Oh, and something that I’ve learned about myself: I do my preliminary designs entirely in greyscale, but I doodle in blue. Who’d've thought it???

-t

Handmade seems like a simple word, right? It’s things made with, well, our hands. But I use a sewing machine. And I work with long-arm quilters. And I design on a computer. Heck, my last quilt used a computer-aided long-arm and I am diving into machine embroidery. So, here’s the question: are any of these things handmade? Which ones? Why?

Now, you certainly didn’t think I was going to leave it there, did you? I’m not one to ask questions without being willing to try to give them a go myself.

So, as an artist who has frequently utilized tools and the assistance of others and technology, and who has done more than dabble in performance and ephemeral art that last only minutes (remind me to tell you the story of how I was arrested during one performance piece), the idea of making has long been a complicated one for me. Within the current craft world handmade seems every bit as complicated as the idea of making was in the museum art world, especially in those postmodern 1990s.

There are some who would stick to what they regard as a traditional view that handmade stems from “true” hand work, needle and thread in your hands with no other tool. It seems to me that this stems from a desire to do things like they were done, to preserve something. While I love doing hand embroidery, I feel like this may be a bit narrow of a perspective. I know that my great-grandmother was more than happy to make use of her treadle sewing machine rather than hand-stitch, and that that machine was set aside in favor of a motorized sewing machine when that became available.

The adoption of new technologies is not a new phenomenon; it is simply a fact of life and part of the evolution of a tradition. Most of my wife’s grandmother’s quilts are neither hand-pieced, not hand-quilted, but there is no doubt in my mind that they are truly handmade objects. But then where do we draw the line? What is the difference between using a domestic sewing machine and long-arm for quilting? Is it cheating to use a die-cutter, because that is another step away from hand labor?

Some may see this as a slippery slope, a diminishing of hand skills, of tradition, of the beauty of the craft; I see it very differently. With every new tool we expand the vocabulary, add new possibilities to the practice and the tradition. I think it is a mistake to see the different techniques, skills, and forms as attempts at replacing “traditional” practices, as competitors. Instead I am always excited to see new approaches, which bring in new voices to a wide-ranging and extraordinary practice. But I am not sure if I am getting any closer to figuring out the word handmade, yet.

I’ve long been a fan of the idea of makers, those who make things regardless of the technique. Makers are those who make rather than buy, those who are actively engaged in the process and practice of making in order to figure out what can be made, things that matter. But what concerns me is that in reserving handmade for those older hand-craft techniques we reinforce a tendency that already exists in the quilting world: that those who hand-quilt are “real quilters” while the rest of us are just taking shortcuts. That all-too-present hierarchy in some circles just misses the point of method: no method is fundamentally better or truer than another, what matters is whether the method, the tools, are appropriate to project at hand.

It may be strange, but I am not sure if the hands are the ultimate arbiter of handmade. To me handmade is more of an ethos than a particular practice. It stands not in difference to machine-produces, but mass-produced. I see handmade as a recognition that individual things matter, and intimate engagement with the thing at hand, whether there be a machine between the thing and my hand or not. Over the past century handmade has evolved from a necessity to a concept; as the tools have changed so have out practices. What once fulfilled basic needs became a hobby, and as of late it has truly morphed into a counterculture, a form of protest.

And here is the real point: if we want handmade to survive as a concept I am pretty sure we’re going to have to continue to embrace new tools and understandings within that umbrella. Those hand crafts are not likely to go away, but like any tradition, the idea is bigger than any of its parts. Handmade matters, those older, hand practices truly do matter, but so does the larger idea of making. Maybe handmade has become too narrow of a word, but I am perpetually wary of segregation; we need a way to recognize the differences in practices while still embracing the larger similarities. Honestly, I don’t think we need yet another new term like “techno-guided handmade” because luckily we already have a truly amazing tool for understanding that difference does not necessarily mean division, the subtlety of human thought…

-t

For anyone who hasn’t been following along, I designed this quilt for my Thesaurus collection, which will be coming to stores pretty darn soon. The design itself is an arrangement of the Braille alphabet, configured to feel like an all-over, virtually random design. I’ve been really interested in hidden codes in my designs as of late, along with transcribing one language system into another form — in this case transferring a tactile language into an aesthetic one.

