Isn’t it a little maddening how one seemingly innocent word can pull double agent duty and turn its back on you just when you think you’ve understood the real meaning? It’s a dirty little trick –one that can be fun if you’re a politician or are fond of sitting around making up puns with which to terrorize people at some later point. But if you’re mindless, or overly reliant on the words you use to describe yourself (traits that often come as a two-for-one special), you may feel a little betrayed when the choicest parts of your personal mission statement turn out to be apt descriptions of the horrendous blatant failures you’ve managed to concoct.
Like, say, spending your day off clogging the aisles of a store pushing those little cut-out cardboard things shaped like objects some asshole imagines has anything to do with your children’s recent achievements, pockmarked by various lengths of wire, stamps of letters (some people just can’t seem to adapt to the confangled future tech marvel that is the keyboard), glitters and other eye-irritants, fake flowers, fake birds, fake art, fake fur, and whatever else can be unreasonably stuffed into a “project” that will most likely end in some poor soul saying “oh, you shouldn’t have” on their next birthday.
Crafts. They’re fun. They’re easy. They’re cheap. You don’t really have to have any ideas to make a craft, but if you want some, there are magazines, television shows, classes, conventions, and of course, there’s always someone else’s creative use of tacky glue and tissue paper you can adapt to adhere disparate parts into a total visual abomination. There are some sensible, maybe even practical, uses for crafts; for kids, the occasional romp with colorful bits and pieces in various shapes with different textures might help stir up a little stimulation, especially if you have kids that, like so many in the developed world, spend most of their time contemplating either Sponge Bob Square Pants or else how 2 desighfur th3ir ltst txt. Some people, if a single-digit minority can be called “some,” are genuinely talented with crafting things which, while they may still offer little if any purpose, might be nice to look at from time to time, or could help populate the homes of people who like to leave little trails of stuff everywhere like urban equivalents of Hansel & Gretel’s breadcrumbs. You get to the bathroom by following the paper mache mardi gras masks just past the diorama of Sara Palin in space.
In a time when people were less insulated by objects and more aware of what was going on around them (hey, it’s possible), crafts referred to occupations. To the creation of useful, necessary, or actually handy things. A craft was a sort of expertise, directed towards the making of things that people needed. It cost money, it made money, and in general there weren’t any fruit cozies being thrown into the mix. Crafts required skill –and not the kind of modern “skill” wherein everybody’s level is magically equal because it feels better when you say it that way. Cooking an excellent, affordable, filling meal, building a house, making yourself clothes, or weapons, or a bench –these are results, and, depressingly, goals, that seem less and less pursued as the prevalence of microwave dinners, pre-fabricated vinyl porta-potties masquerading as homes, polyester pimp duds, pawn shop revolvers, and concept chairs capable of resisting destruction for at least thirty days of use makes everything easier and gives people more time to pretend they’re actually making, learning, or contributing anything to the world.
This doesn’t mean there’s something inherently wrong with the occasional investigation of how different colors of sand look layered in a jar. But I’d like to think that knowing how to feed, shelter, protect, educate, and understand yourself as a conscious being takes a bit of precedence.
Crafts.
Isn’t it a little maddening how one seemingly innocent word can pull double agent duty and turn its back on you just when you think you’ve understood the real meaning? It’s a dirty little trick –one that can be fun if you’re a politician or are fond of sitting around making up puns with which to terrorize people at some later point. But if you’re mindless, or overly reliant on the words you use to describe yourself (traits that often come as a two-for-one special), you may feel a little betrayed when the choicest parts of your personal mission statement turn out to be apt descriptions of the horrendous blatant failures you’ve managed to concoct.
Like, say, spending your day off clogging the aisles of a store pushing those little cut-out cardboard things shaped like objects some asshole imagines has anything to do with your children’s recent achievements, pockmarked by various lengths of wire, stamps of letters (some people just can’t seem to adapt to the confangled future tech marvel that is the keyboard), glitters and other eye-irritants, fake flowers, fake birds, fake art, fake fur, and whatever else can be unreasonably stuffed into a “project” that will most likely end in some poor soul saying “oh, you shouldn’t have” on their next birthday.
Crafts. They’re fun. They’re easy. They’re cheap. You don’t really have to have any ideas to make a craft, but if you want some, there are magazines, television shows, classes, conventions, and of course, there’s always someone else’s creative use of tacky glue and tissue paper you can adapt to adhere disparate parts into a total visual abomination. There are some sensible, maybe even practical, uses for crafts; for kids, the occasional romp with colorful bits and pieces in various shapes with different textures might help stir up a little stimulation, especially if you have kids that, like so many in the developed world, spend most of their time contemplating either Sponge Bob Square Pants or else how 2 desighfur th3ir ltst txt. Some people, if a single-digit minority can be called “some,” are genuinely talented with crafting things which, while they may still offer little if any purpose, might be nice to look at from time to time, or could help populate the homes of people who like to leave little trails of stuff everywhere like urban equivalents of Hansel & Gretel’s breadcrumbs. You get to the bathroom by following the paper mache mardi gras masks just past the diorama of Sara Palin in space.
In a time when people were less insulated by objects and more aware of what was going on around them (hey, it’s possible), crafts referred to occupations. To the creation of useful, necessary, or actually handy things. A craft was a sort of expertise, directed towards the making of things that people needed. It cost money, it made money, and in general there weren’t any fruit cozies being thrown into the mix. Crafts required skill –and not the kind of modern “skill” wherein everybody’s level is magically equal because it feels better when you say it that way. Cooking an excellent, affordable, filling meal, building a house, making yourself clothes, or weapons, or a bench –these are results, and, depressingly, goals, that seem less and less pursued as the prevalence of microwave dinners, pre-fabricated vinyl porta-potties masquerading as homes, polyester pimp duds, pawn shop revolvers, and concept chairs capable of resisting destruction for at least thirty days of use makes everything easier and gives people more time to pretend they’re actually making, learning, or contributing anything to the world.
This doesn’t mean there’s something inherently wrong with the occasional investigation of how different colors of sand look layered in a jar. But I’d like to think that knowing how to feed, shelter, protect, educate, and understand yourself as a conscious being takes a bit of precedence.