Material Innovations

The work I like to pursue doesn’t necessarily involve a deeply personal expression, rather one that is benevolent in nature.  I prefer it that way.  I’m more interested in solving problems.  I like the challenge and continuously changing constraints posed by the context and intended users.  I believe my philosophy and work falls squarely in line with the definition of design activism offered by Alastair Fuad-Luke in his book Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World.

Design activism is ‘design thinking, imagination and practice applied knowingly or unknowingly to create a counter-narrative aimed at generating and balancing positive social, institutional, environmental and/or economic change’.

That said I do draw a distinction between humanitarian design work done locally and abroad.  I don’t feel it is my place to solve the world’s problems.  I can’t assume to know the first thing about another country’s culture and I would consider them to be a resource for the problems we are facing and about to face. Check out this rousing debate initiated by Bruce Nussbaum on Fast Company this summer questioning whether humanitarian design was the new imperialism.

You should know, I’m a ‘why’ person.  I’m also analytical and enjoy solving problems creatively.  At 17 I thought a degree in marketing would allow me to best utilize those qualities.  In earning that degree I realized I was more interested in the crafting of a message that stems from a deep understanding of consumer behavior.  I was more fascinated to learn why people wanted or didn’t want to purchase/use/desire certain things than actually selling more things.

Did you know it’s easier to find an entry level position in sales than it is on a creative team?  It is, and I got my first job as a business development consultant at a global design consultancy.  It was an extremely valuable experience to be surrounded by creatives.  I always wished I was part of the creative team developing a strategy to overcome a problem than how to gain more clients.  After several years climbing the corporate ladder I realized my interests and morals no longer aligned with the type of work I was doing. I worked there for five years prior to pursuing this graduate degree in applied craft and design.

The same month I entered the corporate world I started taking a metalsmithing class as a creative outlet.  I couldn’t believe how incredibly tedious metal work was and how under-appreciated the tradition is in our manufacture driven culture.  I was attracted to the heirloom quality of metal work and took great pleasure in designing and hand making jewelry that people loved wearing.  I decided it was time to invest in my creative pursuits and started searching for graduate degree programs.

I chose this program because I believe in the combining of design and craft to create work with an applied purpose.  I wanted to leverage my business, marketing and design background as a means to make a living while making a difference.

As for my read on the state of affairs of the planet, economy, and American culture I suggest you tune into The Colbert Report.

That might be surprising considering I grew up in a small rural town in north eastern Ohio.  The town is situated in an area known as the steel belt where jobs have been disappearing for the past three decades.  I craved city life growing up and still do, but not because I don’t have an appreciation for how I was raised.  We didn’t talk about sustainability, but we lived by those principles.  We rarely bought something we didn’t need, we gardened and canned food for winter months, annually bought part of a cow with my extended family, my sister and I preferred to make believe to Nintendo, and we almost always ate a home cooked meal at the dinner table.  It was pretty wholesome.

My fear as a maker is to create objects that don’t need to exist and inadvertently feed desires for consumption.  I believe our culture has become starved for relationships and experiences and wrongfully seek objects for fulfillment.  I’m hopeful that a shift in those beliefs and perceptions will occur with careful nudges.

I’m interested in human behavior and how our irrational behaviors affect our decisions.  I believe there are many solutions to problems that have been solved by science or otherwise that fail because they lack an exploration of human behavior.  We have many irrational tendencies that can impede good intentions.  This TED Talk from behavioral economist Sendhil Mullainathan references this challenge as the last mile opportunity.  I plan to pursue work that combines science, design, and behavioral psychology to create positive change.

Hello…my name is Leslie and I am a maker.

I live and work in Portland, Oregon which sometimes seems like worlds away from where I grew up. I am an East Coaster, born and bred, from a little town called Westport Massachusetts. To give you a little background, I grew up in a large Portuguese farming family by the sea. I am one of 15 cousins, and I am the first to leave New England.

As a child, my mother was an artist and calligrapher. I was enthralled by her obsession with fonts and straight lines. I would often sit and watch her as she turned our kitchen table into a meticulous studio space. As my mother worked, she would repeatedly proclaim the importance of templates and practicing repetition while the smells of inks and sounds of matte cutting would fill the room. When I was around ten years old I became her assistant in sign making. We were a team. I looked forward to our summer days when we would select and lay out various typefaces and have discussions about balance and color. During my childhood I always had my hands in something. I think this is why I am draw to physical processes. I feel a connection through the materials I work with that leads me to understand what I am making.

