Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?
Day six already. Where is day 5 you ask, well, that one never happened due to some necessary draft grading for my methods class, but tonight, after my students have just departed from dinner at my house, I'm making a little time for me before going back to work!
The last thing I made, literally, was lasagna for my class. I consider cooking making something. In fact, I love to cook, especially for an appreciative crowd. It's artful, meditative. I only like cooking when I have time to make a mess and clean up--when I have time to create and enjoy the experience. Cooking is no fun when I'm rushed for time. It's more of a relaxing creative process for me. Hence I don't do it nearly enough during the academic year, and I should!
But that's not really what this prompt made me think about. When I read it very early this morning I both smiled and sighed. Smiled because really, it's just a great prompt. Sighed because the type of things I like to make I just don't have much time to do anymore.
Recently, I made some Christmas cards. I adore making cards actually. I'm obsessed with paper--my favorite cards that I make are artful torn paper collages--often with a poignant quote or some line of poetry that strikes me. Sometimes my christmas cards are arty--sometimes they're funky. This year--they're just plain weird.
When my parents downsized, I took my mom's circa 1971 plastic Betty Crocker recipe card box filled with awkward seventies recipes and really terrific food staging. I'll include one here so you get a sense of what I mean:
Knowing that I did not have much time to create Christmas cards this year, I knew I still wanted to make some of them. So I compromised. I bought gorgeous letter press cards from a small island press in Maine with a delightful Rilke quote on them ["Let us welcome the New Year, full of things that have never been."] And then I decided I would make 20 cards, and a challenge. I like a good interactive Christmas card as much as the next girl. So, I sifted through the Betty Crocker Super Seventies recipe box, culled twenty recipes that had something to do with Christmas or winter holidays, or just required red and green ingredients. I ordered some blank cards from Paper source. Copied the recipe on the back of the card, cut out the recipe, and pasted the card on the front of the cardstock. Everyone getting one of these cards was challenged to make the recipe before Christmas, take a picture of the recipe in 70s style staging, and send me a picture, which I will add to a blog I created for the occasion. The materials: Double-sided tape, a sharpie, red cardstock cards, gold envelopes, recipe cards, and a pen. Not elaborate, but hey, I created something, which, during the last week of school, is rather impressive, if I do say so myself.
I need to make more things. Creating makes me happy, less stressed, and hey, 2011 is all about finding balance. So, here's to more torn-paper cards. Maybe you'll get one in the mail. I'm a nineteenth century historian, and I LOVE the tangible nature of written mail. And the post office has the loveliest pine bough stamps for this holiday season, so all the more reason to start making things to mail.
If I get more ambitious in 2011, I'll go back to making ceramics, but that's a story for another day....
I love that recipe card. My mother had a box of those, too!
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