Author: Betsy

Create Your Own Adventure or Follow the Printed Instructions?

| Betsy

Today I ventured into a megastore to buy a gift requested in the Season of Sharing letter I was sent, which I talked more about the other day. To be honest, I was a little worried about venturing into the visual assault that is the megastore toy section. I was struck by all the instructions and brands that seemed to alienate and deviate natural curiosity into a more prescripted playtime.

Determined to make this little girl’s holiday a bit brighter, I spent 30 minutes looking for the #1 item on the list, “gilitor lava.” I asked a salesman, a woman with a young girl, and the young girl herself. Each time we sounded it out together and scratched our heads. The salesman and I agreed it sounded like a superhero. After poring over the entire toy section, I realized she meant “glitter lava.” Success at last!

Suddenly I understood the complete sense of panic and fingers crossed that parents must have when trying to buy gifts for their children. The dolls pictured above were a special circle of hell as when I walked down the aisle, they all started making creepy noises in unison. After finding the glitter lava, I then set out to find the other two things on the list. And then there I sat in the aisle debating which was the better present on the list as I could only choose one: glitter lava, Easy-Bake oven, or Polly Pocket Ultimate Party Boat.

This fieldtrip caused so much second-guessing that if I ever have children I’m going to have start buying their presents 6 months in advance complete with a researched list of pros and cons. I ended up with the Polly Pocket Ultimate Party Boat because not only did it have about a million extra pieces, it also came with a jetski for Polly to ride the high seas on. And who knew that being able to “chillax” was a sales point?! I had no idea it was so ingrained in our culture that it’s Polly Pocket approved, even while “ice cream” remained in quotes.

I’m crossing my fingers that my little Santa writer will not be sad when she opens up the gift and doesn’t discover glitter lava….which just seemed boring and too Mr. Wizard compared to getting a boat, a jetski, boating accessories and child-size sunglasses so the little girl can keep the sun out of her eyes while she’s rocking out with Polly on the boat. The obvious front-runner at first, the Easy-Bake oven, failed because I just couldn’t send an 8 year old I don’t know something you plug in the wall even if it meant there would be no little tiny tasty cakes.

I left the megastore feeling overwhelmed by all the shiny brand new things that mooed and baaed and said “Mama” as I walked past. It seemed completely impersonal with way too many warning labels and notes about choking hazards. Coming back home to my handmade crafty things was a welcome respite as my house was soft and comfy and warm instead of robotic and plastic and kinda creepy.

And I wonder what the future will bring, and if one day I’ll find myself sitting down in an aisle comparing and contrasting toys that my child desparately wants. Will they only want the mass manufactured? Will they choose Made in China over Made by Mom? Something tells me I already know the answer, I just hope it will be possible to instill a respect for the handmade so their hand-crafted items will give them as much joy and wonder as the ones made miles away by strangers.

And if I’m really really lucky, maybe they’ll understand the freedom and the power and the love that goes into their handmade gifts and create their own adventures instead of being told where their little busy minds should wander by chillaxin’ marketers who give them numbered lists.

Tuesday morning, December 16, I’ll be on Martha Stewart Living Radio! I’ll be interviewed for the show Whole Living, which is on air 10-11 AM EST. Not a Sirius subscriber? You can sign up for a 3-day free trial here!

Craftivism vs. Craftism, and the Quest For Uniquity.

| Betsy

Ok, I’ll admit it. I have no idea what “craftism” is.

I do, however, know what “craftivism” is.

The word “craftivism” came into my life by way of a conversation about “craft” and “activism,” seeing the similarity and opposition in these words as culturally defined, I started using a “craft activism” hybrid. A friend of mine at a knitting circle actually combined the two words into one way back in 2002.

I’m not sure what happens when you start writing about a theory and then thanks to making up a weird looking word, it is commonly spelled missing a few letters instead of the word you started out with! However, if you have an idea of what “craftism” is, I’d be well chuffed to hear its definition. I would argue that the “-ivism” part of the equation is pretty imperative because it denotes craft’s connection to activism, instead of it glomming on a different “-ism” like Marxism or Taoism or veganism.

Bizarrely, Google seems to whip right on by the missing letters…which makes little sense to me as normally it’s hypersensitive?

