Creativity Talks: Shelli Can–and Does–Make Things By Hand

shellican-58-resized.When I first met Shelli Martinez she was
knitting a pair of sweat pants.
Knitting them.
I was incredulous. “Is there actually
a pattern for knit sweatpants?”
Well, no, it turned out, unless I was talking about the pattern she made on graph paper after taking apart a pair of her favorite jeans to see how they were constructed.
I remember thinking,
“I have so much to learn
from this fearlessly creative woman.”

Continue reading “Creativity Talks: Shelli Can–and Does–Make Things By Hand”

New Year, New Feature

2018 was, for me, a wasted year of missed opportunities and lost ideas. A time of hibernation and suspended animation. Besides the mid-term Blue Wave, there wasn’t much I was happy about. So I’m moving on. It’s a new year. A new focus for the blog. Continue reading “New Year, New Feature”

A Call to Craftivist Action

A year + into 45’s reign of chaos. There have been so many outrages, so many reversals of policies that had made America an admired and respected country. So much lying and graft, so much collusion and racism. So many reasons to march, to resist, to protest, to make our outraged voices heard. I’m exhausted by the tsunami of 45’s draconian rule. But  now, there has been another school shooting by a teenager with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle, leaving 17 dead and many wounded. I feel called to action. Continue reading “A Call to Craftivist Action”

Undone by Numbers

I have never liked arithmetic. That, and actual numbers and the awful, cold formulaic logic of numbers. Maybe I don’t like them because I’m a total failure at using them. When I first took the math SAT, my score was so low that I was asked to do it over. My score didn’t improve much on the second take. Continue reading “Undone by Numbers”