My primary creative skill is probably my ability to paint and draw. I had a formal training in two dimensional arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As I mentioned earlier, I really enjoy process based modes of working and often end up making even a simple drawing overly labor intensive. During my time at the university, I also worked at a Craft Center. Having this job, and learning new, craft based ways of working had a strong impact on my work and desire to see more physical interactions with my materials. This led to another systematic form of production that I am becoming more and more taken by, sewing and textiles. I tend to approach these works as an outsider and as a two dimensional thinker, which I find to be both challenging and exciting.

In both fields of working, two dimensional and three dimensional, I often find myself looking for ways to reuse materials, or perhaps better put, simply, to use the available materials. There are several reasons for this. First, cliche as it might be, I am broke. Go figure, a broke, artist, graduate student, what a surprise. There is another driving force however, and that is the ridiculously over abundant amount of “waist” that we seem to be surrounded by. There is stuff everywhere. Despite the fact that I do, like most people, enjoy shopping and the rush that is involved with a new buy, I also feel like there is often no need to buy new things or new materials. I feel, as a mildly conscientious maker, a responsibility to use at least some of what is already there in front of me.

The act of making is universal. Some people create to survive and some for entertainment. I find myself in the middle of the spectrum. I need to make in order to feel as though I am moving forward.  Various ideas and responsibilities rack my brain and as I struggle to find my place, I know that the only way I will understand anything is through my hands, is through making.

Bonjour world! I’d like to introduce myself as a creative individual who hails from a small town in Connecticut and also happens to really enjoy making things. While I have not yet determined a favorite primary media, I feel passionate about producing objects with wood, fiber, weaving, photography all within the context of space.

My beginnings as a creative started like many others in that I’ve been creating objects and things ever since I was small and haven’t stopped since. My first memories of making things were from kits. From what I can remember weaving kits, bracelet kits, drawing kits, card-making kits, calligraphy kits, and painting kits were all new experiments that I loved to try.

As I got older and continued to follow my passions (art and athletics) in school, I decided that I wanted to pursue the profession of an interior designer when I went to college. After completing my undergraduate studies in Interior Design, I felt proud for accomplishing my goal but couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something. During my undergrad experience I lost touch with my hands. There was very little that was actually made with my own two hands (this frustrates me greatly with interior design education today). The program was heavily focused on the use of AutoCAD and very little in hands-on making. What I found I missed the most was the intimate relationships that develop when working with specific materials. Having been an athlete and a creative my entire life, I am attracted to processes that can be found in both athletics and art. I seek out processes and materials that are labor intensive and challenging as well as enduring and repetitive.

According to my family I am considered to be the “creative” one in the bunch. However I tend to disagree with this statement. While both of my parents’ professions are in the science and math fields, this is not all they know or do. My mom has always had a colorful and playful creative side to her (whether she admits this or not is up to her) and has been quilting, crocheting, knitting, and creating clothing ever since I can remember. The same goes for my dad. His love for wood and metal may just be a hobby for him, but is nonetheless an incredibly resource and inspiration for me.

It’s no question that at this present moment times are tough. Whether we want to admit it or not, we have to make sacrifices and cut-backs in order to get by. These new parameters and adjustments in our lives are largely viewed in a negative way. The fact that the economic recession has seen little improvement over the last few years, and current environmental disasters, gives us little reason to smile However, having constraints and limits can actually be freeing in a certain way. It allows you to be truly innovative. This is something all creative makers, artists, and designers can relate to.

As a maker it is easy to fall victim to current trends and fads that may not be true to oneself. Like many other creative individuals, I feel the need to make things with honesty, pride, and authenticity, however I fear that since I do not specifically work with one material, I may be viewed as someone who is simply a “jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.” Yet I still feel compelled to explore processes and materials I know nothing about. While this can be viewed as uncomfortable and risky to some, I am fueled by the initial excitement for learning something new. In the end it’s hard to say what I will do with the rest of my life but as a start I know that essentially I am a creator of things and I want to continue to physically create what I want to make (objects crafted for the home) and by trusting my process of making, find a happy life.

I am interested in the questions and concerns of material consciousness. Specifically, I am interested in the traditional craft materials of clay and wood.  The histories and uses of these craft materials have developed my notion of self as much as I have manipulated the possible forms they intrinsically offer.  Clay, a material I have been trained academically as well as technically, from elementary through undergraduate school, is a medium of the utmost amorphous.  With out the limitations of form, I find I become overwhelmed with it’s potential – in form as well as introspective exploration.  Subsequently, I return to wood occasionally, a material with physical limitations due to it’s rigidity.  Also, in choosing to stay technically naive about wood, I am free from the confining traditions craftsmanship has held strict to the material.  With this perspective I can become aware of it’s inherent qualities of shape and color through the non-clouded awareness of touch alone.  With a more refined sensibility of material, working with other craft mediums such as wood, has benefited my clay practice.  Some times it’s hard to remember where one started after a long journey.

