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Welcome to the Maker’s Marathon Activity Book! Everyone’s a maker, and making feels magic. But that can be hard to remember in the daily grind. Between April and October 2021, through a rhythm of fortnightly meet-ups, buddy sessions, and Power Up days, we explored how making is possible no matter where you are or what tools you have with you. In this book, we share our reflections and collect our tips for a life filled with crafts, colours, co-creation and togetherness. From writing, to singing as way to find your voice, to sharing your music, to visualising emotions. From healing, to hosting, to freeing our animalistic nature. From making from the heart, to making a garden haven, to making a studio practice. From finding flow to crafting a soulful life; we hope you will find something in our journeys that helps you with a question of your own. So we hope this book helps you rediscover your inner maker, and the magic of making. Think back to being a child. What are you holding? What are you doing? There’s your inner maker. Right inside you all along - someone who squishes with their hands, and squelches sounds in mud, and scrunches their face in concentration. Dig in! With love, Ali, Bailey, Corinne, Ieva, Isla, Jasper, Katie, Meera, Melise, Nour, Sophie and Tingyu
Images from the Makers’ Marathon peer group
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Our Makers’ Marathon Path, April - October ‘21
Explore
Develop
Showcase Meet-up #11 - p34
Meet-up #1 - p4
Kick-Off Weekend
Tree Medicine, hosted by Sophie
Meet-up #7 - p20 Meet-up #6 - p16
Visualising Belonging, hosted by Ieva
Lo-fi Printmaking, hosted by Melise
Cosplay Party, hosted by Tingyu
Finish Line Weekend
Meet-up #2 - p6 Make it Close to Your Heart, hosted by Meera
Power Up #2 Showcase Event Meet-up #8 - p24
Power Up #1
Meet-up #3 - p9
Minimum Viable Memoir, hosted by Ali
Meet-up #4 - p13
Meet-up #12 - p36
Singing to Find your Voice, hosted by Bailey
Willow Weaving, hosted by Corinne
Life Manifestos, hosted by Isla
Key Buddy session
Meet-up #5 - p14 Metaphors and Lyrics, hosted by Jasper
Meet-up #9 - p27 Armchair Time Travel, hosted by Nour
Meet-up #10 - p30 Framing as Practice, hosted by Katie
Meet-up workshop
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Ieva The question I came with: How do I enter a state of flow? The question I leave with: How to have amazing mornings?
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words? Oil for rust. How would you define making? Thirteen muscles to make a person smile. What have you learned from this process? Courage to play. Tell us about something you’ve made. I made a film that woke me up from slumber. What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? Respect them, it’s like with the fox and Little Prince, if you’re nice to them they’ll come back if you’re a judgemental asshole, what do you expect? 4
Activity: Visualising Belonging A
While exploring her Learning Question, Ieva imagined flow as rushing water, like a stream coming from a spring or a waterfall falling over a cliff edge in perpetuity. Where does it gets its energy and power? In the water cycle, it’s the sun evaporating the oceans, carrying them over the mountains and leaving them there to find their way home. What if flow is a journey towards home? What if that’s the place that you long for, and not necessarily the place you came from?
B
Ieva’s workshop helps you to visualise your inner belonging by creating a ‘kingdom of your heart’, a citadel built around a central spring of belonging that feeds a castle, city and surrounding lands. You will need: • A notebook and pen • Colouring pencils
C
Step 1: Connecting to ourselves In your notebook, take 10 minutes to write freely in response to the following prompts: My heart belongs… My heart yearns… Step 2: A Kingdom of your Heart In and around the diagram opposite, add notes and drawings using the key below. A: What is the source of your being? What’s at the heart of who you are? B: What makes up your sense of self? Which people, objects, practices that are closest to your heart? C: What gives you a sense of safety? Which people, objects, practices protect you? D: What do you desire? Which people, objects, practices do you want in your life?
D
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Meera
The question I came and leave with: How can I make from the heart?
Step 2: Develop designs using the templates below. Some tips on what makes a good message: • Be passionate • Keep it simple and clear
• Don’t be afraid to use humor and wit • Presentation matters (but won’t worry too much :))
Badges from the group
Activity: Make it Close to Your Heart Meera’s meet-up had us designing and making badges with messages that are close to our heart. You will need: • Craft and collage materials • Scissors • Cardboard • Safety pins • Tape
Step 1: What’s your message? Generate content for your badges using the following prompts: What causes do you stand by? How would you show your affiliation to a cause that matters to you?
