friends + loved ones.

People I love that are near and dear to me, people who you might want to learn more about.

Craftivism, Activism, and Love.

| Betsy

Every Sunday I look forward to getting the Brain Pickings’ newsletter delivered to my inbox. I feel like every week there is something that resonates deep within me, and says things in ways that I could never quite pinpoint or elucidate on. This week’s was no different.

One of the posts mentioned was called The Science of Love: How Positivity Resonance Shapes the Way We Connect. To learn more about “positivity resonance,” please go check out the full post .

Perhaps counterintuitively, love is far more ubiquitous than you ever thought possible for the simple fact that love is connection. It’s that poignant stretching of your heart that you feel when you gaze into a newborn’s eyes for the first time or share a farewell hug with a dear friend. It’s even the fondness and sense of shared purpose you might unexpectedly feel with a group of strangers who’ve come together to marvel at a hatching of sea turtles or cheer at a football game. The new take on love that I want to share with you is this: Love blossoms virtually anytime two or more people — even strangers — connect over a shared positive emotion, be it mild or strong.

…

At the level of positivity resonance, micro-moments of love are virtually identical regardless of whether they bloom between you and a stranger or you and a soul mate; between you and an infant or you and your lifelong best friend. The clearest difference between the love you feel with intimates and the love you feel with anyone with whom you share a connection is its sheer frequency. Spending more total moments together increases your chances to feast on micro-moments of positivity resonance. These micro-moments change you.

Don’t let the quotes I pulled from this post mislead you (entirely), as it definitely is a champion of “the necessary physicality of love.” And, I am, too. However, at the end of the day, I like to think of craftivism as part and parcel love letter to the world, as sometimes in your love letters you express anger or regret or shame or any number of negative emotions before you begin to roll over on your back and expose your soft belly underside, the squooshy, mooshy, lovey dovey parts that mend all things back together and show that, no matter what your discontent, love still remains above all.

Whether you’re making quilt squares to donate to charity or creating protest banners and leaving them in public places or making xstitch pieces to voice your anger or knitting mittens for the homeless in your spare time or realizing that crochet is saving your life… it’s all a love letter to craft, activism, and craftivism.

And, in that, there is infinite beauty and depth and heart and soul and love.

When I started all of this I did so as a reaction to the negative connotations of the word “activism.” I never knew that I was really wanting to connect “love” to activism more so than craft! Because each time we do something that helps others with our craft we are creating our own “micro-moments” of love in our own hearts that maybe we’ll either give to ourselves if we need it or to others. We’re cultivating and harnessing love and care as we open dialogues and our own hearts with what we make with our hands.

As craftivists we are lucky enough to have a process in which to heal us, and a product with which to help others. We are lucky to have the time to let what we’re making sink in and resonate deep within us as we make it, and then lucky enough to have the chance and the freedom with which to share it. The process warms our own hearts as much as the products warm the hearts (and bodies and souls) of others. And, in that, I find infinite love and am happy that there are others that feel the same way.

Thank you, in helping to send your love letters out into the world in whichever way you see best. Thank you for creating more “micro-moments” from which to draw love, feel love, and be love. By willing to express your inner thoughts and then share them with the world through craft, you are creating the conditions of love and acting as a reminder that activism can be a 4-letter word, just one filled with joy instead of hate.

Help Fund the Little Book of Craftivism!

| Betsy

So, the wonderful Craftivist Collective needs your help in writing their book! I’ve given money to this project and fully support and believe in it, and hope you will, too.

To learn more, check out the video below and their words about the book:

What We Need & What You Get

We need £6,000 to produce a small book of craftivism. It sounds like a lot but we want a high quality beautiful thing people will keep and share. It will

explain the and benefit of craftivism for maker, viewer and reciever
have a gallery of things we’ve done for people to do or be inspired to do their own stuff
and a selection of how-to projects
We’ve got all the contents of the book pretty much sorted, and, in the spirit of Craftivism, are dreaming of putting something out in the world that is beautiful, cherished, shared, and inspires people to do something similar. If you have any suggestions of content and style, send us an email.

Cicada Books, the publishing company, are supporting us, by putting up half of the money. That gives us the chance to grow this little book from the roots up. We want your support, and we would be proud to have your name in a list of Craftivists and supporters at the back of the book. Craftivism is a movement, for anyone to be part of.

Cicada specialise in high-end art, craft, and design books. They create quirky, alternative books that reflect the unique voices of the artists. They’re a perfect fit for our small but ambitious project.

Cicada focuses on collaborations with new and emerging design talents from all over the world. the books have a quirky, alternative edge that reflects the individual voices of the artists and writers involved. Cicada captures the essence of movements and scenes in the artworld that are happening right now.