I grew up in a conventional and conservative suburb out side Detroit.  These attitudes were not strictly verbalized, it was just the way things were done.  In silence, I remember pondering that there must be other, equally viable ways to live.  Thus began my anti-conformist attitude.  Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the status quo, I became more observer than say, activist.  These introspective curiosities naturally lead me to wonder more philosophically.  Working with clay, during my developmental years,  I’m sure had an impact to these open-ended considerations of my environment and the things that defined it.  Since moving away from this conventional environment, and integrating with more of a liberal social attitudes of living, I find the need to challenge the status quo less.  Furthermore, and I consider if this is more to do with maturity, I have been curious to find the connections and similarities between conservative perspectives of living and that of traditional craft practices.  In these increasing virtual times, is a traditional haptic practice more radical by comparison?  In a time when social awareness is needed through positive human to human consideration, can the spiritual be formed by the work of the hand?

I believe my role as a maker is to address through the symbolic forms I create, the need for a more psychological, sociocultural and spiritual awareness.  By utilizing the qualities that traditional craft materials possess, of which all cultures have a history of knowledge, a higher consciousness between the peoples of today could be established.  A sympathetic community of all peoples could be established if we all could see ourselves as products of our shared craft ingenuity.  The forms that human-kind has made collectivity, have served their physical functions.  The craft forms that have sustained our survival, that of containers, covers, and shelters, (Howard Risatti), can now serve a greater meaning for our collective existence through their use as relational symbols.  We all need to remember why it’s important to get in touch, before we forget how to do so.

The medium that I feel most invigorated by working with is space, and the relationship that is formed within space between people and objects. My task as a maker is to create living spaces—places that create context for dwellers, act as a reflection of the natural world, and meet the inherent needs of the soul and the body. This exploration of space/place is cross-disciplinary, as it draws on aesthetic, material, philosophical, sociological, and theoretical concerns. I have arrived here by way of the 2-D art world, a growing interest in the realm of 3-D building and woodworking, and finally, a recognition of my love for being the hand behind shaping and arranging experiences/environments for other people.   I am moved by the idea that one can choose, over and over again, how to shape oneself, and I believe that the creation of place can be a radically transformative part of this reality.

I love discovering how the crafting of space can be used in order to evoke and provoke particular feelings or modes of being, and finding that people generally respond to various environments in the same way.  It is fascinating to me that we are inherently drawn to certain kinds of spaces more than others. What I am coming to recognize as the frustrating part of working with such an elusive medium is that it is terribly difficult to express in a succinct manner.

My life has been rich with the influence, love, and support of sincere makers of all manner (primarily in my family), including educators, writers, musicians, cooks, bakers, seamstresses, gardeners, craftsmen/women, artists, and designers. Of course some of these fields produce and require more handiness than others, but I have always been acutely aware of the distinct relationship between the creative mind and the work of the hand, and have been consistently encouraged to discover how this relationship will manifest itself in my own life. I have grown up within a framework of homemade, handmade, can-do simplicity, where nothing is ever wasted or taken for granted. Thus, my roots are literally entrenched in living responsibly and sustainably, although these fashionable “it” words are practically devoid in my extended family’s vocabulary. My grandfather has spent the past 75+ years of his life making his own tools, mixing spoons, furniture, maple syrup, etc. not because it is the green thing to do, but because he finds joy in being resourceful, using his hands, and being a steward of the materials he finds before him.

The geographic and cultural place I am coming from has been paramount in shaping my fundamental interests and concerns. I have spent the majority of my life in Santa Barbara, California, which is a place particularly obsessed with beauty; it is image-conscious in every sense. Each factor of this place exudes perhaps an over-developed attention to the need for beauty at every turn. This has translated into a desire within me for deep and careful consideration of every aesthetic choice in my life. In terms of my making, I crave natural, pared-down materials and processes because this reflects so much of what I have encountered and been conditioned to appreciate thus far in my life. The environmental and cultural context I am working from revolves around a sustained commitment to good stewardship of resources, deep regard and appreciation for the natural world and for persons/people, rigorous devotion to the continual shaping of one’s character and one’s mind, and a fierce desire for connectivity and relationship beyond pretense. These values translate into the pressing awareness that whatever I create, and therefore, introduce into the world, must represent and uphold these ideals, no matter what. I cannot be a maker with the motivation of merely selling a product, making a buck, or creating something cool and innovative for the sake of originality; rather, I must support a way of life which will continue to “keep [the] body and soul alive” (Thackara, emphasis mine). And more importantly, I want to live in a way that not only sustains my body and soul, but also those bodies and souls for whom I am potentially designing, as well. In my own work, this means approaching each opportunity with candor and clarity about what I care about, and why I create the way that I do.