What really gets on your tits? What makes your eyes roll, grind your teeth or raise an eyebrow?
What makes your heart sing? What brings pleasure into your life? What gives you a warm glow?
Step 3: Wear with pride Once your designs are done, cut out your badges and stick them onto cardboard. Cut around each one before sticking a safety pin to the back with tape. Ta-da, a badge! 6
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Isla
Instagram: @islashelly Email: sayhellotoisla@gmail.com
The question I came with: What is healing? The question I leave with: What does healing work look like for me?
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words?
Tell us about something you’ve made. Around halfway through the marathon I was moving house and as a result, I had little to no time/energy to spend on making. I had gone three weeks without creating anything and I remember feeling really disappointed. During a coaching conversation with Katie, I discovered mini-making: 1-5 minutes where I make something new out of materials that are within reach. That’s when I painted my first shell (pictured below). The painted shell was my healing response to this busy time period when I was deeply craving to create but felt scared to spend all my energy on making and overwhelmed by life admin. Mini-making is now a very important tool in my toolbox that I go to when I want to make but don’t know where to start or struggle to find the time.
A healing experience. How would you define making? Making is capturing a thought/idea (noticing), visioning what it could look like in the real world (imagining), then doing everything you can to make that vision come true under the constraints that exist (hoping). Making is seeing the world as your studio, your canvas, your guide, your inspiration and your toolbox. Making ideas are everywhere, you don’t need to create anything new, you just need to get good at finding them. What have you learned from this process? ‘Don’t let the writer you think you should be, stop you from becoming the writer you could be.’ This quote is from one of my favourite TV shows, The Bold Type, and it encapsulates my greatest learning from this process. I need to let go, to surrender, to not make sense, to make a clay model of a bathtub, a collage of a woman and then an audio of ocean sounds. I need to follow my instinct, not my logic. I need to allow myself to be.
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The Makers’ Marathon peer group making and chatting on their Kick Off Weekend
This lesson goes so much deeper than my making practice; it’s my life philosophy, and my rebellious response to a world that demands my choices must make sense.
Mini-making
What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? What does play mean to you? If this is the first time asking yourself this question then don’t let it be the last. Your inner maker is desperate to play, to be spontaneous and to adventure. In adulthood we’ve lost the art of play in exchange for sensibility and safety. Play can mean something different to everyone - be it face painting on a weekday, going for a walk without a map or eating breakfast for dinner. Whatever it is, let yourself be cheeky, let yourself be rebellious, let yourself be surprised.
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Activity: Life Manifestos Writing a manifesto is an act of standing up for what you believe in, and an expression of who you are and want to be. Articulating your values can be hard to do in abstract, so Isla’s workshop developed a series of beautiful prompts to generate content as the building blocks of a personal manifesto. You will need: • Pens • Dixit cards - if you don’t have them, check out: https://tinyurl.com/6kdb8tt2 • A timer Step 1: Images that speak to you • Spread your Dixit pack out on a surface, or open up the link above. • Pick 3 - 5 cards that jump out of you. • In the space opposite, take each card one by one and write the words that arise when you see the image. Time 1 minute per card. Don’t overthink it! Step 2: Traits you admire • Now think about a couple of people you look up to. They could be famous, or someone you know. • In the same space, take 3 minutes to note the qualities in them that you most admire. Step 3: Character strengths • Take a moment to get to know your strengths with the Via Character Strengths survey: https://www. viacharacter.org/ • Add your strengths to your notes. 10
Notes on Steps 1-3
Step 4: Aon Letter to1-3 Your Future Self Notes Steps
It’s time to connect with your future self by responding to the following prompts:
Dear Future Self, My wish for you is…
I hope you are continuing to…
One thing I can learn from you is...
