making

Make something for somebody

Thursday, November 16, 2017

I love it when I see knitters out in the world, knitting. I like to imagine that they’re knitting something for someone: a scarf for their sick friend, maybe, or a blanket for a baby who hasn’t been born.

Whenever I get stuck lately, I’ll make a robot for my son. (Here’s another one.) Just a silly little something. And when I give it to him, I remember that, sure, the gift is in the giving, but the gift is really in the making.

Making something for somebody — is there anything simpler and more likely to get one unstuck?

DON’T WORRY ABOUT UNITY

Saturday, October 24, 2009

don't worry about unity

Don’t worry about unity from piece to piece. What unifies all of your work is the fact that you made it.

I tweeted this a few days ago, and my Twitter friend John T. Unger (@johntunger) replied,

and after a decade or two you'll look back at seemingly disparate pieces and find that there are common threads after all

Keep making things. Don’t worry about how it all fits together right now.

MAKER FAIRE 2008

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Hit up our first Maker Faire yesterday at the Travis County Fairgrounds. Honestly, I think $25 is too much to charge for the experience, especially when there are so many folks with good things to sell…but there was a lot of fun stuff to see, and the weather was great.

My favorite thing was probably the Cyclecide — it’s basically a bunch of guitars tuned to different chords, and as the kids pedaled, the machine would strum a really peaceful and trippy chord progression.

This was a robot that looked really menacing, but just shot ping pong balls out into the barn.

Then we visited our friends at Bleep Labs and Curtis got to play with some Thingamagoops. Adam also introduced me to Will, the cartoonist behind Goopymart.

Here I am, hooked up to the Brain Machine.

Some woodcuts by the Amazing Handcock Brothers.

Great view of downtown from the fairgrounds.

A handful of buttons Meg picked up throughout the day.

The ridiculousness of Automusik.

I can’t really remember where I picked this up–I think it was at the booth of a printmaker…but there were some really cool icons in here. Go over to Green Map to check them out.

And I didn’t get a shot of the watermelon catapult, but I took notes.

See all my photos from Maker Faire on Flickr.

D.I.Y.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

My wife loves to sew and she’s quite the craft-blog connoisseur, so this afternoon she dragged me over to the first Austin CRAFT Magazine Release Party for a little bit. Amazingly, I wasn’t the only guy there. I sat and doodled and ate cupcakes and watched everybody crafting, and it got me thinking about do-it-yourself, and how our generation as a whole is becoming more interested in making things. (Witness Maker Faire.)

I also started thinking about artists who not only make their art, they TEACH others how to make art. This, in a way, not only makes them even more beloved to their pre-existing fans, it also makes them new fans, and new patrons: when you teach someone how to make a certain type of art, you are, in effect, generating more interest for your art form, and creating more consumers for it.

But even more important, you’re welcoming people into a club. “You too can make art! It helps your soul grow! Join us!”

“The market for something to believe in is infinite.”

Not only that: the market for a club to belong to is infinite.