The world at large is in a state of distrust—and this distrust has engendered greed, dishonesty, confused communication, fierce individualism, lack of connectivity, and surprisingly little regard for what is beyond the scope of one’s own desires. Consumption consumes us.  Modern culture seems to leave scant room for modes of living that do not move within the ebb and flow of a hurried, harried existence. However, this does not mean I am without hope—I see a shift happening, at least within the small culture I am a part of, towards more thoughtful, careful living, where one is no longer thinking primarily about their own consumer needs and purchasing power. I am, of course, an active participant in the messy state of affairs as they exist today, but my role within this framework is to make the simple daily choices that support and better my own localized sphere of influence.

The maker’s role in the world is to commit oneself to the powerful act of authentic creation, and in doing so, to also arouse and awaken a spirit of truth within others. As someone who constantly feels the need to create, I fear making insignificant work, particularly because I feel that the world is already crowded with meaningless and insignificant things. Though I do feel that I make out of obedience to my inherent need to be a creative being, there is often the underlying anxiety that what matters to me may not matter to anyone else—and this feels somewhat empty to me. My hope as a maker is that I will continue to be obedient to this necessity for continual creation, and that I will overcome my fear of failure through deep faith and trust in my own process.  One major aspiration is to work for either an artist or a design firm that deals with the arrangement of space in a way that excites and encourages me, and that has an ethos that I feel I can support wholeheartedly.

I consider myself to be a creator of joyful objects. My aesthetic is always colorful, playful, and full of detail. My work focuses on joyful aspects of life- activities we engage in for leisure, interests we study out of fascination, special occasions, simple pleasures, and utopian ideals as well. I refuse to select only one medium to actualize my ideas. This has always been a frustration, as most schools push you to choose one path. Some visions are clearly a 2-D collage, others are functional objects; some would be best made of clay, others of fiber, and some owe their existence to found objects (I must admit, I am a bit of a scavenger). That being said, my favorite materials of the moment are fibers.

Previously I have worked extensively with ceramics, but I needed to take a break from the clay determining my schedule. Clay needs to be tended to in many ways to regulate moisture and dryness so that it does not crack or get too dry to work with, yet it has to be at a certain state of firmness to be manipulated. I do still love the material for the sculptural possibilities, and the fact that functional objects can be made with it as well. I find that fibers too offer these possibilities, but in different ways. I have been creating wool felt for a variety of projects lately. I love that the process starts with the raw material of wool fibers (Yay for sheep!), and that it has a rich history of use. Without any industrial equipment, people have been self- sufficient at creating textiles in this fashion. In addition to this already green material, I hope to focus on a cleaner process by learning about natural dyes, rather than synthetic ones.

Besides felting, I have begun learning more about weaving. I am currently practicing a variety of techniques for weaving on an eight shaft Cranbrook countermarche loom. Perhaps this love of fiber arts has its roots in my upbringing in rural Minnesota, where my Finnish family had great appreciation of woven textiles and Scandinavian designs. My mom would weave rugs, knit, and sew a lot. My grandmother would always critique textile quality in clothing and home items. As for living in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fields and forest, I think it has influenced some of my work. I often reference my appreciation for nature and wildlife. Besides these influences, I have noticed a rise in the popularity of felt work in contemporary design, which I think gives a rich, comfortable feel to what might otherwise be rather stark designs. These days I am focusing on the design of functional objects, while adding some more craft skills to my process. I always strive to have a conceptual element in my work to give it more narrative. This may have been the biggest thing I took away from my studio art undergraduate education at University of Minnesota Duluth.

I am interested in social and cultural issues, particularly the use of and need for leisure time. I try to comment on this with my work. I emphasize activities and interests that are not about consumption. Rather they are simple pleasures in life, for which primarily time, not money, is required. I am planning a sort of interactive piece that will involve an audience with this issue.
Perhaps it is because of this mindset that I am able to tell myself that things will be okay in this world. The current state of economic affairs is reminding me, at least in my current economic bracket, that the abundance we have been used to is not necessarily possible anymore, both financially, and environmentally. As far as being a maker, material constraints will become inevitable, but may be helpful for indecisive types, yours truly included. I do worry about how my handmade products will fare against mass-produced cheaper goods, but am hoping the current resurgence in craft will change public outlook on the value of local handmade goods.

