Journal

Such a good talk this morning. I think there is an even deeper thing happening here, with the young career folks, which is the need, the longing to use their hands, for waking them up to making. I adjunct at a local university and I see this. Young people come into the print, paper and book studios with a longing to become skilled, to make a thing, and are surprised by two things: how hard it is, and that they can actually learn the skill. The haptics of it delights so many of them. They're mostly ignorant about using tools (the exceptions are often home-schooled kids) and about the materiality of things. One entire class had never threaded a needle or made a stitch. Teaching them how to make ink, an improvised brush, and make their marks freely on beautiful paper astounds them, especially when we fold this up into a book. Most haven't had any art classes after middle school. Of course it's great fun to teach them, but it's also fun to see them realize the amount of work that goes into making things. I watch them socialize around the vats of pulp while helping each other, or chat while sewing bindings and know that the physicality of making draws them into a shared community of makingness that they missed out on during high school.