Author: Betsy

Giving Permission and Paying Homage.

| Betsy

There is something about the delving into the past that is magic. Not the pulling rabbits out of hats, disappearing, shackling yourself underwater to a safe and then appearing at the surface magic. But magic in a sense more real. I found this magic the other week on the morning of July 4th walking through the cemetery of Christ Church in St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. My father and I went out to take photographs before it got too hot, and as usual, I was enchanted by its beauty and Spanish moss. Like all places of history, the South evokes it’s own individual memories in the way it takes you back through time making you crave lemonade, riding on horseback and hoop skirts.

This type of magic is infinite, and it holds with it a special kind of freedom. It holds a freedom where your creativity can move and writhe and grow and dream. I think this freedom is given to us by the past and the way in which it frees us from worrying if what we’re doing is cool or hip or meaningful or if our peers or families or friends will like it. It frees us from the “will it be enoughs?” by reminding us that we are on a continuum. That what we do today will always be eclipsed by something flashier or hipper tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean it still won’t stand to the test of time.

This type of magic gives us freedom to go forth without fear and create without the status quo in mind, allowing us to listen to our hearts and dreams instead of what’s on the front pages. It allows us to realize that we are okay and good and valuable just as we are right now, in the midst of all the dreams and hopes and creations of our ancestors. The past is truly our permission giver instead of our peers, as it knows that what you are thinking and doing and making will have been done in some sense before, you are just paying homage. I’ll take that magic over a good card trick any day.

The rest of the cemetery photos are here.

The Creative Life Dot Net.

| Betsy

If there’s one thing I like, it’s projects. Even the word “project” sounds lovely just by itself, doesn’t it? Clicking on the photo above will send you to my newest project, a collaboration with Kim Werker, The Creative Life. What started out as personal emails of frustration, honesty and openness, we decided to expand our dialogue outward.

This trying to live your life as you want it can be messy. And hard. And frustrating, anxiety-enduing, annoying, and a complete pain. But it also can bring newness in the form of discoveries, friends, journeys, dreams and hopes. To join in this conversation you don’t have to work solely for yourself, you just have to believe that life is to be lived not just endured. So often we’re so freaked out that we’ll screw up that we do nothing, and find ourselves with our heads in the sand wondering how in the hell we’re going to make things right.

But we just need to hold on to the seemingly impossible idea that we will make them right, even if there are a few mistakes and bumps along the way. So go on over and check it out, okay?

The photo above was taken by the amazingly wonderful and talented Lee Meredith of Kim and I modeling our “smocks of creativity” in Knitt’n Kitten in Portland, Oregon. And yes, we bought them! What better thing to don on a dreary day when inspiration seems to have left you than a weird-fitting smock?

Definin’ Shrimpin’ and A Whole Mess of Seagulls.

| Betsy

It’s funny how quick we can cling to our ideals so much that we overlook stark realities. How we can wrap ourselves up in our own lives and thoughts and projects and fail to really truly see what’s right in front of us. Recently there has been some discussion online about what craftivism is. Is it this? Is it that? Who can use it? What can it be used for? To me, it’s an umbrella term that captures every movement you consciously make towards making the world a better place via your creativity.

It’s become something so broad and so open-ended that in some ways it’s caused problems instead of helped to identify or explain. So one of the things on my to-do list is to capture the various definitions I’ve used to define craftivism in one place, along with the definitions from others, with this collection made in the hopes that if you’re trying to figure out what this all means craftivism.com can serve as a resource with an aim toward making things more understandable and less amorphous. And there will also be this blog that is updated semi-regularly about the everyday aspects of what it can mean to live an ethical life in modernity.

I’ve also started drafting a FAQ document so if people want to know quick answers they can find them. Eventually, I’d like to have other things linked to the site that others have written about craftivism (essays, theses, etc.) but it’s all a work in progress, much like life itself. Have any ideas? Definitions? Queries? Advice? Things to include? Then please feel free to either comment below or email me, as always. And since it’s just me, myself and I round these parts, it may take me a bit to get back to you, but I will, I promise!



That all being said, here are a few photographs taken from a recent expedition on a former commercial shrimping boat off the coast of Georgia. After only two hours on the boat, I was struck by how difficult and raw and backbreaking the work was, and again reminded how it’s not always necessary to look half a world away to find those in different circumstances or situations or livelihoods. I spent a fair share of those scant hours talking to the teenage son of the shrimp boat captain who had been shrimping since he was 9 years old.