I often get asked what was going on at the time that made me start connecting “craft” and “activism.” In the next few posts, I’m going to expand a bit of the various cultural trends that seem to have a whole heck of a lot to do with why this whole craft resurgence happened in the first place!

Thanks to the convergence of the quest for uniquity, annoyance at the banality of materialism and the mall/superstore presence, the internet erasing geographic boundaries and the reclamation of the domestic thoughts began to run to making and sewing and knitting and crafting crafting crafting! On a lesser scale, I would argue that a need for the tactile was craved, too. This marked a strange point in time where people were really excited to see what technology could do, but perhaps secretly hoping that teleporting would just be invented already so we could get a hug instead of :)

A lot of times when I bring up the reasons above, more explanation is requested, so here’s the first of 5 posts, with the others soon to follow.

The quest for uniquity

No one likes to show up at a party wearing the same dress as someone else in attendance. Well, up until the Industrial Revolution clothes were made by hand and as a result didn’t come off of the same rack as things were tweaked for specific body types or styles.

Then all of a sudden advances in the how textiles were manufactured came along and clothing was mass produced and you could eventually pop down to the shop on the corner and buy a shirt or stockings instead of crafting them on your own. I can’t even imagine how much of a relief this must have been! Of course, this is a whipquick run-through, as some individuals (the number varying on changes in economics, culture, politics) have continuously been handcrafting their clothes.

Eventually the hype of popping down the corner for that shirt wore off a bit and some people wanted more control of their clothes and wanted a say in color, design and weight of what they wore! In the first few years of this century, a push began starting a craft resurgence that was heavily boosted by people wanting to create what they wore instead of picking them off a on over-stuffed rack. Instead of being annoyed that their favorite store didn’t have the sweater they wanted in orange and only had it in red and green and blue, people were starting to create what wasn’t available to them instead of settling for a product they only halfway wanted anyway because their own vision wasn’t displayed before them in a shop window.

Also, how has the film short The Last Knit evaded me until now?!

*Amazingly, this version of the post is a micro-version of the original. Think of these posts more of elevator speech definitions, although I always love to talk about the nitty gritty details if you’re up for it.

Full Circle. (Kinda Sorta)

| Betsy

I first started really thinking about knitting and its relation to community and theory when I was in graduate school at Goldsmiths College and therefore involved with the Centre for Community and Urban Research, headed by Michael Keith.

During that year I fell in love with ethnography and Walter Benjamin and felt literally as though my head was cracked open. It was the first time that I understood that I wasn’t the only one who was fascinated by the dance and beat of the city, or hell, even knew there was an almost audible tone separate to each city. Or energized by discovering how people interacted with their communities and totally infatuated with the pulse that was almost palpable on the streets of London whether it was early morning before setup at Spitalfields Market or trying to maneuver around people in Oxford Circle or lost on purpose on the streets surrounding Brick Lane.

One of the first books we read that year was The Fall of Public Man by Richard Sennett. I remember talking about the book excitedly with my friend Katherine in our favorite coffeeshop across from the college. When I started talking about my dissertation topic, on knitting, community and DIY, I was wondering if I was actually onto something or had taken one too many long walks on the Thames alone.

I was well surprised when I read that earlier this year, Sennett wrote a book about crafts, simply titled The Craftsman. And I was even more surprised when an interview I did about my craft book, Knitting for Good! was on the same radio show this week as an interview with Sennett on his craft book! The second I found out, I was immediately reminded of the day we went around the table at the Centre and told our advisor (mine was Michael Keith) about the ideas we had for our dissertation…many of them based on the theories and books we had read during the previous year. I still remember several of me peers saying, “Knitting?!? Really?!?”

Four years later, Sennett and I are interviewed about crafts on the Wisconsin Public Radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge along with Handmade Nation’s Faythe Levine and Cortney Heimerl. The show, “Reconsidering Craft,” can be listened to online here. What a strange, small world.

Rediscovered The Faint this morning. Just what I needed.

