crafters + makers.

People who make stuff, whether they call it art, craft, folk art, outsider art or something else entirely.

Who What Where: Operation Sock Monkey

| Betsy

monkey Logo taglineOL 281x300

Who: Operation Sock Monkey

What: Making, Adopting, Sponsoring a Sock Monkey for a Child

Where: Everywhere

Operation Sock Monkey’s mission is:

Operation Sock Monkey is a volunteer-run initiative in support of humanitarian organizations that provide laughter, hope and healing to communities around the world affected by disease, disaster and social/political turmoil. Handmade Sock Monkeys can be purchased or sponsored to be sent to children in need of a smile.

Funky Monkey
You can go buy a monkey like this now!

How to Help: (text from here)
Donate a Monkey: Send us your sock monkeys and we’ll find them good homes. Monkey delegates are sent to live in communities in distress to help bring smiles to folks who need them. (You can learn how to make a sock monkey here!)

Adopt a Monkey: Buy an OSM Sock Monkey and we’ll donate the proceeds to Clowns Without Borders. We have a variety of sock animals for children of all ages. Visit the sock zoo.

Sponsor a Monkey: buy a sock monkey sponsorship and we’ll send a sock monkey to someone in need of a smile. You will receive a colorful sponsorship card that can be given as a gift. (Check out the Sponsorship Gallery here!

Buy OSM Treats: Specialty items like notecards, calendars and D-I-Y kits for making your own sock animals at home! All proceeds go to CWB, of course.

Donate to OSM: We’d be happy to accept donations for monkey supplies and shipping, but we also recommend donating to Clowns Without Borders directly by clicking here. (You can buy OSM treats here!)

Become an OSM Operative: Start up your own Operation to make and sell sock monkeys in your community to benefit CWB or the charity of your choice.

To find out more, check out the Operation Sock Monkey website (you can also find out how to hold a OSM workshop or party here) or visiting them on Twitter, @woollybananas.

Who What Where: Collaborative Embroidery Project Helps Breast Cancer Patients Relax

| Betsy

What is this post? It’s a new start of a post once a week called Who What Where, highlighting craftivism-related people, books and projects. Meant for both a quick read and a longer one, here’s a quick rundown plus links to where you can find more information!

Who: Gisela Griffith

What: Secrets of Nature, Collaborative Embroidery Project with fellow breast cancer patients

Where: Lobby of the Shapiro Ambulatory Care Center at Boston Medical Center; Boston, MA

Idea: When Gisela Griffith was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, she decided to research the plants that the drugs themselves came from. (Neat, huh?) Then she started painting the plants as she began to know more about them, then switched to embroidery “to help her relax during her illness.” This began a new interest in ethnobotany. While doing this, she noted, “Why don’t I share this with other people as a way to relax and meditate on their journey?” And just like that, a collaborative art project was born!

Article:

The exhibit is a group show that features embroideries of plants used in chemotherapy from survivors, patients, and family members of all sewing abilities.

The project started after Griffith painted about eight plants before hitting a creative block and switched to embroidery to help relax during her illness.

That’s when the idea struck her: “Why don’t I share this with other people as a way to relax and meditate on their journey,” she recalled at the opening.

Griffith assembled kits, each with a unique plant design and all the materials needed to complete a needlework, and distributed them to interested patients at BMC.

She also provided individual lessons to those who had never done needlework while they received their treatment.

“I liked her spirit. Working with Gisela, she kept going ‘I don’t care if you do it badly the first time or you’ve never done it before. Just give it a try’,” said Midge Vreeland, an embroidery beginner who stitched Curcuma longa, that is used to produce the drug curcumin.

Vreeland, who lives in Maine, made sure to schedule her doctor’s appointment on the same day as the exhibit opening. She said she liked a positive project to focus on during treatment that also taught her more about her treatment.

“We keep hearing do everything natural, exercise, take organic–it’s kind of nice to know these actual plants were the start of chemotherapy drugs,” she said.

Public vs. Private Acts of Craftivism: Which Do You Prefer?

| Betsy

Continuing on from my post the other day about solo craftivist acts, 2 things have come to my attention lately that are 2 very different solo acts of craftivism. Public vs. private. I’m not making any judgements to which is “better” or “worse,” these are just two very different stories that have come up on my radar lately that fit under the umbrella of craftivism.

1. Tramway to Hell

This bit of crochet was put in the other day in Edinburgh to speak out against a local tram project.

Market researcher Mary Gordon, 44, snapped some pictures of the knitted notice.

“I was making my way home when it caught my eye. It was on tram barriers near the H&M close to Waverley Station. Quite a few people were gathered in front of it, having a look and taking pictures.