With love, Me
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Step 5: Your Manifesto Notes on Steps 1-3
You should now have the building blocks to create your Life Manifesto. Go back through your notes so far and highlight words or phrases that stand out to you. Use colours and forms that speak to you and your life to create a border in the space below. Using your building blocks, try forming a set of affirmations to make up your manifesto. Inspiration here: https://tinyurl.com/6vs9b9ke
Bailey
What have you learned from this process?
Website: bailey.work/music
I grew up around music and musicians as a church chorister, and then started writing songs and gigging when I was around 15. Performing was such an important part of my discovering myself as a teenager. I met wonderful creative friends through the local scene and earned cash from gigging and busking. It gave me independence.
The question I came with: Can writing new songs help me rediscover my voice? The question I leave with: How can songs help us process emotions and thoughts to change how we see the world?
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words? Inspiration, Encouragement, Performance. How would you define making? I loved hearing Ali’s definition of play as when we ‘luxuriate in our own competence’, when we are excited just to see what we can create and what skills we can hone. That’s how I see making. I’m making when I’m taking time out of my everyday to sit down with my guitar and notebook, struggling to think about rhyme and meter. I’m making when I get into a state of flow, when time flies by and suddenly it’s time for dinner. I’m making when I’m creating a space and a moment for an audience in the midst of performance.
I’ve realised how important songwriting and performing are to my sense of self.
I’ve realised that my performer self can co-exist with my professional self, especially now that I’m more established in my career. Being in my mid-30s isn’t such a barrier after all. Tell us about something you’ve made. In July I wrote and performed three songs, ‘Anger in three parts’. It was the week before our Power Up accountability session, the first time the group would meet in person. I was excited to perform. I’d been inspired by Tingyu’s performance art and by talking to Isla about how anger drives me. I wrote a song on sexism (‘As a Father of Daughters’), a song on capitalism (more specifically, Jeff Bezos’s trip to space), and a song about diet culture. As I performed them for the group, rain violently poured onto the roof windows above me. Live music is magic. What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? Over the last six months I’ve been working out why I want to make music. It’s only by understanding what drives my desire to make that I’ve been able to get out of my own way and actually do it. For me, I want to write songs to perform them. I want to create a special moment for an in-person audience. I want to reward people for putting away their phones and for turning away from conversation to listen to me sing. I want to leave people with a powerful message or feeling. Work out what drives you and get out of your own way.
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Activity: Singing to Connect to Your Inner Self Bailey’s meet-up was completely unique - she recorded a podcast which we all tuned into together. The recording explores how singing can help us connect to ourselves, remove inhibition and kindle new energy to channel into creative work. You will need: • Ideally you’ll be in a private room where you can feel free to sing and experiment without feeling self-conscious. • You’ll need to be comfortable lying down in your space, ideally on a yoga mat or similar – if you don’t have one, a comfortable carpeted area or blankets can also work well. It’s also good to have a couple of cushions and blankets on hand in case you need more support to get comfortable. • Wear loose fitting, comfortable clothing. • Have a glass of water or a cup of tea on hand, and maybe a notepad and pen for jotting down thoughts. • You’ll be listening to guided exercises and music so if you can, listen to the session via a speaker or in-ear headphones to get the best quality audio. When you’re ready, scan this QR code:
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Jasper Twitter: @iOvrThoughtThis Bandcamp: treasurer.bandcamp.com
The question I came and leave with: How can I build a system and a place to release my music?
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words? Inspiration, Discovery, Acceptance. How would you define making? Making for me walks the line between producing and creating. It’s about turning thoughts and feelings into experiences. What have you learned from this process? That it’s more than structure and accountability I need to make. I need community and inspiration as well as space within myself and my life. Making is something I need to make and protect time for. Tell us about something you’ve made. One of my favourite things to make was the playdough. I’d played with it as a child but never considered that it might not have to be a complicated chemical covered mess. That it might just be a bit of oil, flour, salt and colouring. It’s empowering to learn things like that because now having playdough isn’t an unchangeable factor of the environment. I can just make some.