Thesaurus kind of prompted this latest round of investigations, as I was playing with the idea of a fabric collection designed to prompt storytelling through some extraordinary words my strange little brain kept returning to the idea of secrets, stories shared between a very few people. I started by playing around with ideas of metaphors and allegories, meanings buried within literal texts, but soon I found myself inexorably drawn to secret languages. I’m still not sure if I am so much interested in the secrets I could bury in codes or just the idea of codes as a metaphor for something larger, but that is the thing about explorations, you’re never quite sure what you are going to find. But I digress…

I made this quilt with vast quantities of white space for two reasons. First, floating the prints in that space really reinforces continuities between the hidden Braille units, but secondly I really wanted to give the quilting room to shine. You see, I designed a special bit of quilting for this one, my first foray into computerized quilting:

I love the quilters I work with, but there are just some designs that cannot be done without the help of that computer. I’m pretty sure repeating this motif, again and again, perfectly would be impossible, or at the very least hell. And as I’ve said, that’s what I want to use computerized stuff to do: the impossible.

So, with the help of Vickie Malaski who digitized this design for me, and gave me some advice on doing it myself in the future, and Jessica Sloan of Remnants:fiber[culture], who did the actual stitching, this is the finished quilting:

I am insanely in love with this. I’m always going to work with the amazing Lisa Sipes, but now I get to focus on figuring out the amazing things we can do together rather than driving her nuts with some of the more insane ideas I have. We can focus on the quilts where our skills and ideas compliment each other, which is what we really love doing. At the same time I can really push some of those other ideas, some insane things that the human eye/hand might never be able to do.

So, if you are going to Market, swing by the Andover booth and check my baby out. Go ahead and get up close to see the quilting; I don’t mind. I promise. I think it will be worth it because it turned out pretty stunningly if I must say so myself.

Oh, and starting at some point in June (exact date to be announced soon) I’ll be doing an Abecedarian Quilt Along, henceforth to be known as the ABC-QAL. I’ll be doing mine using a fabulous Kona My Blue Heaven color bundle along with some Kona Snow; all the print spots are going to be white against a gorgeous, variegated sea of blues. I can’t wait to make this one!!! And for all those who actually quilt along (there will be a Flickr group) Robert Kaufman sent me a bundle to give away at the end. So yay!!!

-t

PS: Up next on the quilting front, some crazy-ass variation of this design (without the i/eyes):

**Total stream of consciousness here; pretty sure it needs a good editing, but that’ll have to happen later. Welcome to my brain…

I make a lot of stuff. I’ve made more things in the past two years than in the previous twelve; prolific was never one of my goals. I’ve been known to spend well over a year working on a single piece, and I’m not talking about multitasking or anything, just working on one thing, day in and day out for over a year. I’ve always been that kind of maker. But these days I just keep making, but that is because I’m not all that smart yet, at least when it comes to quilting and fabric and stuff. I may have a vast background of experience to draw upon, but here I am still a novice, at least in my own mind. I’ve got thousands of hours more to put in before I actually get anywhere near the place I want to be.

That is the nature of learning curves. You need to make like mad, do everything, try it all. Many consider that the apprenticeship of learning the technical skills, refining the physical practice, but that is all essentially an aside in my book. All the doing leads to getting smarter, to understanding the conceptual, aesthetic, and physical nuances of a practice. We are built to learn things quickly; our brains are really freakin’ good at acquiring new data, but to truly know something, to process and integrate it, to expand upon it and make it into one’s one, to transform it into something new and unique, that takes time and exceptional work.

This is what I try to do every day. More often that not I am kinda ambivalent to what I am actually making at any given moment. Wait, that may be an overstatement. I care about what I am making, but the vast majority of the time I am making it as an intentional part of a process of getting smarter; I have something specific that I need to figure out and each piece is first and foremost a means to that end.