Not only are the coastal regions of southern Georgia beautiful, I had no idea how enriched they were with ocean life. Even though I know that lots of interesting creatures and crawlers live under the sea, given its all too often calm surface, it’s easy to forget just how varied and fascinating the findings are once you peek under the water. Hammerhead sharks, eels, horseshoe crabs, blowfish, flounder, crab, hermit crabs, rays and shrimp were just some of the animals that plopped down on the sorting table, all but the shrimp returned to the sea. Dolphins and sea gulls followed the boat playfully, jumping and screeching, respectively.

We talked about working from sunup to sunset to how hard it is to make a living on the sea to the cost of fuel to the dangers of what can lurk in the nets. It was the perfect analogy of life and all of its varied crevices, how nothing is as smooth as it seems or solely black and white, how every decision we make is based on the millions of events in our lives that have occurred up til now. But perhaps most importantly, it was a reminder of how to keep our eyes open to the fact that no matter how something or someone may look, they are always, without exception, more varied, more amazing and more surprising than what you may see at first glance.

So, with that in mind, I try to define a term that has many definitions and uses in a world that’s just as complex. But that’s what’s so exciting, that what I gain from it may differ from what you gain from it, and still at the end of the day, we are all heading towards the same place. Like the sea and our lives, it’s all changing and moving and evolving as time continues, which makes everything all the more delicious indeed.

One + One + One + One.

| Betsy

Today, I turn 34. I think getting older is always amusing when you compare your current age to your childhood thoughts concerning it. For example, when I was young, I couldn’t even comprehend the age 34 because it seemed so old. And the people on Thirtysomething? Wow… they were arguing about affairs and layoffs and childcare, which seemed unthinkable when all I wanted to do was run around like a feral child playing hide-and-seek in my neighbor’s front yard, an acre of forest. On a hill, no less. We had our own world of fake leaf money and dead trees to take refuge in and branches to swing on where time seemed to stop, especially the land of adults and bills and jobs.

Now, solidly in adulthood we try and navigate our ways outside our wilds of childhood, amazed and delighted when we find rare moments of those past days where our very present seemed so impossible to imagine. Those were the days when we could count our friends on one hand, two if we were lucky. The world was still made up of individuals not a seething mass of humanity and all its permutations. Well, despite appearances, the world is still made up of individuals. One + one + one + one = revolution. The news presents culture en masse with news blips and panoramic photos and photos of unknown people on the street, and we are not worth 2 seconds of soundbites or a camera span or an anonymous photo.

We are individuals. And in joining together we connect and form a revolution made up of individuals, not unknown people. Instead of one large knot we are like George Seurat’s adventures in pointilism each providing a vital part of the whole. With that in mind, the link below takes you to an incredible interactive map of the dead and detained from events surrounding the Iranian election. And by no means is it a comprehensive list. I think breaking down the anonymity helps to remind us that no matter what the news may so often tells us, we do not go unnoticed.

Breaking the masses down into individual faces and names makes us face the individual parts, made up of individual friends and relatives and co-workers. When so often faced with the nameless, it’s hard to see yourself in the person on the street in Tehran or fighting against a Chinese police officer or any of the countless places news stories take us. In the giganticness of it all, it can be hard to make sense of everything, how we grow from children of our neighborhoods to adults of the world. Yesterday I came across a quote from Arundhati Roy from The Cost of Living that perfectly explains the joys and tragedies and truths of living life:

“The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead. […] To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”— Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

Perfect. Just perfect.

The Presents and The Past.

| Betsy

Lately, we’ve been all about presents around here. Presents for new puppies, new babies and old birthdays. I’ve been monopolizing a lot of time with my new main man, Ari, who is just over 8 weeks.

I was also extremely lucky to spend time with a genealogy book my grandmother made that goes back to the 1600s! So, along with new things, I’ve been hanging out with a few old things, too.

It’s amazing what new projects and ideas you can spark by changing your focus, even if for only a few minutes. Playing with Ari in the backyard, watching him play with his favorite toy (a giant warthog!) makes me think about being a little kid and how everything was new and exciting and things like stairs are the coolest thing ever. And these old photos have reminded me of histories and stories and fancy dresses and new discoveries in the world that must have delighted my family members on a regular basis.

What can inspire you that you might be overlooking? What does inspire you? I also have a new reading list of some amazing historical and textile things, but it will have to wait til later, my grandmother, lunch and new (yet old) stories await.