Entrance Slip: Eco Art
The beginning section of Kallis' excerpt about supporting local production though our infrastructure, our communities, and our schools stood out to me in a very subtle way. In the discussion of consciousness of our products, the discussion is often framed around buying local. However, for the average person, it's about buying local from someone already doing it. We think of local production in this abstract sense of finding a perfect, sustainable, local product that we can buy as part of the consumer culture we are used to. We often don't consider the practical infrastructure necessary in a community for local production to be viable on a large scale. We often expect local products to simply fit into the consumer culture we've developed, without considering how capitalist consumer culture is fundamentally not set up to work with local sustainable, ethical production. It's another side of consumerism we don't always discuss, and one that I've never fully considered. I've had discussions about buying local, but never about designing our physical spaces around it, or altering the set up of our system to support it. It's a subtle change that really makes-or-breaks a large scale system change. She furthers this idea in the later sections, talking about how as fossil fuels run out, our outsource consumer culture really won't be feasible. That's definitely one consequence of declining fossil fuels levels that I haven't discussed a lot. The necessity to back-source whole industries is slightly overwhelming to think about, but something I think can come quite easily to our communities if we collectively decide to. The knowledge, the skills, and the materials are all here: maybe we'll have to re-learn and re-discover them, but they're present.
She makes a great point about having the knowledge and skills to opt out of the consumer market. I definitely don't have the skills to really make anything for myself. Obviously I could learn, but as it stands, I really can't grow my own food, make my own clothes, make my own cleaning products or toiletries, or anything really. It's an area of life that is severely lacking, but one that I've never had enough of a push to. Consumer culture is too enticing in its ease, simplicity, and access, but it is far from ideal in both quality of products, ethical industry standards, and simple human satisfaction.
On the videos:
I was absolutely blown away by the rope making video. I have always been fascinated by rope, and seeing how easy it is to make is so exciting and I definitely want to try it. What really shocked me though, was how you said the strength is fairly independent from material. WHAT?? That's insane! And I would absolutely love to read more about why that's true.
The lace pattern was so systematic and calming, but I'd love to see how they did the little special bits throughout. They showed us the general pattern, but looking through the whole bit they'd done, I could see special little sections that were extra fancy, and I'd love to find out how they did those. Also, especially how they started. Starting and finishing is always the hard part.
On the braiding video, watching that many strands was kind of blowing my mind, until I scrolled down and a user named "alice taylforth" had commented "Over one and under two very simple". I looked back up at the video with their comment in mind, and then I could see the simple pattern and I understood what the description meant by 'double braid'. It's interesting how such a simple pattern seemed chaotic at first glance, but is completely doable when you try it.
I decided to try out the rope making, since I'm so fascinated by it. I didn't have any natural fibres on hand, so I used some craft string. It was surprisingly easy to get the hang of, but I do have some questions about which parts need to be twisted and how twisted and for how long, cause I definitely couldn't do as calming and easily as the people in the video. But it worked and I honestly feel so proud of myself! Now I want to try 7-strand braiding with rope that I made.
She makes a great point about having the knowledge and skills to opt out of the consumer market. I definitely don't have the skills to really make anything for myself. Obviously I could learn, but as it stands, I really can't grow my own food, make my own clothes, make my own cleaning products or toiletries, or anything really. It's an area of life that is severely lacking, but one that I've never had enough of a push to. Consumer culture is too enticing in its ease, simplicity, and access, but it is far from ideal in both quality of products, ethical industry standards, and simple human satisfaction.
On the videos:
I was absolutely blown away by the rope making video. I have always been fascinated by rope, and seeing how easy it is to make is so exciting and I definitely want to try it. What really shocked me though, was how you said the strength is fairly independent from material. WHAT?? That's insane! And I would absolutely love to read more about why that's true.
The lace pattern was so systematic and calming, but I'd love to see how they did the little special bits throughout. They showed us the general pattern, but looking through the whole bit they'd done, I could see special little sections that were extra fancy, and I'd love to find out how they did those. Also, especially how they started. Starting and finishing is always the hard part.
On the braiding video, watching that many strands was kind of blowing my mind, until I scrolled down and a user named "alice taylforth" had commented "Over one and under two very simple". I looked back up at the video with their comment in mind, and then I could see the simple pattern and I understood what the description meant by 'double braid'. It's interesting how such a simple pattern seemed chaotic at first glance, but is completely doable when you try it.
I decided to try out the rope making, since I'm so fascinated by it. I didn't have any natural fibres on hand, so I used some craft string. It was surprisingly easy to get the hang of, but I do have some questions about which parts need to be twisted and how twisted and for how long, cause I definitely couldn't do as calming and easily as the people in the video. But it worked and I honestly feel so proud of myself! Now I want to try 7-strand braiding with rope that I made.
Comments
Post a Comment