So sometimes, you come back from an awesome international trip and move and then get settled and then your blog gets hacked. The past month has been one of those times. If you need to take a breather every now and then, you can play games on sites like í•´ì™¸í† í† ì‚¬ì´íŠ¸.
Therefore, in the hiatus, there’s quite a bit of stuff I want to share with you. Yay! One of the things I’ve been working on is activism of the self, our internal activism or self-activism, I haven’t really figured out how to phrase it (have any ideas?). However, it’s using activism/craftivism as a way/tool for self change instead of changing others. At times on here I’ve felt incredibly selfish when people contact me about the work I’ve done with craftivism, as honestly, it all started by accident. When I started to knit in 2000, I was in an incredibly dark place where, seriously, I don’t know know where I’d be if I didn’t find knitting. When I say that “knitting saved my life,” I’m actually not kidding around.
Crafts connection to activism came out of the healing of my own self. As I got stronger and better, I was able to see how crafts has changed me; therefore, it wasn’t a far leap to see how it could change others, albeit in different ways. Over time I realized that craftivism allowed people the time/space to really think/internalize their own views on craftivist pieces, starting a change in themselves. And it is my belief that this internal change in others is what can make the world a better place, because we change ourselves. But first, we need to help our own selves heal/get strong/thrive before we can truly help others. Thoughts?
I’m calling this part 1, because I’m running out of time and won’t be able to upload the snapshots from the conversation on twitter yesterday with some lovely thoughts from the always helpful and inspiring @MrXStitch, @hstryk, @janislena and @thejaymo.
Also, know any Swedish crafters? The new Swedish craft website Zickermans was kind enough to run a lovely little interview with me over here.
What you wrote about is a sort of art therapy, where we can express ourselves in ways that help us heal. I know knitting means a lot to me, helping me center and relax in the midst of stress. However, I think sometimes helping others will allow us to open wounds and heal ourselves. I felt the need to work with people in the sexual assault/domestic violence field (and am told I do it well), but it was that work which allowed me to face what had happend in my own life. I think it works both ways — just depends on the person and the situation.
As always, thanks for your thoughts, Judith! And I agree with you on both accounts. Lately I’ve been learning just how hard our defense systems can be in relation to less-than-happy events in our lives. Art therapy is something I very seriously thought about going to school for, as I feel so strongly about both using creativity to heal and helping others. Do you know Heather over at True Stitches (http://truestitches.blogspot.com/)? She’s an art therapist and always has amazing thoughts on this. And I bet you truly are wonderful at what you do! Your compassion, creativity and curiosity are a delightfully wonderful triple threat!