“I found that having permission to take time and create a maker's environment really helped a lot. Permission to cut paper into strips, to scrunch foil, to tear boxes. Permission to make a mess, to buy paints, to take time. Perhaps it’s a little like a fire. The parts to make it are all around us but we need to arrange things specially and provide a little spark which we protect and feed to stay alight. You can make with anything but to start you need something easy, the space to do it and a tiny, imperceivable little spark.” - Jasper
Activity: Metaphors and Lyrics Jasper often uses metaphors in songwriting as a way to put complex feelings into words. Instead of being limited by our current paradigm of expression, metaphor allows us to call in a different ‘world’ of reference, and thereby a whole bunch of linked images and descriptions. His workshop explores applying metaphor to a challenge, feeling or thought in your life, and developing into a song ‘hook’. You will need: • A notebook and pen Step 1: A short story of feeling Take your notebook and do some stream-of-consciousness writing about a challenge, feeling or thought you’d like to explore. The idea is not to write something perfect but to generate content to use later in the workshop. Step 2: Taking Stock Look back over what you’ve written and highlight anything that stands out. Note them down on a fresh page of your notebook. Step 3: Finding Metaphors For each of these snippets of text, note down objects, images or situations that share characteristics with your story. When you find ones that feel like they connect, expand on them. How can you enrich that metaphor? Step 4: Lyric Writing When writing metaphors into song lyrics, it can be useful to try and start with the ‘hook’ - a line or phrase which you can sing or say that captures the core of what the song is about. To give an example, Jasper wrote a song about letting go of someone he loved. The hook in the song is “So just keep me sedated, I don’t want to feel a thing”. It stems from using an operation, something that would hurt now but ultimately be good, as a metaphor for his experience.
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Tingyu Website: tingyuwang.wixsite.com/home
The question I came with: How can we unleash our animalistic nature using the language of art?
Activity: Cosplay Party Tingyu introduced us all to the concept of Cosplay - a costume makeover where you get to dress up as your favourite anime or cartoon character. Here are some ideas for you to host your own Cosplay party...
The question I leave with: How can I free myself in my style of writing?
Gather your friends
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words?
It could be for a special occasion or just your average night in with friends - make it memorable by introducing Cosplay.
Enthusiastic, collaborative and encouraging. How would you define making?
Decide on your character
Design and make your costume
Anything goes with Cosplay. You might already have an idea of someone you’ve always wanted to dress up as. If not, a good place to start is by thinking about some of your favourite fictional characters growing up. Who would you like to pretend to be for a while?
There are lots of youtube tutorials on Cosplay costume DIY. The more elaborate, the better! Our costumes used things like an umbrella, a swimming hat, loo rolls and pipe cleaners.
Our party brought together the Cat in the Hat, Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls, Lois Lane, Homer Simpson in a Moo Moo, Daidouji Tomoyo from Card Captor Sakura, Karaba the Sorceress and Pusheen the Cat.
Making is all about keeping your creativity going. We are not machines but mindful souls with a lot of imagination. Making is a way to link a community of creative makers and share meaningful thoughts without the necessity of productivity. We need making in order to free our hands, hearts and minds. What have you learned from this process? I gained a lot of peer support while elsewhere I only gain peer pressure. The makers’ community is very warm and responsive. There is never a lack of new ideas. I have learnt about the personal meaning of keeping being a maker for life. Living one’s life is just like being an artist. I believe that everyone is an artist when it comes to the creation of one’s life. Tell us about something you’ve made. I did a great deal of drawing and illustration work. I made a dozen of badges during a workshop held by Meera which I enjoyed a lot. I wrote a song called Fortune Cookie, lol. What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? Do some meditation away from all the tablets, take a deep breath and connect with the space first! 16
Celebrate your characters A fun way to start the party can be to draw anime portraits of your characters. What are the features you want to celebrate most of all? What is their catchphrase?
Hold a Talent Show We don’t get enough moments in life to celebrate ourselves. Why not introduce a talent show segment to your party to give everyone a chance to shine? It could be a performance or a party trick. Ours included a dance routine, rollerskating in a circle, juggling and rapping the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. 17
Shells from Margate brought by Isla as a gift to be painted in Corinne’s kitchen in Durham
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Melise
Activity: Lo-fi Printmaking
Instagram: @melise_irenn
The Maker’s Marathon was hosted online, which introduced a real constraint to planning our meetups: how could we design sessions so that everyone had the materials to take part?
The question I came with: How might I craft my way into a soul-full life? The question I leave with: How might I practice soul-full living daily?
