Originally published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel August 7, 2010
Cory Doctorow’s 2009 futurist novel “Makers” is about people who thrive on labors of love. The main characters—Perry and Lester—are heard to say, “I just want to make stuff,” on more than one occasion. They are inventor artists…or junkyard engineers—however you want to look at it—who tinker and devise new ways of reusing and repurposing (and even glorifying) just about everything obsolete—from old technology, to abandoned malls, to homeless shanty-town residents.
Perry and Lester are okay with feeding the ravenous appetite of a public who is quickly bored and impatient for the next big thing. To their credit, though, they care much more about making stuff than about making money. (This is also a love story, so making good relationships is also a part of the happiness equation.) They also represent the sharing ethic of open-source hacker culture—allowing and encouraging fellow hackers and even users to easily change the content of just about everything they design.
Is Doctorow giving us a glimpse of what the near future will look like for crafters? Will the depressed economy encourage artists to down-size their lifestyles so that money-making doesn’t get in the way of creating? Will the future demand that we be more honest with ourselves, and recognize that most of what we make will ultimately become landfill? Will we happily embrace the restless nature of consumer demands and tastes, and become less proprietary about our designs?
Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between what Perry and Lester are making from discarded Barbie heads, conch shells, garden gnomes and Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls—and whatever we are making. But there’s a big macramé monstrosity hanging in my parents’ hallway that tells me otherwise. Not everything we make is a timeless masterpiece.
Maybe turning an abandoned mall (or tannery) into a living/workspace for hundreds of people (even the homeless)—which, in turn, renders cars an occasional convenience rather than a daily necessity—seems too unlikely. But technology-enabled telecommuting has already begun to erode the paradigm of the centralized work place. Many more of us could do our jobs without leaving home.
Perhaps repurposing an empty Wal-Mart into a crowd-sourced theme-park ride, sounds too idyllic. But I’ve seen Halloween stores, health clubs, thrift shops, and charter schools pop up in these ghost store locations with more and more regularity.
The fact that “Makers” is not set in some unimaginably distant future, but in the teens and 20s of our own century, makes it seem much more ponder-worthy—and maybe even possible. The near-future world Doctorow paints is also rife with crime, poverty and unscrupulous boardroom “suits.” But optimism prevails in the boundless energy and imagination of open source hacker culture. If you’re a crafter/artist, you could be a source of that much-needed optimism in the future.
(In the true spirit of open source sharing, you can download “Makers” from the author’s website, boingboing.net)
- (Long shop of quilt and close up.) Photographic images can be printed onto fabric without having to buy expensive commercial inkjet fabric sheets. The resulting fabric can be cut up and pieced into a quilt in a variety of ways. The images can be used very literally--portraits of family members, for instance, for a family tree quilt--or in a more abstract way. The resulting quilt can be like a fabric photo album, or simply referential, evoking a sense of time or place that might not be otherwise possible with store-bought fabrics. (see http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-photo-quilt/ for instructions)
Open source crafters’ haven: Instructables
I gave myself an assignment recently, to become a contributing member of the Instructables.com DIY community. I’ve perused the San Francisco-based website for a year or two, always amused by the variety of the projects and astounded by the ingenuity of its members. Now I appreciate even more these hacker/crafters who are so willing to share their expertise and great ideas, because I realize the extra effort it took to do so.
It’s not difficult to submit a project, but it takes time to photograph all the steps along the way, and then write succinct descriptions of each step. I made a photo quilt for my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary (to replace that ghastly macramé wall hanging) and kept my camera near the sewing table at all times, so I wouldn’t miss photographing a step (I did any way). You can see my 9-step project at:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-photo-quilt/
If you become a member (free) you’ll receive the weekly project list. This week’s list includes:
Build an artificial reef
Easy Rain Barrel
Magnetic Rubik’s Dice Cube
Paper Wallet
Weld a Barbecue
How to Freeze Blueberries
Trash-Burning Car
Giant Bristlebot
25 Cent Ring
Clone a Tomato Plant
Beach Towel for Two
Stainless Steel Patio Heater
- My husband made this beautiful plate for his parents by adding words to an image via Photoshop, printing and cutting out the image to fit the bottom of the plate, then adhering the image with Modge Podge glue. Rice paper was then glued to the entire back of the plate. Finally, a gold edge of acrylic paint was added around the rim and on the bottom of the plate.
August Milestones
Besides my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary, our family will also be celebrating my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary in Raleigh, North Carolina. So July has been weekend project month. For his parents, my husband made a great 15-minute video with music and voice-overs on his iMac, with the help of iMovie, other downloaded conversion software, digitized home movies from childhood, and lots of still photographs. His brothers, who live in North Carolina near his folks, helped by photographing all the homes the family has lived in over the years and filming short clips of congratulations from friends.
Other anniversary gift ideas
- A personalized anniversary greeting from the white house (see www.ehow.com for instructions)
- An anniversary greeting from another famous person (we got Clay Aiken to send his best wishes on an 8x10 photo, by writing to his publicist in Los Angeles)
- A glass plate Modge-Podged with a special photo in the center and rice paper around the rim.
- A scrapbook of photos and personal greetings from friends
- A photo quilt, incorporating special people or places
- A professional photograph of the whole family (we used A.K. Rowland, who took beautiful photos of us on a Santa Cruz beach at sunset)
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