misc.

Yet to be categorized.

The Power of We (Manifesto)

| Betsy

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We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. -Mother Theresa

The power of we is important because it includes the power of me, you, and them.

The power of we allows us to share our individual goals with others and to act with fearlessness.

The power of we lets us live openly, knowing that somewhere in that we is someone who feels the same as we do.

The power of we allows us to be who we are without compromise.

The power of we lets us know that we are never alone, that we are never just me, solo.

The power of we wraps us up in a blanket of safety where our dreams aren’t crazy or useless or stupid.

The power of we can change the world when we find like-minded people.

The power of we allows us to step forward and act vs. hide in reservation.

The power of we gives us strength to find what makes our heart sing.

The power of we holds us when we think that me isn’t enough.

The power of we lets us hold on to our personal dreams while also sharing them with others.

The power of we makes us better, happier, stronger people.

The power of we lets us move forward and grow without worrying what is to come.

The power of we takes our wildest dreams and creations and says “Well done!”

The power of we holds our hand when we think we can’t do it.

The power of we is what we forget when it’s dark out and we’re alone. 

The power of we is me + you or me + them or me + you + them.

The power of we is unstoppable.

How What Needs You Finds You, via Side by Side and Stitched Stories!

| Betsy

I have two videos to share with you today!

The first is an interview over at the always brilliant Craftypod with Tsia Carson and her daughter Cedar on their new book, Side by Side. From the interview:

Sister Diane: “In the craft book market for kids, what things did you see missing?”

Tsia: Well, a lot of things, because most craft books for kids are built on the idea of keeping your kid very busy while you go and do something more fun than hanging out with your kid. And there are very few books that are actually about hanging out with your kid and having that be a lot of fun.”

How great is it to have a craft book that is ALL ABOUT hanging with your (or someone else’s) kiddos and making fun stuff?! I love that the book involves stuff on both skill levels so both adults and kiddos can have fun making stuff that they both enjoy making! Yay!

And, speaking of making stuff… Here’s a lovely video called Stitched Stories: A Tale of Subversive Stitchers that weaves together the stories of Sarah Corbett’s work with the Craftivist Collective and the work of Fine Cell Work.

Sarah’s comment that, “I felt like a lot of people were looking at me like I didn’t fit into their activism group” was very poignant to me because we all feel like we need to belong somewhere… but what if that “somewhere” doesn’t exist? You have to create it yourself, no? And by using craftivism, she allowed people to find her, vs. the other way around. “…People have to come up to us, we’re stitching, so we’re not scary.”

Neil, a Fine Cell Work stitcher, speaks to how he found stitching:

When I arrived at prison, I saw a poster up saying “Tapestry,” and I was conscious that I wanted something to do, because there’s a lot of time locked up in the cell with nothing to do. So I thought, “Well, that’s something I’m sure I could have a go at. I often watched my wife doing cross stitch and thought, “Well, tapestry, it’s similar,” and that’s how I got started.

What I like about these two videos is that they are perfect examples of how if you keep your mind and your heart open and your curiosity keen, what you need will find you. You’ll discover what you need to do, where you need to be, what needs to be created in this world, instead of feeling helpless because you don’t know where you belong or should be.

And that’s perhaps what I’m most thankful for regarding craft and craftivism, for it finding me, when I wasn’t sure where I need to be.

What about you? Has anything made any particular resonance with you and found you along the way?

Why Easy Isn’t Always Right…

| Betsy

Age-old proof that knocking something (or someone) down is always easier than building something (or someone) up. And that every time, making something will always beat the socks off of destroying anything.

If you need more proof, check out this post by Joel Runyon… Who almost ignored the stranger talking to him about his computer. He didn’t. And soon discovered he was talking to Russell Kirsch.

From the post:

“I’ve been against Macintosh company lately. They’re trying to get everyone to use iPads and when people use iPads they end up just using technology to consume things instead of making things. With a computer you can make things. You can code, you can make things and create things that have never before existed and do things that have never been done before.”

“That’s the problem with a lot of people”, he continued, “they don’t try to do stuff that’s never been done before, so they never do anything, but if they try to do it, they find out there’s lots of things they can do that have never been done before.”


A Little Bit of Prisoner Knitting: Pre-1920

| Betsy

Over the years, I’ve amassed quite a large collection of craftivist, activist, and therapeutic craft photos, essays, and resources from various searches online. Many of them I’ve shared here, but not all by a long shot. It’s photos like this that truly pique my interest in what we can do with craft. The links below need more research, but nonetheless, I wanted to share them, as they are definitely exciting!

On the Library of Congress>website, this is filed under “Prison education.” And I wonder, what was the greater plan here?

Don’t get me wrong, I highly value knitting and the skills it brings. However, were they planning on doing custom work like the incredibly talented inmates who work with Fine Cell Work? Or was this mislabeled under “education?”

