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Craft + DIY = Punk?

| Betsy

Below is the most visited post in my archives, one from March 23, 2004 called Why Craft = Punk Rock. In 2004, I was living in London, getting my MA and had just started writing and researching about craft and community. It was before all the press and essays and was a true time of discovery. It was the beginning of the press frenzy and interviews at the start of UK’s finding craft as a subversive act.

Fast forward 5 years, and I think of all the places craft has brought me and all the wonderful people it has allowed me to meet. I never would have thought that the tenets behind this post would influence, well, everything that followed. Everything. Where did your craft spirit originate? What gives you fire in your belly? As I’m in the process of changing gears, looking for work* that helps women find their creative spirit in developing countries, I’m reminded of this post below. And I’m wondering where this new journey will take me, who I will meet, and held safe in the knowledge that my belief in the power of craft and creativity is real and deep and pure.

*

Living in London, I’m constantly amazed by the fact that the so-called ‘subversive craft scene’ is non-existent. In the U.S., it is everywhere you look and it’s not so much a ‘call to arms’ as it is an expression of something I/you/we can do with our own hands to make our own lives as well as the lives of others a little bit better in the chaos of life around us.

Currently I’m helping out with an event called V&A Museum here in London.

There is a press frenzy surrounding it and I’ve been dealing with people who are calling knitting a ‘trend,’ a ‘fad,’ a ‘craze’ and I can’t help but get a little but frustrated by it all yet continually finding it all naive. Both my reaction to the press interest as well as their wanting to just find a creative angle to fit their byline.

I don’t do my various crafts because it’s ‘trendy,’ although I do sometimes have crafty dreams that include everyone turning off their televisions and making stuff, whether it’s knitting a sweater or making macaroni necklaces or screenprinting fliers for a local demo. Anything as long as you are letting your passion be your guide rather than what’s seen a ‘popular for the moment.’

I’m fascinated by the emails I get from people in regards to their pure love of various crafts. Some of them are confused about what I’m trying to do here with this blog or in various work I do. I want to be a resource for people that want to help other people with their various crafty endeavours. Maybe I’m helping to fill that void, or maybe I’m just taking up more space on the interweb, I’m not sure most days.

No, everything I make doesn’t go to charity. but some of it does.

The other part of my crafty dream is that everyone becomes conscious of all of their actions. By asking things like: Do I need this? Do I want to support this company? How can I help? Where does my passion lie?

It is all quite emo and I’m sure my parents would conclude that I’m now a hippie.

But it’s about more than that.

My background is firmly entrenched in punk rock. I was always cutting and pasting my own little zines (and then hiding them under my bed because I felt they were crap) or daydreaming about playing drums in the next Bikini Kill.

But I never felt like i was good enough at anything really to make my mark. It was only when I started learning to knit, crochet, embroider, screenprint, make books, felt, etc etc that I regained my own sense of self and that fire that punk rock put in my belly when I was 16.

Craft to me is very punk rock and it’s hard to read article after article about how craft is just for ‘grannies.’ I love my grandmother who knits, she is kickass, but I’m also inspired daily by the way that punk rock influences my own brand of activism and craft. craftivism, if you will.

Who knows, maybe you feel the same way, maybe not. But I can never ignore how punk rock shaped my crafting. I owe my creativity to it, and it’s so not just a trend. And some days I get homesick for people who understand that.

xo

*Yep. Got any ideas of anyone who might be looking to hire someone with these interests? Get in touch!

Wandering and Wondering. With Pie.

| Betsy

The photo below is of Chester. Chester lives out in a giant pasture in Fearrington, a retirement village not too far away. Hanging out with him the other day and making a new friend was delightful.

 

 

And speaking of retirement, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the future, especially after talking to my friend, who manages Plus500 Erfahrungen. And how the hell I’m going to pay for it. Tonight I walked home with my housemate after Bingo at a local shop, and we ate what was left of the blueberry pie she won on the last game. Fresh blueberries had splattered purplish pink on my arm, and my lips and tongue were stained blue as we walked home in flip-flops, making smacking sounds both on the pavement with our feet and with our mouths full of pie. There was a sweet sense that the summer was beginning as we soon started to itch from mosquito bites and I kept dancing to Kelis’ “Milkshake” which a new friend played for me between Bingo games. Awesome.

But then back home, I’m faced again with the conflict that keeps rising in my life, where I’m transitioning on the career front from that amorphous-sounding “freelance” towards something more sound and less stressful. I want to work out of choice when I’m 80, not work out of necessity. So I’m wading through job listings, my CV, the stories and advice of others and my own self-doubt with thoughts of my future in front of me. I think that life is meant to be lived and that work is something you should feel passion for, as with passion you challenge yourself and others to move forward and improve.

I would like to work in an environment that’s helping others (especially women) develop their own livelihoods in countries without proper infrastructures. With years of research about women, community, war, identity and indie businesses, it just seems like a natural fit. I love exploring the unique power of creativity and the way it can help as it heals. I love asking questions. I love weaving the intricacies of different cultures together and watching how they create a fabric of humanity. So I’m left in my living room, by the window, looking up at the moon, wondering how to best navigate my future.

It was nice to take time out tonight from wondering about 401ks and retirement plans and finding full-time work that is truly fulfilling and to just walk by the light of the moon and eat pie. It didn’t matter that it was dripping on our toes or on the pavement or staining our fingertips, it just mattered that we were happy to be there. And I wonder about those of us who are wondering and struggling and constantly questioning ourselves as to whether we’re doing the right thing. If we’re on the right path and fighting the right fights and where we need to be. We wonder and wonder and wonder what our future will be, knowing that we are the only ones who can craft it.

Maybe it’s daft, naive or just plain sadistic, but I truly believe that we will find the right path, the right people, the right places. We will realize that our transitions are natural progressions instead of failures. And I hope and trust that when I’m 80, I’ll be going home from Bingo in the light of the moon, laughing and lucky enough to live somewhere without worrying about the electric bill. Blueberry stained teeth and pavement, however, are purely optional.