A Thing
This week I made a Thing.
It's crap.
I'm calling it a prototype.
The thing is (hee!), it was fun to make. I have wanted to put this Thing together for months, maybe over a year. I used leftovers, fabrics and bands with mistakes in them already, broken things, and put them all together to make the new Thing.
In other words, I used crap to make crap.
I love it. It's not beautimous. It's not show-worthy. It's useful but not quite right, not fully realized, a bit jarring to look at.
And now I know. I know how all this planning and thinking has turned out.
Crap.
I knew I was making crap, but I had to see how it ended. Perhaps it's not done yet; I have to find more crap to throw at it, and then it will be done. If you keep working on something that is nothing does it turn into something? When do you call it crap and move on, using the information to make Not-crap?
I had such fun making it I could hardly stop. Every time I made Yet Another Mistake, I shrugged and moved on. This is definitely an indicator that the Thing is not the goal, that the process is the goal. I had to see. I had to keep at it. I had to finish the poor bedraggled Thing.
I totally love it. No, no pictures. Yet. Really. It would hurt your eyes.
How about this instead:
Grandma and grandchild at the Museum.
I'm off to Montana. I have not decided whether to bring the Thing or not.
It's crap.
I'm calling it a prototype.
The thing is (hee!), it was fun to make. I have wanted to put this Thing together for months, maybe over a year. I used leftovers, fabrics and bands with mistakes in them already, broken things, and put them all together to make the new Thing.
In other words, I used crap to make crap.
I love it. It's not beautimous. It's not show-worthy. It's useful but not quite right, not fully realized, a bit jarring to look at.
And now I know. I know how all this planning and thinking has turned out.
Crap.
I knew I was making crap, but I had to see how it ended. Perhaps it's not done yet; I have to find more crap to throw at it, and then it will be done. If you keep working on something that is nothing does it turn into something? When do you call it crap and move on, using the information to make Not-crap?
I had such fun making it I could hardly stop. Every time I made Yet Another Mistake, I shrugged and moved on. This is definitely an indicator that the Thing is not the goal, that the process is the goal. I had to see. I had to keep at it. I had to finish the poor bedraggled Thing.
I totally love it. No, no pictures. Yet. Really. It would hurt your eyes.
How about this instead:
Grandma and grandchild at the Museum.
I'm off to Montana. I have not decided whether to bring the Thing or not.
posted by Sara at 9:14 AM
12 Comments:
I hope that you bring the Thing with you to some event that I can see it - I understand no pictures for posterity.
It would be interesting to hear what makes this "crap".
Is it not visually pleasing, not structurally sound, or not suited for the intended purpose???
The Thing is structurally sound and useful for its intended purpose :). It's just..... homely. Not lovely. Some of its components were lovely, but are lovely no more, due to their association with other components in the Thing.
Whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone: it's hard on the pitcher.
Is this just crap in the eye of the beholder?
One person's crap is another person's treasure?
Hmm. Sometimes it strikes me that you take just as much pleasure, energy, life from being a teacher as from being a weaver. If that's true, then your Thing might be a very good teaching tool, something you can show students (that means us!) as an example of how you try and try again and poke at something, and still fail, occasionally. And yet learn from your Things. As we students need to do. What do you think?
oh, yes, it will be useful as a Cautionary Tale. All things have that potential.
And Ann: I know Not Good when I see it. Maybe it's Not Done, but it's Not There yet... :)
The small glimpse I saw of it looked fabulous - the beautiful things looked beautiful with each other
I hope when it gets THERE we will
be allowed pictures.
Decades or centuries hence, someone will come across this unlovely Thing full of wonkiness and declare it a wonderful repository of Weaving History. You will continue to teach, long after we all have shuffled off this mortal coil. Darling Granddaughter may be showing it to her granddaughter one day and telling her all about Grammy Lamb and the beautiful work she did.
I wanna seeee!!!!! Because this is the first thing you've made that I can identify with. :-)
I can actually hear you reading this post!! And the disappointment if you do not bring The Thing will be palpable, now you have whetted appetites.
There is a lot of freedom and fun in slapping things together, and in being playful. My new rule: all painters should fingerpaint every once in a while, all musicians should bang pots and pans. Frees us up and reminds us that this stuff is fun.
That totally does NOT hurt my eyes.
So cute! (the one on the right particularly).
And yeah yeah yeah I'm curious but completely identify. Part of the joy can be in the Planning Of A Brilliant Idea that in the end may turn out less than stellar, but even getting to that realization can be loads of fun.
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