just with my serotonin levels, but also my norepinephrine. And all those years I read self-help books, pored through Buddhist texts, crafted, meditated, exercised, took supplements, cried, prayed, screamed, hid, and most of all, learned.

And I wonder what I can take from all those years as I move forward with my life. The irony of helping myself get better with craft… And then be told later, that wait, there’s a better better than better. That I would be able to be the same self I was in 1993, but then look in the mirror and it would be 2011. As I work on research and speak and write about the voiceless people who use craft in less fortunate companies to speak out, I feel so fortunate, but also a mix of shiny and new and well worn. I may not know much about being at war, being hungry, being homeless, being so many things. But I do know about being sad, being unable to form the words (although luckily I have the great fortune to be able to speak them publicly), being frozen in terror on a hair trigger, being lost, being lonely, being unable to get out of bed, being able to feel the touch of a loved one (new or old).

We know how to fix things that are broken that we can see, we can see the leak stopped, hole repaired, cut bandaged, mess cleaned up. But what about the the broken things we cannot see? The ones that inhabit our insides, the ones we can’t bandage or see concretely mended? Well, for one, we talk about it. We continue to love and learn and laugh and grow and ask and hug and move forward. We hope that better things will come, whether that’s that someone will finally understand or hold us until we sleep at night or cry with us or hold our hand or something else entirely (or all those things together).

We stand strong when the waves of sadness or terror or panic or fear wash through us, knowing that they are just that, they are waves. They will wash through us, they may knock us down, but they will not destroy us. We speak out instead of keep quiet, whether that’s going public or telling a loved one or telling your dog or making a craft. We do it for ourselves, both now and present, and we do it for all the others that aren’t able to do so yet… Because the more we do that, the stronger we become, both ourselves and our arsenal of coping, and the more we are able to help others.

And most importantly, we realize (and internalize and process) that we are not alone.

xx

There are few things I love more than seeing the craftivism love spread to other countries, which means I was super excited to see that there was a blog post today over at KYKY.org on craftivism!!!

This is especially exciting to me as in college I studied Russian for 4 years, although I can do little but read Russian phonetically these days… Meaning I almost peed my pants when I saw read “Термин крафтивизм (сraftivism) впервые был использован в 2003 году теоретиком и практиком Бетси Грир (Betsy Greer).”*

According to its Facebook page, KYKY is a “an on-line magazine which tells its readers about interesting cultural phenomena: music, art, design, fashion, literature and city from Belarusian observer perspective.” Wanna know more about what’s going on in the craft/art/music scene in Belarus? You can also follow KYKY on Twitter over at @kykyorg! Thanks so much, KYKY for writing about craftivism!

What’s fascinating to me are the ways in which different countries and cultures take craftivism and bend its tenets to its own ideosyncrasies, preferences and current situations. And seeing something written about крафтивизм (craftivism) in a language I studied for so long is just so freaking cool I had to share it.

Because using your creativity and your activism in joint force is not an American thing or a British thing or a liberal thing, it’s a universal thing that’s been happening since time began! The term “craftivism” is just an umbrella term to hang the type of work on, as often it’s easier to understand/explain/internalize/share what we’re doing if we have a name to call it.

By giving it a name, we allow ourselves to sink into what we’re doing and let it become a part of our lives and ourselves, truly getting behind the honesty and grit and reality of our work as we work to help the world understand how we see it. Because we know, that it’s not necessarily that we want people to agree with us, it’s that we want people to see how they can use their creativity as their mouthpiece and speak out for what they believe in.

Hence, our actions give others permission to think, make and create as they please. By internalizing the creative process and letting our work speak for us, we become permission givers to those who might have an inkling of an idea of something to make, but aren’t so sure if it’s crazy or stupid or pointless. That’s our whole job as makers, to share with people that it’s okay to feel, to scream, to care, to cry, to laugh, to love.

(Also included in the article are some pretty amazing craftivists like Radical Cross Stitch and Craftivist Collective! Always chuffed to be included with such great and inspiring company!)

*However, if I got it wrong and this is in Belarusian, and not Russian, someone please let me know!!