The importance of Making

I ran across this really lovely post on Boston.com highlighting people at work. I enjoyed these photos so much because of precious way they are presented by the photographer. Especially now that our world is in such a vulnerable place, and jobs are scarce, I think its really lovely to see intimate pictures of the people that create and make the world work. Although there are images of factory workers and the industrial powerhouses that I attempt to avoid when buying things, what is really nice about these images is that you get to see the people inside the factories. There are also some really lovely images of people who are still making by hand, and I love that they are both presented side by side, as people, just working. I think it is especially important because we depend on each other. I may not agree with clothing that is made in China, but I certainly use steel, and that isn't always made in the US, its factoried out just like a lot of clothing contracts. So this was a real eye opener for me, and seeing the people really makes me appreciate everyone role in our global economy.

Maybe this is not such a smooth transition, but when thinking about making and bringing it back to a more local scale, I have been making objects by hand (academically) for about 5 years now, and yesterday I had an opportunity to step back into the first days of my training through the eyes of my students. Well, I guess I should also mention, they aren't really my students, I am shadowing Frankie Flood, but they are my surrogate students, hopefully I will be teaching next year and I can only hope to get such a good bunch. And I have to say I am amazed at these kids! They are involved, excited and bringing in some really great ideas. The assignment they were given was to make a piece based off of tattoo imagery and they brought in a much bigger range of ideas that I expected. And they were definitely thinking outside of the box, putting their adornment in unexpected places, and really committing to the research and the assignment. I'm really proud of them, and I'm super excited to see how they grow over the semester.

Here are just a few examples.

Jake's deathly disease dripping from his mouth:






















Ruby's Celtic tattoo face shield:




















and Lindsey's swallow hair pin: