Making Matters: In search of creative wonders
Clare Hunter
Sceptre
In a society where we obsess over recycling, get fined if we get it wrong - paper, plastic….goodness depending on your catchment area, you will be led down a different law path. Let me ask - do you get great joy from separating the lids from the bottles, the papers from the non recyclable plastic ready meal dishes….do you meditate while doing it thinking, wow, I am saving the earth, what beautiful materials? Or when you walk into your edible store, do you love the fact that you are required to pay for a paper bag because you forgot your everlasting cotton canvas companion which always seems to be car floor bound rather than ‘around’?
I am digressing, but really, we live in a world where we need fast, so we appreciate the things which facilitate it. We comprehend certain duties as it were, like the one above, but we probably don’t enjoy doing them at the time.
Now, go back to your childhood days. Even the most modern minded of us will have surely heard of a Kite, a Paper Plane….beautiful simple objects which can entertain and give such joy and memory. Yet have you noted many books honouring them? I hadn’t. Until now. This author has kindly taken up their case - writing about their history, the way they are made, how they are made.
Really though, Claire taps into the area of most importance - making matters, not really for the item made, but for the maker themselves. As she describes in the Introduction - it is the soothing of connecting mind to making - the distraction it can provide and I would go father and tell you that I know personally, it does more than distract - it can retract you from bad emotions and repair trauma - making it easier to go on.
Claire unearths from the shadows on our minds, yes on, because shadows can be weighty and lasting - the things which we may have forgotten and lost - the simple appreciation of snow and sand, a puppet. So, dust off your minds, take a pause and reflect on what is really important. Become a child again and play.