Author: Betsy

the summer of allen.

| Betsy

I have a secret.

No matter how many crushes or loves I have, it will be an exceptionally hard sell to beat my love for Allen Ginsberg.

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I have hidden my love for Allen, Gary (Snyder) and Jack (Kerouac) guiltily for years now. I think it had something to do with me fearing they were too pedestrian to adore. And the fact that they probably would think it bizarre that some random woman still gets teary when she reads “Howl” and in younger days dreamt of drinking tea with Japhy Ryder.

It all began when I attended a college arts programme run by hippies in the mountains in a dormitory basement. Instead of “English Literature 101” we had classes like, “The Genius of Kerouac.” I took performance art classes and performed a piece in front of my peers that consisted of me writing words on my body that my roommate yelled at me from the audience. I wrote poems about the simultaneous disaffection and gloriousness of youth. You know, average university fodder.

After those two years of expansion, I went off to England and got muddled up for the better part of a decade, for no good reason really, c’est la vie. I am the kid at the parties now with the best stories of my life but with the least to show for it.

But this is not about my own pity party, it’s about a revival.

The other night I caught a documentary on Allen Ginsberg and it was a welcome reunion. For those years when I first discovered the Beats, I was enamored by their crazy wild lives. And subsequently, went off on my own crazy wild adventures. Since resurfacing, I had forgotten all about my previous heroes until suddenly their images and voices were blasting through the television screen.

“Howl” still makes me teary, but in a different way at (almost) 30 than it did at 18. Even though the words hold the same syncopation, they resonate differently. In recordings, the voice of Allen still has the same tenor it did years ago, but now instead of frenzy I hear strength.

This summer I want to get reacquainted with these old dearly departed friends who meant so much to me so long ago and see what they have to teach me now.

And in remembering Allen, I also remember all my other dilettantish exploits of my younger years, craft or otherwise, and can’t wait til they pop up again on the surface. Because I know that the me now will look at them through slightly different eyes than the me then.

hmm…. that ukulele in the corner sure looks dusty… oh, and sigur ros have been keeping me contemplative. rock on with pretty music!

because sometimes rules are made to be broken.

| Betsy

It is my opinion that one of the reasons why needlecraft has such a long history is due to its ability to be stopped and started frequently as well as its versatility. And one only has to go as far as to read Anne Macdonald’s No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting to find that I am not alone.

In the first instance, regarding mid-century knitters, from pp. 142-143:
“Being without work” remained so unthinkable that knitting was still encouraged to employ “minutes which would otherwise be wasted.” Knitting was endorsed for housewives already exhausted from other chores: “A woman who has been at the washtub or at housework all day cannot easily sit down to plain needlework; her hands are ‘out of tune’; she cannot, perhaps, even feel the needle, it is too small; but let her be able to knit readily (having been taught at school), and she will add many an inch, at spare moments, to her husband’s or her children’s stockings, which lies ready to be taken up at any time.”

Trade the words “washtub” and “housework” for “computer” and “the office” and you have today’s milieu. But, by finding something that can be abandoned and worked on at one’s convenience, we have found a way to shrug off the drudgery and banality, if only for a row or line or sleeve. Time spent crafting often takes on a meditative quality for me as I start thinking in colors and patterns and stop thinking about memos and phonecalls. Unlike other pursuits, needlecraft allows you to be able to work for a few minutes on a project and then get back to another (often more tedious) task, feeling a bit more rejuvenated, accomplished and perhaps even, useful.

In the second instance, see p. 330:
“…as huffily as late nineteenth-century women had derided products of the new industrialization; another begged the young to assure that their garments bore their own personal, creative stamp in “this plastic, manufactured world…”

On a more personal note, I turn to “the jerk hat,” as you can see me wearing below.

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The joy of this particular garment is that after I made it and didn’t want to waste my efforts on the proposed recipient, I could allow on a 3rd grade sense of creativity to nurse my wounds. Juvenile? Of course. But, it reminded me that at the end of the day, it’s my knitting. And that I can do whatever I want to do with it. (In the end, it was properly restored sans snark, and now lives in Philadelphia.)

I think that people sometimes forget that.

Don’t you, okay?

This entry was fueled as I kicked it old school with Teenbeat 50. I can’t believe that Teenbeat is 20! Rad!

‘but you’ve got too much to wear on your sleeves…’

| Betsy

For the past week, I’ve been wandering around London listening to ‘A Year of Seconds’ by The Standard. When I get back to my laptop, it’s nothing but “Kissing the Lipless” by The Shins. I’ve also been openly redeclaring my love for satsumas and sesame snaps, so things aren’t totally bleak.