The photo above is the twine plant at Wisconsin State Prison in Waupun, Wisconsin. As you can see below, this was clearly dedicated as a source of revenue, and, it an incredibly different type of activity than knitting by hand. However, a “knitting industry” is mentioned below, too.

“1862 – A cabinet shop is opened in the prison. In the next ten years, the prison will add a shoe shop, a tailor shop, a wagon factory, and an expansion to the cabinet shop for other furniture and chairs. By 1878, the revenues will be sufficient to allow the prison to run without drawing appropriations from the state’s treasury. A knitting industry is added in 1893, a twine plant in 1912, a cannery in 1915, a license plate operation in 1917, a print shop in the early 1920s, and a laundry in 1940. The laundry, license plate, wood and metal furniture, printing and signage, silk-screening, and tailoring operations survive to this day at the prison.”

Going further back in history, check out this, which needs further research for sure:

“The First Poor-House Erected: In 1734, the first poor-house was erected on the site of the present county court-house. It was forty-six feet long, twenty-four feet wide, and two stories high, with a cellar, all of gray stone. It was furnished with spinning-wheels, leather and tools for shoemaking, knitting needles, flax, etc., for the employment of the inmates. All paupers were required to work under penalty of mild punishments, and parish children were taught the three “R’s” and employed at useful labor. The house was also used for the correction of unruly slaves. A vegetable garden was laid out near the house, and the inmates cultivated it for the use of the institution.”

The Holes We Can’t See.

| Betsy

I’m waiting in the car dealership. My car alarm has being going off at random, pissing off my neighbors as well as myself. There’s a guy yelling at his wife in either Ukrainian or Russian and the television is on the news which is warning us (always warning us!) and informing us of war, fire, 9/11, fear, terror, sturm und drang, good, evil. The businessman is finally off the phone, where he was talking of meetings and sales and circuits and tradeshows and now he’s just staring at the cheap carpet, his hand resting on his chin, his phone still held up to his ear. It’s raining outside and the Ukrainian (or Russian) woman sighs loudly.

I have emails to answer and am so behind trying to do so much at once, frustrated that I’m not able to answer students anymore (well, I do, but there’s a looong response time) or sleep enough or fully concentrate on my volunteering or research what I want because I’m working full time and the day to day life that we all encounter loves to get in and muck things up. It mucks all of us up. We’re all yelling or sighing or staring at the carpet in some way, even if we don’t look like it from the outside.

Lately I’ve had more time out because I’m still somewhat getting used to my “new normal,” from the fact that I lost a great part of the last 15 years of my life to depression and anxiety. Told what I thought was 100% was actually 80% most the time, dipping down to 60% for periods of up to 3-4 months and that literally I was going to have to “re-learn how to be happy.” That there was a reason why my relationships, energy, sleep, and everything else suffered, all down to a little pill that needed to be switched to another pill to react not just with my serotonin levels, but also my norepinephrine. And all those years I read self-help books, pored through Buddhist texts, crafted, meditated, exercised, took supplements, cried, prayed, screamed, hid, and most of all, learned.

And I wonder what I can take from all those years as I move forward with my life. The irony of helping myself get better with craft… And then be told later, that wait, there’s a better better than better. That I would be able to be the same self I was in 1993, but then look in the mirror and it would be 2011. As I work on research and speak and write about the voiceless people who use craft in less fortunate companies to speak out, I feel so fortunate, but also a mix of shiny and new and well worn. I may not know much about being at war, being hungry, being homeless, being so many things. But I do know about being sad, being unable to form the words (although luckily I have the great fortune to be able to speak them publicly), being frozen in terror on a hair trigger, being lost, being lonely, being unable to get out of bed, being able to feel the touch of a loved one (new or old).

We know how to fix things that are broken that we can see, we can see the leak stopped, hole repaired, cut bandaged, mess cleaned up. But what about the the broken things we cannot see? The ones that inhabit our insides, the ones we can’t bandage or see concretely mended? Well, for one, we talk about it. We continue to love and learn and laugh and grow and ask and hug and move forward. We hope that better things will come, whether that’s that someone will finally understand or hold us until we sleep at night or cry with us or hold our hand or something else entirely (or all those things together).

We stand strong when the waves of sadness or terror or panic or fear wash through us, knowing that they are just that, they are waves. They will wash through us, they may knock us down, but they will not destroy us. We speak out instead of keep quiet, whether that’s going public or telling a loved one or telling your dog or making a craft. We do it for ourselves, both now and present, and we do it for all the others that aren’t able to do so yet… Because the more we do that, the stronger we become, both ourselves and our arsenal of coping, and the more we are able to help others.

And most importantly, we realize (and internalize and process) that we are not alone.

xx