Melise designed a genius lo-fi printmaking session, which can be picked up by anyone, anywhere, for less than £5.
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words? Homing - Interconnectedness - Agility. How would you define making? I am drawn to the roots of the word ‘create’: To bring into existence. To shape something where before there was nothing. This seduces me in making - the process of creation itself. It is my way of making sense of and experiencing the world. From this place, I can follow what lights me up inside; I can honor my curiosity and explore concepts rooted in philosophy, neuroscience, physics or psychology; I can use woodwork today, chemistry tomorrow, printmaking the day after. I value this freedom. Through making, I can explore life in all it has to offer. What have you learned from this process? I have learnt that I can maintain intentionality through chaos. I have learnt that in my self exploration, I can dive deep and swim wide. I have learnt to trust myself. I have found that making connects me with something greater than myself and that I can practice spirituality through it. One possible answer to my learning question is a simple and complex one. To craft my way into a soul-full life, I shall practice soul-full living daily. What is soul-full today might not be the same tomorrow. I have learned that it is a practice, a commitment; not a recipe or a mythical place for me to reach. 20
Bioplastic Mushrooms
Tell us about something you’ve made. During the process, I experimented with bioplastics materials produced from renewable sources such as algae, starch or gelatin. Besides the desire to consider the environmental impact of the things I make, I was drawn to the aesthetics of the material - it’s translucency and interaction with light; its versatility - how it can be brittle or flexible. More prominently, I was drawn to the accessibility of bioplastics - being able to source ingredients from my local grocery store and transform them in my kitchen. I am highly seduced by this DIY ethos. What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? ‘What you pay attention to grows’ as the saying goes. Notice your creative hope. Listen to it. Nourish it. Then use it to drive intentional action. Be willing to embrace the beginner mindset, be eager to give anything a go without judgement or attachment to the finished product. Notice what lights you up then keep showing up for it.
A little bit of background A print is an impression made by any method involving transfer from one surface to another. Monotypes, the type of print explored in this activity, make unique images. Monotypes are great because they’re… • a hybrid between drawing & printing • the most painterly of printing techniques: you can create gestural and textural marks • spontaneous and full of chance • versatile: they combine printmaking, painting, drawing, decoupage, collage...
You will need: Printmaking station • Newspaper to protect your working area • 1 plastic document wallet • Masking tape • A piece of cardboard or plastic for a palette Printmaking tools • Acrylic paint • 1 Kitchen sponge • 1 Dishcloth Paper • Lots of sheets of standard printer paper for test prints • Nice quality paper for final prints Other materials • Magazines • Cardboard • Anything you might use to make a mark - leaves, flowers and small branches, bubble wrap, wine cork, a pencil, plastic ruler, tip of brush, plastic carrier bag, an old toothbrush… • Prit stick • Scissors • Brushes 21
Step 1: Prepare your work station
Step 3: Try out different techniques
• Tape down some newspaper sheets to protect your working area. • Put a single sheet of printer paper inside your plastic document and tape it down. This will act as your printer plate. • You may also wish to tape your palette next to your plate.
1. Direct tracing
2. Additive
3. Subtractive
Place a sheet of paper on top of an inked plate and draw directly onto the back of the paper. The marks you make will pick up the ink to make a bold line. This technique can be used to trace the outline of a photograph or picture.
Here, the image is created by adding or building up pigment onto the plate. For example, you can use organic or manmade materials like leaves or bubble wrap to add textures to your plate that will transfer onto your paper.
Cover the entire plate with a thin layer of paint, then shape your image by removing some of the pigment with brushes, rags, sticks, or other tools. You can also use cut out shapes to block the ink from being transferred.
Step 2: Take a print • Squeeze some paint onto your palette and using a sponge, brush or piece of cardboard, apply it to your plastic printing plate. You can use 1 colour or mix several into a gradient. • Place a piece of printer paper directly onto the paint, and pull it away. • The paint will transfer onto your paper to create a print. 22
Tips and tricks • Give your prints a sharp or textured edge by cutting or tearing a frame from a cereal box and placing it between your plate and the paper you’re printing onto. • Create stencils from images cut from magazines or drawings to add interest to your prints. • Build up a background of textures and print multiple layers on a single sheet of paper. • Make a stamp from cardboard to introduce repeat patterns. Prints from the group
• Cut out shapes from printed textures to create a one of a kind collage. 23
Ali
Twitter: @ali_norrish Website: alinorrish.co.uk
The question I came with: How can I write Rilke? What is my creative practice? The question I leave with: How can I access deep freedom? How can I go on a villa holiday?
