What happened to the impulse to make things .
Until the other day the sub-heading of this post would have been a question:
“What happened to the impulse to make things?”
Most people might not be interested in this question, but I love making things. In fact, I have wasted acres of my life making things. Mostly things that involve sewing or knitting.
As it happens, in my family I am alone in the impulse to make things. This impulse may simply be the result of being sent to a Froebel School.
Wherever it came from though, I derive pleasure from spending time listening to rubbishy crime fiction novels while putting a garment or a curtain or bedspread together - even though the finished results are often lumpy and hang oddly and even the very best among them lack some element that might be called dash or style.
And because the activity gives me pleasure and visits to museums have suggested to me that in the past far more people also indulged in the business of handicraft, I have wondered why so many of my contemporaries now find such activities unappealing (indeed, when I worked on a magazine about crafts that was put out by the Crafts Council and mentioned that I made patchwork, the editor at the time looked horrified: “Ugh”, she said, “I hate making things”.)
Anyway since the other afternoon, I know the answer. It happened that I went on a long walk through Bristol on bin day and at last everything became clear. The impulse to indulge in handicrafts is not dead at all - it has simply been redirected into recycling activities. The hours spent by local citizens in folding cardboard and aligning bottleware for collection must be so numerous there could never be a moment left for embroidery or anything that creates an object that might be useful and enduring. The care and skill once poured out on making things now goes into the business of arranging rubbish as attractively as possible for removal. It is very hard to understand why.
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