Cicada Books will then put the book together (we’ve already been dreaming about paper stock!), and distribute into bookshops worldwide with the help of Thames & Hudson Publishers.

The Impact

Currently there are no little accessible introductory books to craftivism.

We want to create something that you can leave next to the toilet, give as a cheap gift to a friend, or pick up at the till of an art bookshop. We want people to be able to make their own project, and think about global issues of justice in while putting something beautiful out there in the world.

In the words of the collective ‘A spoonful of craft helps the activism go down’.

We’d like you to help us administer this rather delightful medicine! :)

To see the full campaign and/or fund the book, go here: www.indiegogo.com/littlebookofcraftivism

Rayna Fahey’s The Making and Baking of Banners and Biscuits

| Betsy

This is a video from Rayna Fahey that for some strange reason I never posted. However, on the internet, it’s never too late!

From Rayna’s original post on this:

The Making and Baking.. was born out of a desire to contribute to the conversation about the value of handmade. All too often purveyors of handmade goods find themselves having to justify their prices in the face of mass production of co

This Is Handmade is a video project by the very talented Penney Nickels.

What’s the project?

From This is Handmade:

IF YOU CAN’T SIT THROUGH 5 MINUTES OF MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING ASS HANDWORK, THEN YOU DON’T GET TO WHINE ABOUT HOW MUCH IT COSTS. IT’S JUST AS TEDIOUS FOR US AS IT IS FOR THE VIEWER. IT REALLY IS. AND WE DON’T GET HEALTH INSURANCE.

JP Flintoff’s How to Change the World!

| Betsy

First off, thanks to Sarah of the Craftivist Collective, whose Facebook post tipped me off to this this morning. When I was in London a year or so ago, I had the change to meet JP Flintoff in person, who Sarah told me was “lovely.” And, after we had coffee (thanks for the cuppa, JP!), I fully concurred.

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Sew Your Own for free, so this morning I bought a copy of his new book, How to Change the World, published by the wonderful The School of Life in London.

Here’s a lovely clip of JP talking about how you can change the world, which has made me excited to read the book!

The video clip is from here.

Now go start changin’ the world or something, y’hear?


You can order How to Change the World, as well as his other books, here.

To read more from JP, check out his blogs, JP Flintoff and Making Things. You can also find him over at @jpflintoff.

Craftivism in the News This Week… Suh-weet!

| Betsy

Text from here. Photo from here.

On Monday I got an email, followed by a phone call with Bill Harris who works for the city.

He was very nice, and said the city’s hands were tied and they tried to find a way to keep them — but they have to go.

Councilmember Lorie Zapf is collecting emails of support at loriezapf@sandiego.gov to show community backing and find a way to keep them in Clairemont. Send her your story, and let her know how much you like them!

Bill Harris gave me this statement to post:

The City is forced to announce that the Stop Sign Flowers must come down. Even with the great community spirit this effort has generated, there are just too many restrictions to overcome. City staff looked through state law and local policies trying to find some way of allowing the flowers to remain in place. Unfortunately, particularly with traffic control signs and including all other City assets, there is just no way to retain the works where they now are.

We hope that the flower-makers will work with other site owners – private businesses, other agencies, business improvement districts and community groups – to find new homes for the flowers. This is a fun program that should easily capture the imagination of our communities in other, less restricted, locations.

City crews will not remove any of the installations for the next ten days unless they become a hazard. It is hoped that those who originally installed the flowers will take that time to remove and preserve the work. Following the ten day period, City crews will be instructed to remove and dispose of anything affixed to City assets as it is seen or reported. The yarn and leaf structures cannot be saved when removed by City staff.

I will be available to answer specific questions about the City’s direction via email from billharris@sandiego.gov

For a map of San Diego street flowers go here.

See how you can make more here.

One of the sweetest things about this project is that the self-proclaimed “knitting guy” started to learn to knit “to teach my daughter. She received a “learn to knit” craft kit as a present, but the instructions were sparse and hard to understand. So, I decided to learn how in order to show her. I had thought about learning for a few years, so this was just the push I needed. That was about four years ago, and we have both been knitting off and on since.”

Also, there have been several awesome articles online about craftivism lately:

*Stir to Action piece from the Wellington Craftivism Collective
*Crafting the Future We Want over at Tck Tck Tck
*A lovely interview with the lovely Craftivist Collective over at HUCK magazine

And if that isn’t enough, and you’re STILL feeling crafty, go check out the the Blood Bag Project. Click the pic to see the gallery of submitted blood bags. You can also follow the project’s progress here

Now go and make somethin’ now, won’t ya?

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