Oh, You’re So Retro.

| Betsy

1. The results of some grade school career aptitude test
2. Photo proving that I still have this shirt I bought in 1994 at Yoyo a Gogo

I was clearing out my summer clothes and pulling out the winter ones the other day when I found this old Crayon shirt. Putting on the t-shirt, it doesn’t feel so old, although I definitely look ages older in the photo than I did when I first put on the shirt at 19…back in the days where 30 sounded ancient and knitting or crafting would have seen anything but DIY and feminist.

The career aptitude test was a treat, as I don’t think you could get a more random list of mismatched careers if you had thrown this in the blender. But those were the days when it really seemed possible to be all those careers at once, or atleast be a veterinarian and a FBI agent simultaneously while also running an ice cream stand on the side. Those were the days where anything was possible, days that happen fewer and farther between as the years progress.

Today I got my letter from the Chicago Sun-Times Season of Sharing. It’s from an 8 year old who, in her letter to Santa, writes why she deserves a present. Not a whole slew of them, just one. She doesn’t ask for a sled and a play kitchen and skis and a pony. She just informed Santa that she’s done her homework and chores everyday and therefore deserves one single gift.

I spent 8 hours today working on a window display for a gift shop in town. After fighting with two fake sparkly tinsel Christmas trees for a few hours, I kept wondering when the holidays were going to hit me. If it wasn’t hitting me as I was untangling fairy lights and ending up covered myriad specks of glitter, then when in the hell was it going to happen? And could love can really be wrapped and contained within a flimsy cardboard box or skating reindeer wrapping paper?

But it wasn’t until after giving up on dislodging the fake snow and glitter from my clothes and hair, that I finally felt the most holiday spirit. Not because I was excited that I finally got the perfect ornament placement for the trees (but I did!) or tied the coolest bow or listened to “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies” about eighteen times.

It was at the bottom of my 3rd grader’s letter to Santa that warmed me and had me wishing of big cups of cocoa and fireplaces and carols and twinkling lights and warm hugs and anticipation. It wasn’t anything miraculous or deep or pensive that made me cry, just a little sentence that conveyed the hope and kindness that all kids should have this holiday season.

Scrawled in tiny writing in the bottom corner of the letter was written, “Thank you and remember to eat all your cookies with milk and say Hi to Mrs. Claus!” And there was the magic and the holidays. It was the tiniest instructions written with care and concentration to Santa with regards to the wife at the bottom of a letter with one sole request that really finally made it seem like Christmas. Once again, the wisdom of a child rings the truest and the brightest and makes magic (and even mismatched careers) seem possible.

Flow.

| Betsy

I have this photo of Bikini Kill on my desktop right now.

It’s been a nice reminder back to the days of singing along to 7″s up in my room, when it seemed like music could really, honestly change the world.

Lately, as part of talking about the book, I’ve been mentioning more and more about what inspired me when I was younger. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I discovered bands like Bikini Kill and record labels like Dischord and K Records, I was beginning to think independently of my peers, my family, the media. Not that I was necessarily disagreeing with them, just that I was beginning to form my own opinions and theories and ideas. I was beginning to understand that there were options and different routes to take and adventures to be had.

Tonight, I had an event at the lovely Quail Ridge Books and was reminded of all the energy and possibilities I felt were possible way back in those early days. It was a delightful experience with what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow” where the conversation and questions were organic and people were telling me about the most incredible fiber and creative work they have been doing.

It was a moment I couldn’t have ever imagined jumping around in my bedroom shouting along with Huggy Bear’s “Her Jazz,” undoubtedly my favorite song of that era. During those moments of discovering that it’s okay to question and dream and journey, I wondered if I would ever meet anyone else would feel the same way. I mean, I knew they were out there, I just didn’t know how to find them.

Somehow, I guess I got lucky, because all of these amazingly awesome smart, crafty and interesting people keep coming into and enriching my life for the past few years with their conversations, far flung knowledge, skills and ideosyncrasies. Each and every one of them makes me glad I kept singing loud and questioning and asking and dreaming and wondering all those days alone and didn’t stop, because now it’s not just me and my 7″s. I just never would have guessed I needed all those years of fighting and yelling and questioning and feeling alone in order to find them.

Speaking of lovely people, if you missed my interview with KPFK earlier this evening, you can find the podcast for the December 10 show here! There are 3 great interviews on before me, and then I’m on around 40 minutes in! Thanks so much, Feminist Magazine!