Yet to be categorized.
i tried to knit you a heart to show you just how much i care, but it went a wee bit awry.
i spent the afternoon teaching people to knit, which always makes me cheerful- dispersing happy craft throughout londonium.
sometimes things don’t always turn out as planned, but here’s to a year of happy hearts, big loves and even bigger kisses.
xo
during a recent google search on the subject of crafts for men, i was a bit discouraged. there was a somewhat worrying link to the NRA, and some links about the ‘fear’ of ‘making boys gay’ via craft as if a glue stick or paintbrush is going to instantly change one’s sexuality.
is there a fear of public crafting for men?
bear in mind, when i say ‘craft,’ i don’t mean the kind of stuff you see at the county fair (although it counts, too). my version of craft includes more of a punk rock d.i.y. vent (and generally lots of loud colours… lots of hot pink…) and creating all those accessories you wish you had. embroidering a skirt with a pattern you want rather than what a designer tells you you want, making your own damn lip balm, canning your own jam, publishing your own zine, etc etc.
there are no limits to the word ‘craft.’
is there a quiet underworld of crafty men that i don’t know about? are you meeting at each other’s houses under the guise of ‘watching football’ and then whipping out the knitting needles and deftly (or not-so-deftly) starting your own mancraft revolution?
i hope so.
because craft shouldn’t be just something for the so-called ‘fairer sex.’ it’s 2004, people, haven’t we learned anything?
i used to have a complete neurotic thing about the fact that i tend to get bored more than most people. thankfully, i’m over that, although i’m still quite neurotic. then my friend told me that whenever she was bored as a kid, her dad used to tell her, ‘if you’re bored, you’re boring.’ this didn’t help me.
but the way i broke out of that cycle was by forcing myself to complete projects. and i began to realize that whenever i finished that sweater or embroidery that had been sitting in my room for months, i was filled with new ideas and projects. suddenly, i was filling up notepads with little scribbles and doodles that were just popping into my head.
most of my projects went unfinished because the boring and repetitive bits remained, and i didn’t want to do them. the thought of sewing up that whole sweater i just finished knitting seemed horrifyingly dull, so i just let it set and collect dust on my desk.
in The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron writes, “Remember, art is an artist-brain pursuit. This brain is reached through rhythm- through rhyme, not reason. Scraping a carrot, peeling an apple- these actions are quite literally food for thought. Any regular action primes the well… needlework, by definition regular and repetitive, both soothes and stimulates the artist within. Whole plots can be stitched up while we sew. As artists, we can very literally reap what we sew.” (p. 22)
it’s amazing, because it does work!
i spent about an hour today untangling a huge knot in a huge pile of mixed-up yarn, and as my hands were busy working on something that my brain didn’t really have to think about, i was suddenly inspired and crafty projects kept cropping up in my head.
if only i had realized this earlier, i could have spent more time finishing unfinished things and embracing those repetitive tasks i hate, and less time worried about frequent boredom.
no more sitting in front of the telly doing nothing, as there are so many things around my flat to be conquered! i love those little bits of time where i’m bored and have to go searching around my stuff looking for things that need to be completed or untangled or tidied. because it’s when my brain turns off that the craft turns on.
today i’ve been listening to al green and lionel ritchie. these two fine gentlemen have greatly helped the creative process even further.
if so, i’m helping my flatmate teach some lessons, for more information, click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page.
my last essay is due on friday, so there will be more updating then. when my brain can get back to thinking about things besides propaganda, the anti-war movement and chomsky.
i mean, really, noam’s great and all, but just not anywhere as fun as crafting.
happy holidays to you and yours wherever you are and whatever you celebrate from all of us* here at craftivism.com!
thank you for your kind words and emails on this here little ‘commentless wonder that could!”
i’m so thankful for your input and for the knowledge that i’m not the only one who thinks that craft can save the world!**
here’s a little link that has made my day. it’s people like this that make me get up in the morning.
kisses,
betsy
*me
**even if it just changes a teeny tiny part of the world