georgia

Definin’ Shrimpin’ and A Whole Mess of Seagulls.

| Betsy

It’s funny how quick we can cling to our ideals so much that we overlook stark realities. How we can wrap ourselves up in our own lives and thoughts and projects and fail to really truly see what’s right in front of us. Recently there has been some discussion online about what craftivism is. Is it this? Is it that? Who can use it? What can it be used for? To me, it’s an umbrella term that captures every movement you consciously make towards making the world a better place via your creativity.

It’s become something so broad and so open-ended that in some ways it’s caused problems instead of helped to identify or explain. So one of the things on my to-do list is to capture the various definitions I’ve used to define craftivism in one place, along with the definitions from others, with this collection made in the hopes that if you’re trying to figure out what this all means craftivism.com can serve as a resource with an aim toward making things more understandable and less amorphous. And there will also be this blog that is updated semi-regularly about the everyday aspects of what it can mean to live an ethical life in modernity.

I’ve also started drafting a FAQ document so if people want to know quick answers they can find them. Eventually, I’d like to have other things linked to the site that others have written about craftivism (essays, theses, etc.) but it’s all a work in progress, much like life itself. Have any ideas? Definitions? Queries? Advice? Things to include? Then please feel free to either comment below or email me, as always. And since it’s just me, myself and I round these parts, it may take me a bit to get back to you, but I will, I promise!



That all being said, here are a few photographs taken from a recent expedition on a former commercial shrimping boat off the coast of Georgia. After only two hours on the boat, I was struck by how difficult and raw and backbreaking the work was, and again reminded how it’s not always necessary to look half a world away to find those in different circumstances or situations or livelihoods. I spent a fair share of those scant hours talking to the teenage son of the shrimp boat captain who had been shrimping since he was 9 years old.

Not only are the coastal regions of southern Georgia beautiful, I had no idea how enriched they were with ocean life. Even though I know that lots of interesting creatures and crawlers live under the sea, given its all too often calm surface, it’s easy to forget just how varied and fascinating the findings are once you peek under the water. Hammerhead sharks, eels, horseshoe crabs, blowfish, flounder, crab, hermit crabs, rays and shrimp were just some of the animals that plopped down on the sorting table, all but the shrimp returned to the sea. Dolphins and sea gulls followed the boat playfully, jumping and screeching, respectively.

We talked about working from sunup to sunset to how hard it is to make a living on the sea to the cost of fuel to the dangers of what can lurk in the nets. It was the perfect analogy of life and all of its varied crevices, how nothing is as smooth as it seems or solely black and white, how every decision we make is based on the millions of events in our lives that have occurred up til now. But perhaps most importantly, it was a reminder of how to keep our eyes open to the fact that no matter how something or someone may look, they are always, without exception, more varied, more amazing and more surprising than what you may see at first glance.

So, with that in mind, I try to define a term that has many definitions and uses in a world that’s just as complex. But that’s what’s so exciting, that what I gain from it may differ from what you gain from it, and still at the end of the day, we are all heading towards the same place. Like the sea and our lives, it’s all changing and moving and evolving as time continues, which makes everything all the more delicious indeed.

roots.

| Betsy

Back from the beach, where I had the pleasure of watching dolphins swim in the quiet Southern Georgia ocean waters and the displeasure of talking really loud to my grandfather (who my grandmother states is “deaf as a post”). It was wonderful to spend time with them (I’m of the frame of mind that grandparents are magical) and just talk.

My grandfather delights in telling stories of growing up in rural Georgia, starting out as a young lawyer in a segregated South and later on becoming a judge. As a child, I was always amazed as we would drive around their town and everyone would stop and wave at him like he was royalty. Later on, I would go and watch him hold court, completely weirded out by the fact that my grandfather (the kindest sweetest man) held the power to put people in jail. He still works some of the time, and I’m amazed at his ability to make fair and just judgements regarding any possible situation.

My grandmother and I have graduated from just talking about school or how I had my hair cut. And it is secretly one of the best gifts I have ever received from knitting. Yesterday we drove around town, took a walk down the pier, cooed over the variety of yarns available in the local stitching shop. You see, I don’t knit because it’s trendy or even because I’m fascinated with historical methods of needlecraft. I knit because I can finally talk to my grandmother. After our afternoon out, she sat next to me on the couch and showed me how to deftly wield a crochet hook, and it was so simple and beautiful that it almost brought tears to my eyes.

In the stitching shop, I was fascinated at her fascination with the way that knitting has gained popularity over the past few years. She kept eyeing the yarns and books and pointing interesting things out to me. Although I was ogling all the beautiful craft supplies around me, I kept getting distracted thinking about how very glad I am that something as simple as knitting as increased my vocabulary with my grandmother tenfold.

Often people say something to me along the lines of “I don’t have the patience to knit/embroider/craft,” “It’s too hard,” “I could never do that.” To which I always reply, “Of course you can, it’s easy.” But what I keep forgetting is that sometimes there’s a reason why we learn to certain lessons when.

Every morning I read a passage from Everday Mind: 366 Reflections on the Buddhist Path. The one that keeps popping in my head is from February 8 by Pema Chodron,

We try so hard to hang on to the teachings and “get it,” but actually the truth sinks in like rain into very hard earth. The rain is very gentle, and we soften up slowly at our own speed. But when that happens, something has fundamentally changed in us. That hard earth has softened. It doesn’t seem to happen by trying to get it or capture it. It happens by letting go; it happens by relaxing your mind, and it happens by the aspiration and the longing to want to communicate with yourself and others. Each of us finds our own way.

On my drive down to Georgia after writing the previous post, I was reminded of this. And how sometimes it’s okay not to officially have a Plan B. As long as you remember to be aware of where you are, what you’re doing and what’s around you. Because sometimes the most amazing options uncover themselves. But only when you’re ready.