This is how I always taught. Good is a word that confuses me; it is always tied to a very specific context. A set of techniques and aesthetics that might be truly exceptional in one context may well just end up being ill-suited (and ultimately crappy) in another. The what ought to be a reflection of the why; form and intent are never severable. Smart, on the other hand, is the set of conceptual skills that allow for finding the intimate and essential pairings of thought and expression, and that is what I am working toward.

Yes, smart work requires a vocabulary of technical skills and the development of a certain aesthetic intuition, but both of those are fundamentally pointless if not used for some larger purpose. The exhibition of skill for the sake of displaying that proficiency becomes an exercise in ego rather than a manifestation of expression. And yes, I have a really big ego. Heck, trying to make a living as an artist requires it; it is a massive leap of audacity to stand up and put your voice out there day after day in the face of the rejection you know is always going to come. That said, that ego out to be tempered by self-awareness, that voice that perpetually reminds you that the work is not there yet; it is that self-awareness that propels new and inventive work, checks the gratuitous displays of simple accomplishment on one aspect of the creative process, that reminds you that you are still, in fact, dumb, or at least not omniscient.

Every day I try to get one step closer to omniscience even though I know I’ll never get there. I add a new skill, a new perspective, a handful of subtle experiments. These things are the stepping stones toward smarter work, but that smarter work is always the goal; it is vital to never confuse the means with the ends. But herein lies the schizophrenia of the maker, or at least of the long-view: one must somehow perpetually maintain a dual perspective, derive pleasure from the steps, the daily acts of making and learning, even as you understand them as incomplete components of a larger learning curve. Somehow one has to be perpetually okay with not being there yet, with the knowledge that you still kinda suck at what you do, even as you know you are doing better than you were.

So, after all the harsh (welcome to my mind), it’s time for the inspirational, or something like that. The thing is that we are all at different places on that learning curve, and the fact is that we all have different curves, unique starting points and hoped for ultimate destinations. Yours is not and cannot be mine, nor should it be. A bit of cocktail napkin math puts me at around 50,000 hours into my learning curve, but that’s kinda the awesome thing: every single one of us is further along than we used to be and not as far along as we could be; we each know stuff, but not enough. That is the real point of making, of doing, to learn. We put too much emphasis on the finished product, and then inevitably compare ours to other and find reasons to feel like failures. Trust me, there are enough internal reasons to come up short without looking to the external world.

Here in the quilt world we have developed a tendency to valorize show quilts, many of which are primarily displays of technical perfection, but these quilts are very different objects than the quilts that are made for babies to pee upon, children to snuggle under, and friends and relations to be ill under. The criteria for scrutiny and hanging on a wall are distinct from those of the birthday gift. I think we get something fundamentally backwards when we mix the genres, a tendency all too common around here. And this brings me back to my questions regarding the idea of better. Which quilts are better, the ones that get stepped on, peed on, and used as pirate ships, forts, and flying carpets, or the technical marvels on display in quilt shows around the country and world? I have no idea of how to address that, but what I do know how to do is try to get smarter with each thing I do, to better wed concept, form, and technique, and to learn to recognize the contextual differences between projects—where they are going and what they are for—that will allow me to make those smarter decisions.

I’ve given up on the idea of better; the word just doesn’t make sense to me anymore. I will perpetually work to acquire new techniques and improve the ones I have, but on their own those skills just don’t add up to a hill of bobbins. I can make endless quantities of pretty stuff, though it is likely a heck of a lot easier and cheaper to just buy it. I’m just going to keep returning to that studio of mine (cramped as it is) and try to get smarter, to learn to make smarter things, things that matter, that speak, that resonate in the world. To me that is the mark of a maker in a time when the act of making is actually impractical: bringing things into the world that both engage the senses and the mind, that offer insight (no matter how small) as well as aesthetic pleasure and material being now that sensory stimulation is an infinitely available commodity.

So, hopefully I’ll get just that little bit smarter today. Figure out a wee something. Form a few more neural connections in the web that will some day be smarter…

-t
.

And luckily we just happen to have an excellent pirate captain handy…

-t