I’ve been in a tizzy all weekend because I had a big thesis meeting tomorrow but it just got cancelled because my advisor is sick. So more procasination for me I guess. I told my temp agencies I would be kind of busy this week but now it looks like I have full availability for at least tomorrow and wed. Thursday and Friday I have health and other thesis related meetings to attend.
Also a letter I am sending to Vogue Magazine:
Dear Vogue Magazine,
Thank You for considering me in your 66% discount for a new subscription. However the free bag offered with your discount is hideous and the reason I have not renewed my subscription for many years. You are Vogue Magazine. How can you even try to pawn that horrible bag off to your loyal readers like that. Has Anna even seen it? I suspect that she wouldn’t be caught dead even looking at it. You could have at least done us all a favor and made it all black. But it appears this bag is a terrible combination of a shade of red that was popular with Payless Shoes about 6 years ago and a brown that has given up on life. I am baffled Vogue would want to be associated with such cheap and desperate merchandise.
Sincerely,
Laura t.
I have been a fan of MAKE magazine ever since it came out. This summer I updated my subscription and I learned about CRAFT. A new magazine (with an identical design scheme and layout) but devoted to the neo craft movement that has really taken off in the past few years. Initially I was excited and almost ordered a subscription right then. I held off so I could buy a magazine at the store first and see if I really liked it. Yesterday I stopped in at Barnes&Noble on the way to class and got my hands on an issue.
While very very pretty, unfortunately it also confirmed some suspiscions I had with the magazine. Deep down inside me I couldn’t shake the worry that this was a case of “MAKE is for boys and CRAFTS is for girls”. The majority of the projects featured in MAKE were done by men. Not really a problem but I thought surely some of the interesting crafty electronic projects made by women could be featured in MAKE too. But as the editor noted in this first issue of CRAFT:
“For instance Ph.D student Leah Buechley from University of Colorado at Boulder sent us photos of her programmable LED tank top that flashes the Game of Life. This project definately has the elements of a MAKE project–it involves soldering, LED technology and programming. But there was also craft elements that don’t quite jibe with MAKE’s harder-edged sensibility: it requires a sewing machine, sewing skills, fabric and a pattern. And unlike the projects in MAKE, where the end result is more about function than form, it’s essential for this project to be as aesthetically attractive as it is useful”
Hmm lets break this down shall we:
Ms. Buechley while having “male” elements of led lights etc (and I might add a very ingenious way of wiring this whole thing together with electronically conductive thread) doesn’t make the MAKE cut because some MAKE readers might have to learn how to use a sewing machine and make something that might be aesthetically pleasing. Well I call bullshit on the sewing machine part. In Vol. 6 of MAKE there is a project of how to make a laptop bag out of a t-shirt. And it calls for a sewing machine. If MAKE readers are so into building and designing I really don’t think mastering a sewing machine and throwing together a basic tank-top pattern is going to be that much of a problem. If anything it adds to their skills.
And what is wrong with aesthetics? Flipping through some back issues I cannot help but notice that aesthetics come into play anyway. Many artists are featured. People build things with certain colors or shapes. Not everything is a huge mess of wires. And some as I have mentioned in previous blog posts find that mess of wires to be a type of aesthetic. Is it something against a so called “female” aesthetic?
I cannot help but feel like women’s work gets too seperated. When I first started working with electronics in my eyes soldering and breadboarding was embroidery. Ironically the roots of computer technology begin with craft. Weaving helped pave the pave to punch cards and beyond. Mathematical genius Ada Lovelace worked with these ideas and was essentially the first computer programmer.
I will probably not be getting a subscription to CRAFT. My plan is to flip through them and if a project intrigues me I’ll pick it up. Since I am already pretty keen to the craft movement none of the articles gave me any new information.