“I’m certainly familiar with the concept of yarn-bombing, and I know it’s been getting more popular here, but I’ve only ever heard of people, say, covering up benches or handrails to add a bit of colour to the environment, not making a political statement. It’s a bit like graffiti, but without the paint.”

Mary, who is herself a keen knitter and crocheter but insists she wasn’t responsible, said that the blanket was of a “high-standard”.

“I would guess that it must have taken at least a week, maybe two, so a lot of work went into it.

“Princes Street looks grim beyond belief right now and it was nice to see something colourful that was also making people think.”

2. Tina Selby’s 10,000 Hats for Soldiers in Afghanistan

Tiny Selby just finished her 10,000th hat for soldiers in Afghanistan. A very different act of craftivism.

A woman who turned her love of knitting to helping British soldiers fight off the cold in Afghanistan has topped a remarkable milestone.

Tina Selby, 50, from Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, has now knitted more than 10,000 woolly hats.

In 2009, Mrs Selby planned to knit just 500 for regiments in Helmand province.

But, following the response she received from the troops, Mrs Selby will carry on knitting until the soldiers leave Afghanistan.

“It’s a full-time job,” said Mrs Selby, who is retired.

Tina Selby says she had about 100 knitters helping her send woolly hats to soldiers in Afghanistan,”but I’ll keep going until they come home in 2014.”

But, both speak to the heart of craftivism: using your creativity for positive change. (Okay, “tramway to hell” may not be the most positive, but it’s opening dialogue, which is it’s own type of change.) What I find fascinating is the dialogue that springs up around each of them. Public and private. One is just as good as the other, but does one make the maker feel better? The viewer? Yourself?

Do they elicit different internal dialogues? Does one seem more “legit” than the other? Does one deserve more recognition than the other?

This is what I’m working with at present, wondering, why do we do the craftivist acts that we do? What is our individual goal in doing them? Which do people prefer? No answers yet, just thoughts. Would love to hear yours!


A Place to Gather: Modern Irish Craft

| Betsy

Stunningly beautiful video on modern Irish craft. I strongly suggest watching it in full-screen view. Features basketmaking, glass blowing, and woodworking, among other traditional Irish crafts still done in modernity.

You don’t know whether you are going to be good at it, you have to become good at it. So whether a person has determination to learn, whether they have the burning desire to learn to make baskets, is the real thing.






Found via morning Percolate email this morning; shared by @orlaithross and @CraftsCouncilUK over on Twitter.

Craftivism: Party of One

| Betsy

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of emails where people have been frustrated about not having a group to ‘do craftivism’ with. As someone who sent emails just like that until a few years ago, I can tell you, being frustrated is seriously not going to get you very far.

However, action will. And if you really want to call yourself a ‘craftivist,’ it’s not about joining a group or creating a circle or whatever. It’s about YOU wanting something to change. It’s about YOU wanting to make the world a better place. It’s about YOU wanting to make yourself a better person.

You could knit a blanket for soldiers or your sick aunt or homeless dogs or homeless people or refugees or a local family whose house burnt down. You could make a tree cozy for that tree in front of that really ugly abandoned building. You could xstitch a headline or a quote or an image of something that grabbed you and resonated with you about change/changing the world. You could then post it in your bedroom or place it on a park bench or downtown.

Because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you foment change and/or healing. Like I stated above, to be an activist is to create change. To be a crafter is (in a fundamental way) to heal/soothe/bring joy/teach others. Whenever you combine those two, you are a craftivist.

It’s about bringing light and joy and beauty in your life, the lives of those you know, and/or the lives of those you don’t. There’s no one way to ‘do craftivism’ or be a craftivist. If someone tells you different, then they are actually practicing some other -ism, because it sure as hell isn’t the one that I’ve been writing and talking about all these years.

Sometimes craftivist pieces heal you in the making. It’s important not to overlook that, I think. Because changing you is its own kind of activism, because it’s about not accepting the status quo, it’s about taking the reins and taking charge of your own actions. Because as you change, you become an evangelist for change in others, not only by your words, but also by your actions.

If you’re improving things along the way and including craft in this change, you’re being a craftivist. You’re spreading the good word, in a non-confrontational way, and letting people decide if they want to get on the bandwagon or not. With your enthusiasm, you’re empowering them to make changes and maybe even eventually include their creativity in with those changes.

So, take heart, and don’t get discouraged if you are the only craftivist around. That doesn’t mean you can’t act, it means you have even more reason to act! You have more people to inspire with your actions and have more work to do than those of us in towns with craftivist groups or collectives. Activism brings change. Craft brings healing. Craftivism brings healing change.

So, go forth and be crafty, in whatever way you want to be. You don’t have to call yourself a craftivist even, but do know that with your creations, you’re helping foment change without even opening your mouth. And that, my friend, is a very powerful thing, indeed.