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words? Choices are abundant. How would you define making? For me, making has meant a chance to say there is something I have inside me to feel or say that is worthy of expression. Making feels so outside of the realm of daily economic life and trying to keep your head above the water. It feels like coming home to being human, first and foremost. Making helps you create energy, even out of exhaustion.
Tell us about something you’ve made. I came to the marathon hoping to write a memoir or narrative experience that had come to me, called ‘Rilke’. I’ve written a tiny draft of Rilke. But it also feels like claiming the right to memoir is the bigger action of reclaiming our lives. It’s about giving yourself the right to see meaning in your experience - which is inherently of worth because it is a human life. I love this quote about what memoir invites us to do: ‘The good memoirist doesn’t diminish her terror or excitement or hurt or bliss. She puts a magnifying glass to it’; she writes about ‘an ordinary existence... with profound insight’.
Activity: Minimum Viable Memoir Memoirs enable us to examine and articulate the memorable moments and events of our lives.1 Ali’s meet-up had us writing in response to different prompts to help us work out how we want to construct a narrative about our life. You will need: • Notebook and pen • An object or image to respond to
Memoir prompts
Claiming tenderness feels in tension with the world of work and running out of resources - for me, these feel brutal, but I want them to feel human, because we all deserve it. I’ve also made a website and tried to define my ‘creative practice’, and left a job of five years, making a commitment to changing. My new website proclaims that I’m an economic relationship designer. I’m still not certain what this means, but it feels like an act of bringing together the things in tension and asking: How can we still expect more of our lives, despite what making ends meet does to us?
Start with your foundation image*
What words are important in your life? You might weave your memoir from these Or you could start from an event, theme or insight, or the present moment
A second big meaning of making for me is around decisions and change. I’ve needed to ask myself how I can allow ‘way to lead on to way’ (Robert Frost), make the decisions, and go through the doors that life is asking of me.
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What have you learned from the process?
What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker?
That I can be reflective and poetic still. This part of me has not been burnt out by economics and logistics - it’s still in me, deep at my core, scorched but only ready to grow up and out again, like something after a forest fire. That I am willing and want to slow down and look intensely and closely at things around me, and that I might even like my inner voice and want to validate it by sharing how I think.
To let go of having to make sense of everything, and to commit to finishing something at the time you started it, rather than saying I will finish it later. It’s ok for something to be done, but not perfect. Are there even 10% of us who are not starting from the point of burnout? We need to fail, flail and fully experience our endless free goes - to claim the right to live as who we already are and make our own mistakes.
Describe a time or image that comes to you. It can be from the present, an object you look at often; or can be from the deep past.
I am surrounded by…
When I think of it I feel… I love this image’s… Write about the sensory qualities of your image or object
Life is…
What is your overriding emotion? How does that emotion feel in your body?
I am always…
(list nouns)
(list adjectives/ describing words or feelings)
Event sentence starters:
Theme or insight sentence starter:
Present moment sentence starter:
The first time I knew that…. I was...
It’s so hard to write right now. My body is...
At the start of the pandemic, I..
