Making Time

Craftivism: “based on the idea that activism + craft = craftivism. That each time you participate in crafting you are making a difference, whether it’s fighting against useless materialism or making items for charity or something betwixt and between.

I’d like to believe that, but part of me knows that *someone is making the yarn*. And another part of me knows that making nice things is filling up the world with more stuff. It’s a moral quandry.

My Moral Quandry with Making Things

I did fine art, and focused mainly on sculpture. I am quite far removed from my studio practice at this point. I had a problem with making more “things”; the work got smaller and smaller. I had issues with storage, so the work incorporated boxes. And I had issues with making more things, so I started using only found objects. And the work got smaller and smaller, until finally, it disappeared. One of the last things I made consisted of a small googly eye on the head of a pin. It was laughing at me. And then it just stopped. I didn’t see the sense in it.

Of course, I have residual urges to ‘make’ and find I always must be ‘making’ something. Right now, making crafts in semi-traditional forms is fufilling that drive to make, though, I don’t *quite* understand the origin of the urge.

At least do no harm

I’m inspired by the concept of “craftivism”, though I’m intially skeptical. How can making things, make a difference? A great example is at microRevolt “logo knits - a project and protest against sweatshop labour”, where the artist Cat Mazza is suggesting we can make a difference by co-opting logos, and hand-making them. Check out the cool “knitpro” which converts images into knitting patterns:

Stitch size [grid proportions in knitPro ]
Needlepoint, Cross Stitch, Crochet (1:1)
Knit Portrait (5:7)
Knit Landscape (7:5)

The links section at Microrevolt is great, it’s got links to alterative, political and subversive crafts, and anti-sweatshop sites. The blog is a reBlog: re-posting links she finds on other people’s blogs, giving credit to source. Excellent links, and frequent thoughtful posts collected there. (The reBlog concept is from Eyebeam.org, where Cat Mazza was guest reBlogger).

That blog is where I found Anti-factory. The clothes at anti-factory are incredibly beautiful; recycled, repurposed, and full anti-factory. it makes me want to hack my entire wardrobe up. of course, that would result in a pile of fabric scraps, and not these gorgeous clothes.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 at 2:03 am and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.