Kate BowlesNov 2

The maker culture on here is far from isolationist. What you do builds hope for others.

I watch people making, repairing, drawing, sewing, crafting knives and pots and short films and solutions and community and compost heaps and seed collections, and when my day begins all those actions and ideas stay with me.

Your labour of bothering to photograph it, alt text it, send updates about it, share frustrations and success, it’s just fantastic. You have no idea who’s watching and thinking: hey, maybe I could sew on a button after all.

Show threadKate BowlesNov 2

The questions and reflections here have taken me back to de Certeau and The Practice of Everyday Life. It’s a text of its time in gender pronoun terms but it’s for our time in thinking about making and making do as the ruses, tactics and surreptitious refusals of the dominant culture that wants us only to sit open-mouthed in front of capitalism’s livestreams.

So making is also the life you make, it’s your survival, the way you shelter yourself and others. It’s your refusal and your gleaning and your showing up and your asking for help. All of it is an irritant to power and profit.

Keep on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Everyday_Life

Show threadKathleen FitzpatrickNov 2
@kate “An irritant to power and profit” would be an exceptionally good line in a bio. ❤️
Show threadKate Bowles
@kfitz Or a t-shirt! Re-reading de Certeau this morning I’ve been reminded all over again of la perruque: the time and resources we recapture from capital (especially from work) to make what we make. Stealthpunk.
Nov 2 at 9:09pmWeb
Show threadKate BowlesNov 2
@kfitz It’s foodbanks, solidarities, mutual aid, whistles, listening, picking up the slack. It’s using whatever’s at hand, frustrating capital over and over.