Help! What’s a memoir? ‘Memoir is a democratic form. Anyone who’s lived can write one.’ - Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir -
‘The good memoirist doesn’t diminish her terror or excitement or hurt or bliss. She puts a magnifying glass to it…’ 2 "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." - Maya Angelou
(list verbs or actions ending in -ing)
* Virginia Woolf felt that every writer, every person, has a ‘foundation image’, an image which lies at the core of their memories or experience as a person and on which their ‘soul stands’. Woolf’s was lying down as a child, watching the wooden ball at the bottom of the pull of a blind, while the sun played over the wooden floor. Right now, mine is the memory of holding a warm stone in my hand on a beach. 1 - https://www.gold.ac.uk/short-courses/memoir-life-writing/ 2- https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/best-memoirsautobiographies-biographies.html 25
Bailey performing ‘Anger in three parts’ at our Power Up #2
Nour Instagram: @nour.ig
The question I came with: How can I explore human emotions through creativity and making? The question I leave with: How can I explore my own emotions through creativity and making? Human Emotion Cards
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words? Vulnerable, inquisitive, impassioned. How would you define making? Making transcends the tools in our crafts boxes; the papers, pens and mess in-between. We are makers of thoughts, dreams and aspirations, as well as the scribbles, paintings and collages that are typically associated with making. During this marathon, my ‘making’ involved a lot of time spent retrospecting; looking inward, spending time with my thoughts and feelings, researching, and finally creating visual responses to how I felt. Through this marathon, I expanded my own definition of what making can be, and now see it in a completely different light. What have you learned from this process? This process has also allowed me to unearth a great deal about myself - how I display emotions, how I perceive emotions and how I communicate my emotions to others. It taught me alot about emotional vulnerability, and allowed me to address a number of uncomfortable questions throughout the marathon. 26
Tell us about something you’ve made. One of the main goals that I set myself was to create a deck of cards, where each card visualises a human emotion that cannot be described in a single word. This task was in response to The Box of Emotions (an encyclopedia of emotions that ranges from anger to zen) and I took the opportunity to create cards that displayed emotions that are beyond words. This goal was pivotal in pushing my explorations of my own emotions further, and allowed me to transition into changing my question to ‘How can I explore my own emotions through creativity and making?’ What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? Just start! Start with anything, even if small. In fact, the smaller the better. Know that there is no right or wrong way to make; set your inner child free and allow them to make mistakes throughout the process. Be gentle with yourself, and listen to your mind and body. These are all fundamental lessons that I have learnt throughout this journey alongside the brilliant Makers cohort, and I am incredibly grateful to have been able to complete this journey with them. 27
Activity: Armchair Time Travel “Run away, even if it’s only for a little bit.” Nour’s meet-up had us bring to life a moment in our past, by extracting elements from a memory and representing them using different techniques before working them into a composition. You will need: • A memory or photograph • Pens or pencils • Paper • Collage materials • Scissors • A random material from your kitchen • A cardboard box (optional)
Step 1: Find a memory you want to relive You might have a photograph of it, or it might just be in your mind. Close your eyes and pretend that you are in that moment, in the present tense.
Step 3: Pick features of your memory you’d like to represent Read back over your notes and pick eight elements from your memory.
Step 4: Finding Form Step 2: Explore the memory
Now match these eight elements to a different method of representation below. Write each one in the green space. Then take a few minutes per method to give each element from your memory form.
Follow the prompts below to explore this memory, taking notes in the box below: Where are you? What are you doing? What can you see in the distance? What’s right in front of you? What does the ground feel like? What’s the weather like? Who else is there? How does your body feel? Anything else to note?
My memory:
Step 5: Composition Find a way to combine your elements into a 2D or 3D composition in a way that honours your memory. 28
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Katie
Activity: Framing as a practice
Instagram: @slee_katie Website: katieslee.co.uk
Katie’s meet-up brought framing to the fore as...
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• a way of seeing: à la Henry David Thoreau, “it’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
The question I came with: How can making bridge our inner and outer worlds? The question I leave with: How can I be a good Host?
• a way of being intentional: what you decide to bring in, what you decide to leave out.
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words?
• a mark of pride - putting something into a frame, designating it as special, putting it on the wall, protecting it and making it last.
A beautiful constellation.
p Peer grou
counters
How would you define making? This was a big question for me when recruiting for the Makers’ Marathon. In October 2020, my definition was quite reductive - MM participants would make things with their hands. As expressions of interest came in, my mind opened up and, as well as those hoping to explore making objects and images, our peer group formed with musicians, writers and a gardener. As we reach the end of our journey, my definition is as inclusive as possible: to make is to bring something into existence. It doesn’t matter how. What have you learned from this process? I find it easier to make with purpose than to make for making’s sake. Intergenerational spaces are healing. It’s hard to host and hold a Learning Question. My hosting style is maternal and attentive. My instinct to scoop people up and soothe doesn’t always help them to grow. Discomfort is part of growth. I can be reliable, I can hold relationships for a sustained period of time. A plastic wallet is a printing plate. 30
This activity has you create a viewfinder, and take a set of mental photographs, or ‘fauxtos’.
