DAY FORTY THREE

Is making or creating things a subversive activity? 
 
Gandhi thought so, making spinning and weaving a central part of his political image, and a handy way to demonstrate his identification with the rural poor of India.
 
In a talk I once described my sister's insistence on making all her own christmas presents as an 'insurrection' in the face of the seasonal capitalist onslaught - it was intended as a lighthearted throwaway line - and was surprised to be approached afterwards by a member of the audience who said she would never think of making her own things in the same way again.

I suppose I have to admit, on reflection, that the line wasn't quite so throwaway as I thought and though I didn't realise it at the time revealed something of what I truly feel about the nature of doing things for oneself.  Previously I'd put it down to an independent/creative/miserly streak which generally resents paying for something or someone to do what I think I can do for myself, but there may be a little more to it. It may well be a throwaway line about the engines and promoters of our throwaway culture which have come to represent a serious threat to our planet. 

Strange then that I couldn't get on board with the thrust of a book I recently borrowed about Craftivism.* I gave up about ten pages in, though I will try it again, but with a different frame of mind. It was just so earnest, you see. I wasn't expecting that.
 
The author had, as always seems to be the case nowadays, a compelling though slightly incredible back story. In this instance she had become a political acitivist and taken part in her first protest at the age of ... three. Hmmm. No wonder she felt burnt out some twenty-odd years later, much of the intervening period spent in politically engaged activities with and without her parents. Her salvation was a cross-stitch kit bought to while away a train journey while she was 'too travel-sick to work'. Work in the author's case revolved around political campaigning. From that humble beginning a whole new approach to political engagement, and a career, emerged.

All this is from the introduction and I haven't yet got to the meat of the message. It would seem to be not so much crafting as an inherently subversive and political act, (pretty much what I'd convinced myself the book was about), more about the ways that craft-like activities can be bent towards the ends of political protest. I could be wrong, I haven't read it all yet, just the introduction and the odd skimmed page. Even so I'm surprised with how much the book jarred with me and I've had to take some time to think about why. 
 
I still haven't joined all the dots but I will try to work some of it out here.

Provisionally I think it starts with my belief that crafting, making, creativity is mostly about individual expression and satisfaction. Of course you may want to express something political, and that's fine. Or you may want to use your time spent crafting as a relief from the political, a balm against the everyday, and that's fine too. Either way though I suppose I've always viewed making and crafting as about the relationship one has with the work, or the craft, or the skill; for me the continual feedback loop of learning, and expression, and understanding, and self-knowledge one gets while engaged in a piece of work and for long after is what matters, anything else is secondary.

This relates to what I think is my second objection. There is in all things a 'thingness', that which makes it what it is, and which should be respected. There is a 'craft' and a 'craftlike' way of going about things which almost transcends the activity itself - there is writing, for example, and then there is the craft of writing; there is weaving, and then there is the weaver's craft. The differences are subtle and may well be beyond my powers of explanation, even if I were to try, which at this moment I am not. All I will say for now is that the one thing is an activity, and the other is about the activity, the latter carrying with it perhaps centuries of history, knowledge, insight and accumulated wisdom. To ignore the craft, the history and the wisdom seems to me to be the problem with much of modern life, and much of capitalism - poor Captain Ludd. I don't want to see those things ignored for the sake of a political statement, (still less for profit!). Anyone engaged in such activity is in essence rejecting the craft, the 'thingness' of the thing, and that strikes me as a something we could do with a great deal less of.  Rejecting that path toute corps is an essential protest, I think.

I'm not doing a good job of explaining here. The subject, the subject of craft, deserves far more consideration, thought and respect than I am giving it. Perhaps that's something else which annoyed me when I first started on the book. And now I am out of time.

Onwards...resolvedly.

* How to Be A Craftivist: The Art of Gentle Protest. Sarah Corbett. Unbound. London. 2017.
 
Picture credit: Taken by me at the Occupy London protests outside St.Paul's Cathedral in 2012.








 
 



 

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