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All the hustle and bustle of London has me thinking in patterns as well as words. It seems like every time I sit down I’m talking with someone about contemporary crafts, so walking around the city is somewhat of a wordless reprieve. I turn my somewhat decrepit tape-playing walkman up loud and watch the drama of the city unfold around me as my feet stepstepstep one foot in front of the other without any forethought.

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Passing women in saris, men in coveralls and children in school uniforms, I find my mind racing with all the color combinations and textures, curious about the origin of all the cloth displayed before me. Was any of it handknitted? Produced in a sweatshop? Inherited from a family member? When I was younger, my mother used to always warn me to be careful of what I was wearing as it projected a persona. As an adult, my outfits generally consist of something donned in a hurry as I’m perpetually late and in a rush. On grey days I’m most often to be wearing color in a futile attempt to beat the drabness into submission. Although when it’s nice out, I don’t mind the way hot pink gleams in the sun.

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But I’d like to think that I’m not the only one that notices the kaleidoscope of the city as I walk from place to place in outfits that may or may not add or subtract to the explosions of color I see rush around me. Spying patterns in clothing, buildings and rubbish while my walkman keeps me to a steady beat with my mouth shut and my eyes open. Once I’m back at home again, I take out my wool and knitting needles and daydream* about what I will make next after taking in all the sights and secrets that the city continually offers up.

*Lately my daydreams have been about what I’m going to create for knitpro Needlecraft Art Show, whose deadline has been changed to June 1st! Oh, the possibilities!

the soundtrack of spring.

| Betsy

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Lately soundtracks have been on my mind.

The past few weeks my head has been full of the sounds of The Decemberists, Edith Frost Sebadoh and Silver Scooter.

And I’ve been thinking about the soundtracks that permeate our lives. How they change over time and vary with our surroundings.

I’m back in London for a week and am remembering how whenever I think of the city I think of trains and when I think of North Carolina I think of chirping birds outside my window.

I never quite made a conscious decision on the matter, but somehow the sounds of trains and birds have imprinted themselves onto my brain as sounds of comfort and home, independent of one another, each denoting different locations.

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While North Carolina makes me want to run around barefoot in the grass and drink sweet tea at weekend cookouts and make pretty things, London makes me want to urgently create due to its raw energy and constant grind never ceasing to inspire me with its contrast of decay and renewal.

Even though the birds and the trains and the things I create change, the music I’m listening to rarely does. Even though in my youth I listened to nothing but loud and screamy bands, I’ve been listening to prettier music as of late, music that is best described as bittersweet. Because instead of overarching sadnesses that so often belong to youth, I’ve grown into loving the bittersweetness that prevails more often than not as youth passes. And come to enjoy the flipped sides of coins and the greener side of the grass.

While may this may seem completely inconsequential and ludicrous, I see in it a perfect analogy to my feeling about the world of craft lately. Due to the resurgence of handmade crafts over the past few years, I’ve seen so many people flourish and grow.

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But lately, I’ve seen more than a few people whose work I admire very much begin to doubt their own consequence and strength. Begin to burn out because they don’t believe that what they are doing is worth their time or energy or money. And all I want to do is whisper to them that it’s not all in vain that their work is important and valid and not inconsequential.

But that’s the power of soundtracks, isn’t it? That sometimes we forget to listen to the birds or the trains or the music or our own inner voices and just hear the negative soundtracks that we started to record in our fragile youths. And we forget that all we have to do is simply change the tape and put on something new.

So I guess this entry is for anyone out there who feels burntout and tired and unoriginal and drained and boring. And just a tiny reminder to remember why you started making art in the first place.

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what’s in a name?

| Betsy

Sometimes I think that there is a danger in definition.

Even though it’s not something I’ve ever really mentioned here, I began this blog a few years ago because I really believed that there is a special kind of energy created when craft and activism are done in conjunction.

While it’s seen me through many different moves, thoughts, periods in politics, I was really just curious if it was possible to promote an idea without really self-promoting via the wonders of the internet. I’m happy to note that now instead of just two links (here and here, there are over 300. There’s even a formal definition over at Wikipedia!

Lately I’ve been wondering what different directions I want to go in on here, so if you have any ideas, feel free to get in touch.

Even though I write alot about different places/projects to donate your various efforts, craftivism (to me, atleast) is about more than that.

It’s also about using your talents as a way to note your dissent, approval, frustration or other various emotions in a mode other than bog standard marching with placards and yelling.

The quietest forms of protest will always win my heart and my love. Because they find a way for us to rethink and reexamine our own thoughts.

So you can imagine I was more than pleased to come across the work of Patrice Lehocky of Takewrning.com.

The way that

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becomes

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reminds me of the myriad ways that craft and activism will always be intrinsically intertwined. And reinstates my adoration and belief in quiet acts of protest.