- 1.
LEARNING: My grandma shared her stained glass supplies & glass haul with me and even set my sisters and I up with a beginners class last month! Something I love about learning a new craft or skill is getting to know all of the materials and tools and how they behave. The small details like how temperature and flux affect the flow of solder, the sensory clicks and snaps of breaking glass, understanding how the realities of cutting and connecting pieces of glass impact the design of a piece. Creating little hanging "suncatchers" is pretty popular for beginner stained glass artists, but I've been more drawn to historical patterns and motifs. Especially those that you might find in an old house (prairie glass by Frank Lloyd Wright, transom windows). So my first experiments have been more along those lines, though I haven't yet explored more traditional stained glass methods like using lead came instead of solder.
- 2.
NOTICING: While looking for good birding spots nearby, I discovered "The Shack" at Waneka Lake in Lafayette, CO. It's a volunteer-run station dedicated to connecting community members to local flora and fauna.
Right next to the shack there's a sweet green space filled with trees, shrubs, and feeders that birds love. There are little benches scattered about for more comfortable birding.
Little lovely details near the shack – look at this gorgeous heron carving!
- 3.
READING: Among others, I read a book called "Cubed, the Puzzle of Us All" by Ernő Rubik, creator of Rubik's cube.
Ernő says he doesn't particularly like to write, but he persevered through that discomfort to share his story and reflections on the phenomenon of "the cube" as well as thoughts on creativity/making and identifying as an "amateur". Here are some of (many) quotes I pulled out:
"Curiosity means that we accept nothing, that again and again we question the fundamentals. We find the good questions because we are interested the “how” of things. That is the only way forward. And here “forward” doesn’t mean a predetermined direction or something that can be fixed beforehand, but the openness, not just of the eye, but of the broader vision.”
“An amateur finds satisfaction in the very task, activity, or problem at hand. A professional is guided by the external rewards his success at that task may yield.”
“The Cubes chaos is always born in the grips of order. Over and over again, its order is established and lost and reestablished in the same form. The moving, colored cubies create chaos on the surface for us, against their dark background. There is nothing hidden about all the changes and the movement. Everything takes place right in front of our eyes; we look at it, even attempt to follow the moves , but in the end we cannot see what is really happening, like a magician’s sleight of hand, but this time there is no illusion.”
- 4.
MAKING: At the Makerspace, I have a large dye sublimation printer and heat press which allows you to transfer images/designs permanently to fabric. At times, it's one of my least favorite tools because it only works with polyester or high poly/cotton blend fabrics and I dislike using and wearing polyester. However, I found an activity I love that uses upcycled polyester fabric to create something useful and functional. I was inspired by a workshop that library colleague led a few years ago where participants painted with dye sublimation ink to decorate "Furoshiki" wraps. Furoshiki is a Japanese tradition of wrapping gifts or personal objects in a decorative cloth that's equal parts beautiful and functional:
This is one of my favorite books that I've found on this topic. It's beautiful with great illustrations of different wraps, and explanations of how to think about patterns for furoshiki:
For my version of this activity, I began by thrifting some light-colored polyester bed sheets. Removing polyester from the waste stream feels better to me than purchasing it new. I cut the sheets into large squares and quickly serged the edges to prevent fraying. If I were making just a couple of wraps I would have finished the edges in a nicer way but I had ~50-60 wraps to prep!
Then, I printed all kinds of public domain images and patterns that I thought might lend themselves well to Furoshiki.
Unfortunately I didn't get photos of the wraps Makerspace visitors made, but they were incredible! Some folks stuck with one image, and others created compelling collages. I also set up a station with examples of wrapped objects, and printed instructions for wrapping so that folks could practice using their newly crafted Furoshiki-inspired wraps.