london

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!

the soundtrack of spring.

| Betsy

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Lately soundtracks have been on my mind.

The past few weeks my head has been full of the sounds of The Decemberists, Edith Frost Sebadoh and Silver Scooter.

And I’ve been thinking about the soundtracks that permeate our lives. How they change over time and vary with our surroundings.

I’m back in London for a week and am remembering how whenever I think of the city I think of trains and when I think of North Carolina I think of chirping birds outside my window.

I never quite made a conscious decision on the matter, but somehow the sounds of trains and birds have imprinted themselves onto my brain as sounds of comfort and home, independent of one another, each denoting different locations.

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While North Carolina makes me want to run around barefoot in the grass and drink sweet tea at weekend cookouts and make pretty things, London makes me want to urgently create due to its raw energy and constant grind never ceasing to inspire me with its contrast of decay and renewal.

Even though the birds and the trains and the things I create change, the music I’m listening to rarely does. Even though in my youth I listened to nothing but loud and screamy bands, I’ve been listening to prettier music as of late, music that is best described as bittersweet. Because instead of overarching sadnesses that so often belong to youth, I’ve grown into loving the bittersweetness that prevails more often than not as youth passes. And come to enjoy the flipped sides of coins and the greener side of the grass.

While may this may seem completely inconsequential and ludicrous, I see in it a perfect analogy to my feeling about the world of craft lately. Due to the resurgence of handmade crafts over the past few years, I’ve seen so many people flourish and grow.

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But lately, I’ve seen more than a few people whose work I admire very much begin to doubt their own consequence and strength. Begin to burn out because they don’t believe that what they are doing is worth their time or energy or money. And all I want to do is whisper to them that it’s not all in vain that their work is important and valid and not inconsequential.

But that’s the power of soundtracks, isn’t it? That sometimes we forget to listen to the birds or the trains or the music or our own inner voices and just hear the negative soundtracks that we started to record in our fragile youths. And we forget that all we have to do is simply change the tape and put on something new.

So I guess this entry is for anyone out there who feels burntout and tired and unoriginal and drained and boring. And just a tiny reminder to remember why you started making art in the first place.

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a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but no popemobile…

| Betsy

There have been things on the news lately about Dubya’s state visit to London. Apparently, his people want to be able to shut down the whole of London so he will be safe and driven around in what I can only guess is the Presidential version of the Popemobile. I was actively looking for a photograph of the Popemobile, when I went to a CNN link, and saw this: U.S. operation under way in Baghdad, Pentagon sources say. Dozens of explosions heard. Details soon..

Which destroyed my jovial mood entirely.

All this talk of activism lately is a good thing. But it’s easy to see how activism gets a bad rap when Spiderman stops London traffic in the name of protest. I was one of the very annoyed people who had to be diverted because he was running around on a scaffold.

In my heart, I think that activism should be a positive thing, not a headache induced by a man in a Spiderman costume with a banner. I believe that while it may take a bit longer, I can do my part to change the world by continuing to make things for the less fortunate, cut down on my own personal materialism and try each day to make a difference in this world rather than hiding under the covers.

But having said that, there is a time and a place for banner waving and making your voice heard- to me, it’s all about knowing when to pick your battles. And if you’re interested in making that choice, please go see these links.

i <3 fridays...

| Betsy

It’s Friday afternoon here in London, and currently my attention is divided between dancing to the new Peaches album, how delicious tea is with soy milk and the political importance of activism in society. Weird.

As some of you may have already noted, I’m in graduate school at the moment. This means that my life is all about sociology and making connections between things. I found this in my notebook after one lecture where I was supposed to be writing about multiculturalism and its relationship to both cultural and economic development:

unhappiness -> activism -> ideas, creativity -> craft

I don’t know if that has any relevance to you, but it sure made sense to me.

Regardless, for those who are craftily inclined, check out this from the amazing people at getcrafty. And while you’re staying in on those cold cold nights, be productive in front of the television, ok?

To borrow from the vernacular, people, get yer craft on!