Author: Betsy

Just Words.

| Betsy

Like many of you, I’ve seen far too many photographs of the destruction and devastation in Haiti. Today, I’ve been looking for the proper words.

Over the past few days, I’ve been speechless about the events in Haiti. There are some things that a warm hand-knitted scarf or soft blanket won’t heal. And you watch the news, hear the radio, hear people in the street talk about what’s happening, as we all feel helpless watching footage without being there to hug, hold or soothe.

It’s these types of days where we sit in our houses, some tidy, some not, but most of them absolute luxury compared to millions of other people among our books and furniture and full cupboards, wondering how we ended up on the other side of the television. Far away from the news, the tears, the screams, the visceral reality of life in less fortunate places we feel helpless and lucky and selfish for complaining about a stain on the sofa.

It’s these days where everything comes into perspective, but for how long?

When the media trucks pull away, the bodies are buried, the wounds are healing, we retreat into our own little worlds and once again feel righteous when we get angry when we don’t quite make the train, step in gum or someone stole our morning newspaper. Once again we feel okay and drink $5 lattes instead of texting money for a good cause, we go out for $30 dinners, we pretend that everything is okay.

Then inevitably a few months later, something catastrophic happens somewhere where life was already trying, dusty and difficult before the incident that causes us to feel lucky again, once again we see the world as it really is instead of by what happens in our own individual bubbles.

All the good that’s happening now? All the money and volunteers and prayers going to Haiti is proof that kindness and goodness exist. I just wish that we would remember how we feel now when there’s nothing demanding our attention in the media, and that that tiny paragraph buried deep in the international section about a village bombed and destroyed or some other atrocity, warrants the same sense of loss and anger and kindness.

Resources for organizations that are helping on the ground in Haiti can be found all over the web, but I’d suggest having a look here, here and here.

Gear Shift. Plus, the Mapula Embroidery Project!

| Betsy

For a long, long time now, I’ve been focusing on primarily the indie craft world in English speaking countries. As I’ve lived in both the UK and the US they’ve gotten the most attention, with Canada and Australia** lagging behind. Well, guess what?

I’m flip-flopping and focusing more on international craft these days instead of mainly indie craft! It’s time for it to happen, it’s a new year, so -Huzzah!- posts around here will still be all about craft and creativity, just may be about things farther afield. It’s all so very exciting!!

But this gear shift does come with a whole new host of questions and thoughts, which means beginning to ask some things that, frankly, at first seemed a bit uncomfortable. Here are two of the ones I’ve been pondering lately in brief, so you can chew on them and see if they resonate, appall or make you feel kinda queasy. Any reaction is, of course, fine… Just as long as you have a reaction.

First, as if the word “craft” isn’t hard enough to define, it gets even sketchier to flesh out when you add in cultures that still craft for utility, whether it’s 100% or partially. Sometimes this chasm seems almost impossible to connect because the handspun knitted iPod cozy with an owl looks pretty darn frivolous when compared to, say, a handwoven basket created because you don’t have a basket and you need one.

Secondly, we enter “want” vs. “need” territory- a territory so vast it makes you kind of wish you were back on the other side of that chasm, steeling up the nerve to jump. Given craft’s ubiquitous utilitarian roots, (a major separation point from art) once providing vital “needs” in all countries, what does it really say about our cultures now when we produce mainly out of “want?” That we have too much free time and money to sit around making what we could buy? That we’re so privileged we don’t even realize the irony in creating items by hand when most of us have relatives, maybe some still alive, for whom the boom of fabric mills was an incredible timesaver?

These are the questions that are right in front of me as I start to look into craft in countries where people earn as much in a day as we pay for our morning coffee. Maybe you’ll be interested in asking them along with me or maybe you’ll be bored learning about projects that happen continents away. But you do have to ask yourself, don’t those questions also point to a shift in our own approach to crafts? Or at the very least, wants vs. needs? I’m not saying I have the answer, only that I’ve begun to ask the question.

So, taking one tiny step today in that somewhat daunting aforementioned territory, I wanted to introduce you to the Mapula Embroidery Project. The photo directly above documents the Queen of England accepting a gift from the project on a 1999 visit to South Africa. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the words “Education Development” are embroidered at the top of the piece, as the women were not solely making gorgeous pieces, they were making gorgeous pieces with a message. The photo up at the top by Maggie Maepa is a 2005 piece titled Wedding Day and You Can Live a Long Time with AIDS. I think the title alone says it all, really, it embodies hope instead of accepting destruction.