Some of my work:

Creating art has always been an integral part of my life, from the time I was four years old, when I began taking art classes at the Children’s Museum.  Professionally, I worked at the Portland Art Museum as an assistant curator before having children.   For many years, I volunteered my time and talents as a volunteer in the community, serving primarily as an arts administrator.  I am now focused on becoming a full time artist and the name of my creative practice is Bamboo Art.

Embracing the beauty and elegance of bamboo, I design and create architectural features, sculpture and useful objects to enhance interior and exterior spaces.  I aspire to create works of art which lead to a greater understanding of the natural world and ultimately encourage people to live in harmony with the environment locally and globally.  I want to help create awareness as to the unlimited potential bamboo has to create a better built environment; to educate about the role bamboo can play in sustainable practices; and how as a plant and a resource, it can improve lives across the globe.  I have a cradle to cradle creative practice.

 Twenty years ago, I discovered bamboo, which has become my primary medium.   I had a visceral experience when I walked into a freshly cut, monumental bamboo installation/sculpture by Hiroshi Teshigahara at the Sogetsu School in Tokyo.   Since then, I have been captivated by bamboo, whether growing in groves, freshly cut, dried, or made into objects.   I am attracted to its formal/physical characteristics:  linear, vertical direction, monochromatic (in most varieties), and smooth surface between nodes; to its natural beauty/experiential qualities:  elegant, simple, graceful, and minimal; and to its practical attributes:  fast –growing, rapidly renewable, strong, resilient, and flexible.   I love working with bamboo and its extraordinary attributes.   I have not been frustrated by it thus far. 

I was born and have lived in Portland for most of my life, with the exception of years spent in California, in Claremont and Berkeley, for college and graduate school.  I have always had a strong connection with nature spending some of my free time walking, hiking, skiing, camping, river rafting, and mountain climbing. For ten years, I studied Ikebana (Japanese Flower Arranging) from which I learned restraint and discipline while working with branches, leaves and flowers.   I feel a connection to bamboo as one of nature’s gift and as a medium for personal artistic expression.

The planet and the economy are in precarious states.  The following are some examples of why I feel this way:   the debt of the United States government is mind-boggling ($240,000. per person as of August 2010);   unemployment continues to increase; the immediate future of the  U.S. economy seems uncertain;  the population continues to expand internationally; the potential extinction of plants and animals grows;  climate change is happening with examples of such things as record high temperatures in the U. S. this year; potable water is an issue.   Societies and cultures on the planet are interdependent and the ultimate challenge is to search and find shared values and purpose in order to achieve a sustainable world for all.   

As a design activist, I have the opportunity to shape the world by using bamboo as a medium.  The beauty of bamboo and its intrinsic qualities have a universal attraction.  Working with bamboo will potentially encourage others to see the possibilities of using it as a building material and as a medium for making art.  Experiencing bamboo in a multitude of ways will raise the consciousness of human beings as to the role bamboo can play in eco-environmental awareness across the globe.   

Cross-culturally and throughout time, bamboo has come to symbolize strength, vigor, virtue, flexibility, tenacity, chivalry, devotion, longevity, and compromise.  As human beings, there is much to emulate in the power and spirit of bamboo.  Bamboo has been in existence for twenty-five thirty to forty million years.  For thousands of years, it has been and is one of the single most important plants to the largest number of people in the world, primarily in Asia and South America.   

Bamboo has been underappreciated in the United States.  I look forward to being a hunter and gatherer of past successes of how bamboo has been used; how it can be grown and harvested; and how it can be used innovatively today.  How all of this information is exchanged and distributed will potentially help shape the United States and the world.  Bamboo has the potential to become a substitute for wood and plastic, and, ultimately, become the material of the 21^st century.

Week 1 – INTRO: STATE OF THE PLANET, STUFF COMES FROM SOMEWHERE, PEER PRODUCTION NETWORKS

1. We Are All Emerging Economies Now by John Thackara in the Design Observer. John Thackara runs the Doors of Perception Blog and Conference (Doors 9: Juice was the most recent in India) and is a generally all-around interesting and serious design observer/commentator.

2. Chapter 1.: Scoping the Territory: Design, Activism & Sustainability from Design Activism – Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World by Alastair Fuad- Luke who seems to be everywhere in the sustainable / resilient design discourse. I don’t know anything about these organizations but appearantly he is involved with SlowLab and SLOW

3. Modern Indian Design: the Roots from Thinking Design by S. Balaram a Prof. at India’s National Institute for Design (NID). A well-worn copy of this book was generously given to me by Poonam Bir Kasturi of Daily Dump and much more. It is now out of print but can be found sans images here (.pdf).