Working On: making because i want to

A decade ago, when I was first learning how to make yarn on a drop spindle, I was unfortunate enough to work with a group of, to be frank, the most truly un-creative people I have ever met. Once, during a shift, I was asked how I planned to spend my upcoming day off: me being me, I mentioned that I was learning to spin yarn. I’ll never forget my boss’s response: “Wow, you clearly have wayyy too much time on your hands!”

I was completely flabbergasted by this and to this day still don’t know what I should have said back. The idea that learning a new skill, or how to make something, could be a negative thing was (and is) absolutely foreign to my whole view and understanding of the world. The whole point of being alive, in my opinion, is to learn how to do things and to make something you’re proud of.

At times I've gotten a little bit defensive about all of my hobbies, and have felt like I need to explain myself. (It can be hard not to feel this way when people are constantly calling you a 'grandma' for knitting your own hats.) And sometimes it can be fun to dive deep and try to analyze my own motivations - I’ve done that here in the newsletter a few times.

These days, though, I'm pretty happy just to do my own thing without feeling that I need to justify anything, and there are a couple of reasons for this. First, I'm not out here trying to recruit anyone. I am absolutely not interested in trying to convince anyone at all that they should take up knitting, or sewing, or spinning their own yarn. Sure, I may talk about why I love it, but I really don't give a hoot if you want to do it or not. Some people think that running a mile sounds fun; I think that swimming a mile sounds fun. I know that I don't want to run, and I'm not going to force anyone to try swimming. My stance on crafts is the same.

Secondly, I've come to realize that there a lot of reasons why I like to make things, and some of them simply aren't that deep. It is OK to like knitting just because you like it. It's OK to like spinning just because it makes your brain feel completely empty of thoughts. Sometimes I like to do things just to see if I can, which is maybe one of the best and most fun reasons to do anything, ever. (Though please keep in mind, just because you can doesn't always mean that you should.)

I was thinking about all these reasons why I do, well, anything, and it got me thinking about the Dada manifesto that the poet Hugo Ball wrote in 1916. (You may recall from my piece about Sophie Taeuber-Arp that she was part of the Dada movement, and I first encountered this manifesto when I was researching her work.) Dada was a protest movement based on nonsense and meaninglessness, and the manifesto is, itself, profoundly meaningless - and yes, that is what I want to say. It is meaning-less, lacking in meaning so profoundly that it can mean anything; it's meaninglessness becomes its meaning. "How does one achieve eternal bliss?" Hugo Ball asked. "By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety...How can one get rid of anything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada."

Hugo Ball in 1916

At it’s inception in Zürich, Dada was a reaction toward and against meaninglessness. Artists, horrified by the brutal, senseless violence of World War I, embraced the idea that everything really was nonsense. More of an artistic method than a specific visual style, collage, found-object sculpture, and gibberish poetry were hallmarks of the movement, as artists emphasized spontaneity and collaboration. If logic and reason had led to the Great War, they would reject rationality altogether and find meaning in random chance.

In the 21st century, where we live in a hyper-capitalist nightmare world running on the fossil-fuel fumes created by our own endless over-consumption of the cheap, shoddy goods that exploitative corporations are constantly pushing on us (phew), I'm finding the Dada ideology pretty relatable. It's kind of refreshing to say to oneself, This is Meaningless! I am doing this for No Reason; just because I like it; it's not for the money or the adulation or the clicks or because I am Creating Content - I am making this for ME and me alone, goddammit.

Inspired by this, I decided to make a list of the reasons why I make things and I've come to feel that this is, in itself, a kind of manifesto. It's my manifesto, anyway. Clearly, I have taken my lead from the Art Nouveau printmakers I was discussing last week; my version is rather crude but, I hope, a cheeky homage to the movement.

Perhaps this is antithetical to the spirit of the manifesto, but I made a little illustration of it to hang on my wall, and I've decided to make it available on my website too in case you feel that this might be your manifesto too. This is a printable PDF - I have it listed for the optional price of $1, because I have website hosting fees to pay, but you can use the code FREEPRINT to download it for free. (This is my new method of trying to do pay-what-you-want pricing, and I’ve implemented it for the zines too. Everything remains free with the discount code, but you can also pay a dollar if you so choose.) I also highly recommend using the Manifesto as the cover of a little notebook, and have included in the product description a link to a good tutorial on how to do this. My hand-bound notebook version of the print can be seen below.

I don’t know, maybe it is contradictory to my purpose to share the manifesto like this - but maybe one of you will find it inspiring or useful in some way. I would love to hear the reasons behind your making practice, or see your own personal art manifestos, if you have one!

Well, that’s it from me for this week! I hope you all have a lovely Christmas, if you are celebrating, and a restful and creative end-of-year season. Talk to you soon!

Best,