Archive for November, 2008

I knew I’d forgotten something.

Monday, November 24th, 2008

I’m sure someone other than me noticed that there was no link to the shop. Well, now there is. (Incidentally, there’s really neat stuff for sale from wish. Canned cranes, posters and prints … the product of a mind that also thought folding a thousand cranes for a particular project yet again was a good idea.) Unfortunately, everything else I have is red, and therefore refuses to be photographed in anything but natural light.

As soon as the sun and I can coordinate our schedules, we’ll have more work up for sale.

For example, this hat.

It started as your basic hat, and then got cables. The yarn is baby alpaca, and oh boy is it warm and soft and fuzzy. It’ll keep somebody’s ears extra-toasty.

So what is this new project, anyway?

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

Reject Sheep, which some of you will remember as my imprint from grad school, has been undergoing some changes. For one thing, it’s no longer book-centric. I’ve come to grips with the fact that I’m not going to focus on book arts.

For another, I’ve enlisted the assistance of my friend and occasional enabler, Annie.

We both have a creative output centered around fiber arts. All kinds of fiber arts. We’re including paper making, since paper comes from … well, good paper is made of things you can also knit and weave and sew with.

The primary objective of Reject Sheep is to make practical, quality, fun stuff – the kind of textiles that you need, like washcloths (remind me to finish writing about washcloths, I have this theory about them), scarves, hats; the kind of textiles that are just cool, like wall-quilts and lace – and sell it to people who like having good accessories (or tools, in the case of washcloths).

We’re approaching this as a collaboration, in part. The goal is to take commissions, so we can get people exactly the scarf or hat or what-have-you that they’re looking for. Of course, we have some things in stock, so you can see what we’re making on our own time. (I’m selling this red alpaca hat with cables … it’s a really fantastic, warm hat that I’m just not going to be able to wear.)

One thing we’re going to have to do is make fewer things in red. Red is such a problem to get good light on.

So. For now, look at what we have up at Reject Sheep, see if there’s anything you’re interested in, and expect to see more in the coming weeks. (Or email us at rejectsheep at gmail dot com.)

Reject Sheep, new & improved!

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

The new project goes live on Monday.

Hope is very small.

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

About forty pounds, actually. I think that after my last post’s cynicism, I ought to balance it out a little.

I went to vote yesterday, along with quite a few other people. My opinions on voting might be a little strange, but I figured it was worth the effort (for one thing, there was a question on my ballot that I find hilarious, more on that later) even if I don’t live in a swing state.

So I walked up to the polling place and joined the line. I had knitting and moral support from a friend who doesn’t even vote in this town. The next people into line were a woman and her very small daughter.

I have to say, this kid, people like her are probably why I bother. (And the small people from my time as a teacher, most of whom aren’t old enough to vote yet.) Her mother brought along flashcards so they could work on music theory in line, and the kid really did know what she was doing. She asked me what languages I knew, because she’s learning some herself. She can read pretty well, certainly better than I did at her age. She was having fun. It was a wonderful thing to see. This was a kid who still loves learning and teaching the people around her about what she knows. That, right there, that gives me a reason to keep working towards better things.

Now, for the funny part. One of the non-binding resolutions on the ballot was an initiative to have a hundred randomly selected people work as the state legislature. It’s basically a terrible idea, I suppose – but wouldn’t it be fascinating to see how people reacted? It would certainly get people involved in politics, and there would probably be some fascinating shifts in priorities … Frankly, I think I’d be awful at it, and I can’t imagine that I’m unusual in not having that particular skill set. Still, it gave me something to smile about on my way out the door.

Now we get to start on the hard part.

Educational concern? Irrational fear?

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

We’re too specialized too young: too focused on a single point to spread out and learn outside our specialty, concerned only with what immediately affects our path, unwilling to observe the periphery.

It’s starting to get to me.

I’ve worked with a couple of people so focused on what they did as college students – and both of them were recent graduates – that they didn’t know anything outside of their field. These are the people who stock your used bookstores. They don’t know Daniel Pinkwater or William Sleator. They don’t know Lawrence Ferlinghetti or Milton Friedman. Which, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t matter. Unless, and this is important, you’re responsible for keeping a general-interest bookstore stocked and your only real guideline for buying is avoiding things you haven’t heard of.

This got me thinking about who I wouldn’t have heard of, if I didn’t make an effort to know things outside my major. Mo Yan. Bao Ninh. William Goyen. Michael Parenti. It would never have occurred to me to read W. Somerset Maugham orĀ  G. K. Chesterton if people I worked with hadn’t handed them to me. (Speaking of which, Maugham’s spy novel is pretty awesome.) If my co-worker hadn’t said I should try Absalom, Absalom so many times I got tired of listening to her rave about how awesome it was, I’d probably still hate Faulkner. The best classes I took in college were outside of my major, and they’re why I have John Donne and William Crashaw and Juvaini’s History of the World Conqueror. Why would you limit yourself like that?

Maybe I’m strange, but I like learning. I like taking all the disparate threads of everything I can read, and turning them into part of how I look at the world. (I love being able to pick up Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul and read the bit about Lucius Varenus and Titus Pullo.) Is it any wonder that what I want to do is teach? I’d like to share this awesome, fabulous wealth of fascinating history and amazing art with, well, everybody who’ll listen.

I wouldn’t mind teaching art history to five year olds. That is an amazing thing to watch.

If more people approached learning with joy, maybe we’d haul ourselves out of some of the cultural quagmires left over from nineteenth century industrial society. Just a thought.

I don’t think of myself as an expert on anything, really, but I’ve got my moments. And, really, that’s what teaching is about – being a student of learning. I don’t know if that really makes sense, but what I mean is that teaching something often makes me better at it. It forces me to think about the basics, the things I might not always remember are even there, and the better I know the foundation of something, the better I am at building on top of it. So there I am, better at what I do, having just given someone else the foundation to do it too.

It’s not about competition. Competition, in a lot of contexts, isn’t conducive to growth. Particularly in my kind of creative endeavors, things work better with cooperation and community.

I’m not sure how I got from over-specialization to cooperation. I think, perhaps, that part of the problem with specialization is that you lose sight of what you can gain from collaborating with people who work in fields outside of your own. There’s something to be said for thinking outside your comfort zone, anyway. (Which is why I’m a little bit concerned that maybe I need to go learn some serious math. I missed something along the way; it sounds like the subject gets incredibly fascinating and awesome once you’ve gotten past the pesky stuff they torture you with in high school.)