I’m a feminist and....... I craft?
What have you been doing, so far, on this International
Women’s Day? I’ve dressed children, vacuumed the floors, mopped, done two loads
of washing, changed beds and called the high school to make an appointment with
the year 12 co-ordinator. And now I can finish some sewing. Yes – that is my
life; lots of housework and crafting. And no, it’s not 1965 – it’s 2012! And here
I am, a modern educated feminist, who has a life right now that very much
resembles my own mother’s life in the sixties. Has anything changed?
Being at home with small children can be a lot like a bad
acid trip. And for those of you fortunate enough never to have endured a bad
acid trip, it’s like floundering around in a world that is in a state of flux where
achieving anything, even the most mundane and ordinary, is virtually impossible. See the
connection? I could do housework until
the cows come home and still have handprints on the t.v. and food smears on the
furniture. It’s like a sad predictable pantomime
where I’m the butt of the joke - cleaning in one room while the kids are
messing stuff up just behind my back but I can’t hear the audience shouting, “Look
behind you!” The lack of achievement or completion of anything, despite such
hard work, can be demoralising and frankly a bit depressing. I can’t have my
days being only about child rearing and housework. I’m simply not someone who can be at home with
kids and find fulfilment in the nurturing and domesticity – I have to have
something more; something creative.
I remember being pregnant with my first child. I was just 20
years old and studying at a fine arts degree, majoring in sculpture. With a big
belly and wearing overalls, I welded and cut metal and, gee, was I tired as that belly got heavy! The
realisation dawned on me that sculpture like this and being a mother to a baby
were two mutually exclusive activities. In the end I welded some metal rods to
little bases and made some old bricks into flowers on those stalks; a twee
sculpted garden. It was raising the
white flag - a declaration of capitulation to domesticity. As a mother, my art
was going to have to be home based.
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| Great Granny's Crochet Quilt |
I come from a long line of crafters. My great grandmotherwas known for her fine crochet work, my granny and her sisters were all good craftswomen and my mum could make just about anything and tackle any craft she came
across. Through their crafting, these women were ingenious and resourceful and,
through common sense and poverty, they were also environmentally sustainable. There was a need to darn and mend and recycle
and stitch and make do. No idle hands! Spare time was used up in useful creative
pursuits. And is this a bad thing? There seems to have been a pendulum
swing back to crafting. Influenced by retro fashion and environmentally
sustainable sensibilities (and with a dash of whimsical sentimentality), recent
generations have embraced craft. In doing so, we honour our mothers and
grandmothers and give recognition and validation to their skills and talents. But
do we also confine our creativity to a domestic sphere and add to our household
workload?
I’m not an artist – I make art and craft while at home with
kids, just as my mother did. Mum would always say she wasn’t creative because
she couldn’t draw and yet she could do any craft you can imagine and make most
things, all while remaining serene and raising eight children. But it was all
house or children focused craft - dolls, clothes, wall hangings, quilts, cushions and
doilies. Just like female painters of old were confined to painting domestic
scenes. This element to crafting raises the feminist shackles in me and makes
me want to, if not burn my bra, at least re-fashion it into a macramé pot plant
holder! Because I have become, for want of a better term, a “stay at home
mother”, in charge of all things domestic,
does that mean all my creative energies must be focused toward the family as
well?
It’s a practical fact that craft is a creative pursuit that
fits in well with the housekeeping and child rearing. But sometimes I find the
domestic focus of craft dispiriting. It’s not like I can be welding a huge
sculptural folly in the back yard is it? No. I’m crocheting a funny looking but
useful pinafore in left over wool using up minimal space and making minimal
mess. I’m not painting a mural for public work or even a fairly naive wonky
painting for some exhibition. No, I’m stitching a felt robot hot water bottle
cover for the children – recycled, environmentally sustainable and fun for the
kids. Sometimes the creative frustration still bubbles away and the home themed
and practical focus of craft is just another confinement.
While a return to craft has been a big trend for many
people, I question how it fits with our feminist ideals. Crafting is time
consuming and could my time be better employed? Does crafting distract me from
other achievements? While I love that craft skills, like those my mother and
grandmother and great grandmother had, are recognised for the skill and cleverness,
it is still essentially a domestic pursuit. And then there is the crafting with irony - we
can be subversive with our sewing,
dogmatic with our doilies, strident with our stitching – but in doing
this are we invalidating the traditional crafts of our mothers by making fun of
them? Or are we saying, “I can craft with irony and still be a feminist even
though I’ve just spent at least 18 hours cross stitching rude words to a wall
hanging?”
Craft is also popular
for the sustainability of the practices and recycling opportunities it presents. But while we’re darning, turning doilies
into collars, recycling frocks into children’s skirts and jumpers into
legwarmers, what are we getting? Besides a pair of legwarmers we don’t really want or
need and the satisfaction of not having added the hole-ridden jumper to
landfill? Because we can recycle it, does it mean we should? (see denim light shade!)
And what of the
hours and creative energy spent doing it? Would I have been better off seeking
more education? Reading a book? Writing a book? Creating art? Getting out of
the house? Improving employment opportunities? Doing voluntary work? By doing craft, are we, as stay
at home mothers, just keeping our head above the drowning pull of housework or burying our creative heads in the sand of domestic life? Are we enhancing our lives in line with a
Ruskin philosophy or simply adding to our domestic load? Are we avoiding
homogenised-globalised-consumerism by making individual different household
items? Or simply surviving creatively while our children are little?
So! I craft because it fits in with my lifestyle at the
moment and if I didn’t, my creativity would be severely frustrated and that
frustration may bubble and explode in any manner of strangeness. But sometimes
I wonder if, like some sort of “Stockholm” syndrome, I have begun to love my
domestic imprisonment without even realising it and my creative ideas have now become
all contained and homey? Have I
forgotten the big picture of what I want to do with my life? Do I avoid thinking
about my life while I numb my thoughts with a meditative chant, “knit two, purl two”? Is it a kind of therapy for the shell shocked repercussions of child birth? Or do I realise
that, for now, to have individual, idiosyncratic, handmade items grace our everyday life
is a privilege that enriches our home? I don’t know! Why do you craft?
Now, where’s that bra? I have just the pot plant for it....
