Radical Craftivism

It was Sunday morning at 7:00 am about a week before my freshman year of high school. My dad and I were standing in line at the checkout in Walmart. Glancing at the cart, I made some observations (my OCD came in handy for the numbers). School supplies for my sister and me: 10 notebooks, 2 boxes with 24 pens each, three fresh binders, a package of erasers, two assignment books, and two reams of paper (not recycled). Moving on to the groceries, every bit of produce had its own plastic wrapping. Eggs and meat were in styrofoam covered with saran wrap. A Costco- sized package of paper towels crowded the 32-pack of water bottles, and have you ever looked at the ingredients on toilet cleaner? Every item in the entire cart was wasteful and unnatural. This was my epiphany; I had to learn to take care of myself in a world that honors the artificial.

I started with simple things. I planted a vegetable garden and committed myself to wearing my clothes until they were nothing but loosely woven threads. This way I could avoid paying companies to use unhealthy means of growing food and wrap their veggies in non-renewable resources. There was nothing that could be done about the clothes I already owned, but I could put an end to needless purchases. I stopped eating meat to become a direct consumer. My transition into becoming self-sufficient was at first almost entirely motivated by becoming more eco-friendly.

Eventually, though, my clothes wore out. My shoes smelled so bad that I was required to leave them on the porch. My mother insisted that I needed new jewelry. Everything was centered on the idea of making purchases at large corporations, who had bought the product from someone who had paid small Somalian children a dollar per week to make the product. Consumerism disgusted me. Self-sufficiency became more than being environmentally responsible. It was the only ethical choice for me.

I didn't feel the needle pierce my thumb when I sewed my first pillow. It wasn't until I finished that I noticed my hand was stuck to my project and bleeding on the white fabric. Fixing that was endlessly frustrating, and believe me, it was followed my some pretty disastrous projects. However, I began to cultivate my skills. I made my own clothes, pillow cases, little stuffed things for gifts, ext. For everything I made, I got the fabric from shirts that were just going to be thrown away. I stitched patterns and made jewelry that reflected my own identity, creating truly unique things without giving a cent to corporate America.

I believe in absolute independence. I wouldn't say I'm ready to march of into the world wagging a middle finger at society yet, but I think that there are too many people in the world who talk about self-sufficiency without ever achieving it. You have to be able to make a choice without having to compromise your own set of ethics. That's why I make things; I know where every resource involved came from and that no one was hurt so that I could have it. Plus, it's economically and environmentally sound.