Mapula (“Mother of Rain” in Tswana) is a project of Soroptimist International Pretoria, the local Soroptimist branch who wanted to aid local women who needed to earn a living. Their pieces tell the story of individual women and reflect their own hopes and dreams and concerns, elucidating the feelings of many other women who no doubt have the same feelings but feel voiceless. As with all craft, embedded inside the actual craft skills is the therapeutic nature of the needle and stitching, helping the women develop empowerment as they simultaneously earn a living.

Want more?

*Links for the Mapula Embroidery Project and the Soroptimists in Pretoria

*More info and photos of a Mapula exhibit at Gallery On The Square over here

*Between Union and Liberation: Women Artists in South Africa 1910-1994 by Shannen Hill

*Stitches as Sutures: Trauma and Recovery in Works by Women in Mapula Embroidery Project by Brenda Schmahmann in 2006 she released the book Embroidery and Empowerment in the Winterveld. I can’t find her online, but learned she also was the editor of Material Matters: Applique by the Weya Women of Zimbabwe and Needlework of South African Collectives in 2000!

*Wondering who the heck are the soroptimists? Go have a looksee here and learn about all the great things they’ve accomplished!

**I’m not saying that those are the only countries that speak English predominantly, just perhaps the biggest?

Why “60 Yard Pass” Lives on my Desktop

| Betsy

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

Hello, 2010. Things That Make Me Go… Swoon.

| Betsy

Hey! It’s The New Year! Aren’t you excited? I am! This video of Swoon and her friends transforming the SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine warms my heart for the new year.

It’s about collaborating with like-minded souls, working with people you love, making the “ugly” “beautiful,” creating something from nothing, and living your life holistically. If you’re thinking “I don’t have time to watch this,” then play the video and just listen to what they are saying.

It’s a clarion call to the fact that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, finding what makes your heart beat fast, revelling in creativity, loving your friends and discovering where your work overlaps theirs. Remembering that a good chunk of creating comes from love, in all its myriad forms.


(The film is by Budget Fabulous Films.)



What’s been making my heart beat faster lately:
*Antarctica
*Sprayblog
*Just Seeds
*Orly Cogan
*Ghar Sita Mutu
*Dorie Millerson
*Embroidery as Art
*Where the Heart is
*Weaving Art Museum
*Beefranck’s Emporium
*SNIFF: public interactive projection
*Flickr: Diastema (tiny things made big)
*National Geographic Photo Gallery: Svalbard
*Sinead O’Connor: Mandinka (1989 Grammy’s)
*Communicatrix’s “The Boulder: a New Song for the New Year”

Oh, and hey there, Happy New Year!

Goodbye 2009, I Want A Goat (dot com)

| Betsy

Here we are at another closing of a decade. Thankfully, unlike last decade, we aren’t worrying about technology crumbling or the world ending. Regrettably, however, there are more of us living with our countries in wars and recessions and other problems than in 1999, making us wish Y2K was our biggest problem.

And here at the end of 2009, even though I don’t know half the songs involved, I’m loving the message from this mashup of Top 25 Billboard Hits from DJ Earworm, United State of Pop 2009 (Blame It on the Pop). A song I discovered thanks to a Tweet from @jackgraycnn, reminding us to ultimately “Don’t worry/ Just get back up/ When you’re tumbling down,” something I’d like to think as more of a gentle pop culture directive than merely wishful thinking.

And speaking of Twitter, it seems to have been the buzzword for 2009. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited to cast the gruff and tumble year of 2009 good riddance, with its long job searches, skimpy bank accounts, tears of frustration, quickly escalating death tolls, heartbreaks, warring politicians and never-ending worried nights about bills and bills and bills. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to dance.

And ready to welcome a more altruistic buzzword onto our cultural radars in 2010. A buzzword that speaks of love and hope and hugs and helping hands instead of short-and-sweet technological blips of our daily musings. Need a starting place to get ready for that new word? Or a way to jump-start that new feeling? Check out the video below* (be careful, though, as there is some “bad language”) for the awesome project I Want a Goat.

And remember that the $20 it costs you to buy a goat for a needy family in eastern India will go a hell of a lot farther than the $20 it costs you to buy imported organic pomegranate juice. And that doing good means looking a lot further than the nearest mirror.

Asking yourself, “Why goats?” Look no further than the I Want A Goat website:
For tribal people who are landless, raising goats is a great alternative source of income. Families who breed goats can earn a good profit selling the kids in the local market. The extra income, usually from being paid to read email or other data entry tasks, provides a safety net for families that can be used for things like medicine, food during lean periods and farm equipment.

Whatever situation you might find yourself in this December 31, 2009, you could do worse than throwing up your hands in a tiny wee celebration, dancing to much needed goodbyes and fully embracing the new decade just waiting for us to greet it.
*This project was brought to my attention by the always illuminating Elephant Journal. It’s based on a Saturday Night Live skit called “I’m On A Boat,” which is linked and further explained here.