Pimp Cups and Soulcraft

My Advanced Material Culture class took an interesting turn this week: we made pimp cups. (For those of you unfamiliar with these artifacts, look here, here and here.) The genesis of this project was my request for someone to share a craft with the rest of the class. I'd made this request at the beginning of the semester, but no one stepped up at the time. They claimed not to know how to make anything, or nothing very interesting. Thanks to Fiona, we all know how to make pimp cups now. She supplied the blanks, bling and glue, and I chipped in to help pay the bill. My observations:

• I have not seen a class so quiet since the last time I gave a final exam. They were totally absorbed for about 30 minutes. Even the ones who are usually checking their phones or "taking notes" on their laptops.
• They got the connections between this activity and our first text "Shop Class as Soulcraft". Yes, craft engages the mind, Yes, it's problem-solving. Yes, materials impose discipline. (Be careful with the epoxy, or you make a mess or even glue your fingers together.)
  

Today, I am going to show them how to crochet a granny square, and we'll talk about crafting as part of childhood. I have some toy catalogs to share that might help jog their memories. The first day of class, one of my students made an off-hand comment about crafts are "kid stuff", and it keeps calling me back. Nearly all of the crafts I do today I learned as child, yet I don't see them as childish. The processes we learn as children have the potential to grow and mature as we do.

Artifacts of Loss -- and Survival

My Craft and production class is discussing Jane Dusselier's amazing and heart-breaking book, Artifacts of Loss. Dusselier uses material culture -- arts, crafts, gardens and other creations -- to describe and analyze the lives of Japanese-Americans in WWII concentration camps. One of the questions I've been mulling over is whether any handmade objects survived from the Nazi concentration camps. So far, I have found only this:

Eva Klein David — Clandestine Crafts That Saved Lives

Still looking for more, will post if I find any.

Spring course: Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life

It's only October and barely fall, but I am working on my new spring course on Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life. The Craft and Production course is going well, considering attendance has been cut by a third for the few weeks and yesterday was even worse (5 students out of 11 showed up!). The size of the class is a bit disappointing, but that's probably a function of the prerequisite and the craziness of all the AMST upper level being offered at the same time. Here's my pitch for the spring course:

AMST498C Consumer Culture: Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life (Spring 2010 W 4:00pm- 6:40pm)
Prerequisite: AMST201 AND either AMST203 or AMST205.

American Studies scholars have argued that consumer culture has eclipsed civic culture in its importance in American life.  This argument maintains that we define ourselves as Americans by what we consume; even the iconic American Dream is often expressed in terms of possessions. In AMST201 and AMS203 or AMST205 you have probably been exposed to texts or conducted research about advertising, marketing, consumer-identity, branding, and other aspects of consumption. In AMST 498C we will examine another strand in this narrative: the efforts, movements and trends that resist or oppose excessive consumption. Sometimes these impulses spring from necessity (the Great Depression, wartime) but often they are rooted in convictions about the moral peril of personal wealth or about environmental sustainability. We will consider historical evidence (Puritan sumptuary laws, Utopian communities, 60s communes) as well as recent trends such as frugality and Voluntary Simplicity.

I am considering offering it publicly via iTunesU, just in case the actual student count is anemic.

Update (response to a student query):

Working list of texts -
The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture (David Shi)
The Machine in the Garden (Leo Marx) (maybe... it's an American Studies classic)
The Good Life (Scott Nearing)
one of the many recent books on Voluntary Simplicity (or I may offer a choice on this one...)
selections from Theory of the Leisure Class (Thorstein Veblen) and Walden (Henry David Thoreau)
We'll also be viewing some excellent documentaries (such as Afluenza), blogs and websites (Center for the New American Dream, Adbusters)

As for format, with 2 hours and 40 minutes to fill, I am thinking about 1/3 lecture, 1/3 discussion, 1/3 other (viewing, student sharing).

Crafting as a Walkabout

For nearly two years, I've included a "walkabout" in my weekly schedule. It's an idea I adapted from a colleague's description of an Australian aboriginal practice of taking off from regular work for a short period of living in the bush. We were discussing it in the context of my up-coming sabbatical, because at the time I was trying to find a balance between setting up a rigid work schedule and wanting to have the time and mental space to "wander". I decided to experiment with weekly "walkabouts" -- days when I would let go of my work routine. I've stuck with the practice because it works. My productivity hasn't suffered, and the "walkabout" itself has resisted routinization.

When the weather is fine, I escape to the outdoors. I board the Metro at my local station; I have no idea where I'll get off, and sometimes I have ridden to the end of the line and part of the way back before deciding. While I ride, I listen to music. Sometimes I go to a garden, sometimes to zoo, sometimes a museum. if a work idea pops into my head, I write it down and let it go.

The weather was decidedly NOT fine this week; Friday was hot, humid and stormy. So I used crafting as my walkabout. Reaching into my stack of commenced projects, I spent the day making a simple shell in an autumn-hued paisley challis. Crafting lets me gather information through unused senses: feeling the soft drape of the fabric, listening to the clattering hum of my sewing machine, watching carefully as I sew each seam.  Crafting challenges me; challis loves to ravel, and I needed to figure out how to prevent that. Michael Pollan recently suggested that we have replaced cooking with watching other people cook on television. I wonder if our rich media culture hasn't done the same with gardening, carpentry and other crafts. My crafting walkabout was to a sewing show what my kitchen efforts are to Gina De Laurentis' creations. What is the advantage to working with my own hands, head and senses, instead of watching someone else? What synapses are being connected in my brain? What do I learn? How does it affect my relationship to the product of my effort? To be continued.

More stuff for girls

What does it say about the state of my femininity that this kind of product is the very last thing I would buy?

Usually manufacturers just slap a coat of pink paint on when the marketing electronics to women. Sony Ericsson clearly put a lot more thought into its Jalou phone, which comes out later this year, but still managed to come up with one of the most insulting pieces of electronics on the market.

From Jezebel.com, h/t to the awesome Jacob.

FTC takes action on 'Bamboo-zling' Claims

I've been rattling on for over a year about bamboo RAYON and arguing that manufacturers should follow the textile labeling laws, and that consumers need to be skeptical about green claims for bamboo. Now, the FTC has released two new Alerts addressing these issues, and have taken four companies to court to halt false environmental claims. One of the Alerts, How to Avoid Bamboozling Your Customers educates businesses who sell clothing and other textile products that unless a product is made directly with bamboo fiber, it can’t be called bamboo. Have You Been Bamboozled by Bamboo Fabrics? lets consumers know that the soft “bamboo” fabrics on the market today are really rayon, made using harsh chemicals in a process that releases pollutants into the air.

In additional, the FTC announced  that it has charged four sellers with deceptive labeling and with making false or unsubstantiated claims. The sub-title reads: Bamboo-based Textiles, Actually Made of Rayon, Are Not Antimicrobial, Made in an Environmentally Friendly Manner, or Biodegradable, which just about sums up my blogging efforts on this topic. Read the entire press release here.

It's a great new fashion trend: enforcing regulations!