>> Tina Barseghian is editor-in-chief of CRAFT magazine.
tina@craftzine.com
When we conceived this issue a
few months ago, I was determined
to find a clever phrase that would
describe our theme.
The hunt was on. I asked everyone I came across
for ideas. We brought it up at meeting after meet-
ing, and left it unresolved for weeks. Just when we
thought we had found the perfect phrase, we would
say it out loud and realize that somehow it wasn’t
quite right.
Some of our ideas were plainly earnest: Mindful
Crafting, Conscious Crafting, Crafting with a
Conscience, and Eco-Crafting.
Some were more conceptual, and took some
time, as well as a few cognitive leaps, to absorb:
Slow Craft, Reciprocraft (oh, the verbal gymnastics
some of us will attempt in order to entertain you).
Then there were Guilt-Free, Guiltless, Smart, ReCraft,
Reinvent, Recyclo-Craft, and on and on.
One day, I had an exchange with our creative
director, Daniel Carter, who pointed out that, while
all of those options were fine, why not use the one
word that’s universally understood and provides
the perfect umbrella term to capture the theme?
Green!
By now, we’ve all been well educated about
the importance of living green. It doesn’t have to
be defined, put in quotes, expounded upon, or
capitalized, because it’s a part of our everyday
vernacular.
So the point of this issue is not to preach — you’re
very likely already converted — but to celebrate how
far we’ve come in embracing the green ethos. We’re
assuming that the green mindset is not just a trend
pounced upon by savvy public-relations hacks, or
manufactured by the press (including yours truly),
but that it’s really the only way to operate. We’ve
always featured reuse projects in this magazine —
this time, we’re simply calling it out.
In our interview with Michelle Kaufmann, the
influential architect whose modular homes use
sustainable construction methods and materials
(page 48), she talks about how she looks forward
to the day when being green is not just a trend,
but a way of life. For many of us, it already is.
How does crafting play into the green ideal?
Crafting is by its very nature creative, and what
more appropriate medium to practice creativity
than in finding new uses and second lives for the
objects around us?
Fuse a few of those much-maligned plastic bags together to create a matching tote and rain hat (page 40). Make a bird feeder out of a soda bottle (page 146), a solar herb dryer from an old frame (page 49), a purse out of a T-shirt (page 78), and a magazine holder and business card case from a cereal box (page 144).
And since it is the season after all, how about making holiday cards out of junk mail and old photos (page 63), a gingerbread house from a cardboard box (page 136), and an ornament from last year’s greeting cards (page 152)?
Green ideas are all around us — just look at any of the hundreds of blogs and websites devoted to them. It all proves to me that there’s good reason the word crafty also means clever! ×
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