Step 1: Make your viewfinder Cut your cardboard into a rectangle. In the middle, cut a small square around 3cm wide. Loop your rubber band through the hole and tie it at the edge of the card. On the front of your viewfinder, write the numbers 1-5 down the side. Step 2: Take some fauxtos Step out into your room, garden or street. Look around you through your viewfinder. Think of it as a meditation. What do you want to frame? Snap your rubber band, as you would the shutter on a camera, to take a fauxto. Note the subject of your picture on the front of the viewfinder. You only have 5 fauxtos in total to take. Step 3: Journaling
You will need Tell us about something you’ve made. The question I’ve held during this process is ‘how can I be a good Host?’ I have found myself running through the peer group in my mind or in notes, checking through our initials in alphabetical order, trying to work out who might need support, who might need space. ABCIIJKMMNST. To make this more visual, I made little ‘counters’ to represent each of us and our questions from clay. I keep them on my desk, they help me feel connected to the group, and that makes me feel calm.
• • • • •
Thick cardboard Scissors or a craft knife and cutting mat A rubber band Pen Notebook
Once you’ve used up your fauxtos, pick 3 from your list and spend 1 minute per image to record what was in your frame. Try to be as specific as possible. Step 4: Composite Poem Go back with a different coloured pen and pick words or lines from your reflections that stand out. Work these snippets together to create a poem.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? You can’t pour from an empty cup - if you don’t feel creative or connected, do you need a rest? If you have an idea for something you’d like to create, ask: how does this particular thing want to be made? For example, if there’s a quote you love that you’d like to do something with - does it want to be bold and typographic as a framed poster? Embroidered quietly on a pillowcase? Printed on a t-shirt? Sometimes the ‘what’ can direct us to the ‘how’. 31
Composite poems from the Makers’ Marathon peer group
Corinne and Jasper repping the Makers’ Marathon at an Enrol Camp speed-drawing workshop
Isla’s gift Leaves rattle through the portal Nature finding its way into my home Layers, cobwebs, beauty in dust and decay Complexity Luminosity Frame lives within a frame Golden beauty shining through Smells of the sea light, upwards, light the promise of Margate - Corinne, Sophie and Isla
Untitled Dead leaves the same colour as the willow behind. Grounded. Grounded by its scent. Clouds. Wind. Hard swift movement. I want to touch it. Freedom, blissful hobbies.
Moments It is terrible to die of thirst on the ocean Throng the speakeasies Fondness A chandelier in dog’s basket. Memory A chewed up fox A mother, schooled in misery Gratitude The oddness of it - Meera, Ieva and Bailey
“It’s like when we moved in” - Melise, Nour and Katie
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Sophie
Activity: Tree Medicine
Website: sophiehowarth.com
Sophie’s Tree Medicine meet-up showed us that whatever the question, trees have the answer.
The question I came and leave with: What might emerge from a regular studio practice?
Try taking a question to a tree: Spend five minutes in the company of a tree.
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words?
Any tree will do, no need to hunt the oldest or biggest or most beautiful; each has something to say.
Motivating, aligning, fulfilling. How would you define making?
Rest your hands on the bark and tell the tree your Learning Question.
Making has been a really embracing word for me to work with. I loved the holistic approach to making we took as a group - some people making music, others making space or words or objects. My marathon was mostly about making a regular creative practice, which involved making space, then time and with these underpinnings in place, finding myself better able to make actual creative expressions. I stopped berating myself about all the things I don’t make, and started celebrating all the things I do - making food, making family, making love, making a life that feels true and alive. Tell us about something you’ve made. I’ve made myself a beautiful studio space at home and a portable suitcase-studio I can travel with. I’ve made a structure for my days that keeps me aligned with my values and creative priorities. I’ve made lots of experimental collages and sculptures. I’ve made myself and those closest to me happier than at any other time I can remember. 34
Ask the tree what answers it has for you. Listen and receive. What have you learned from this process? I’ve learned how enabling routine can be, and how creative freedom can be helped by regularity and constraint. I’ve said no to lots of things in order to say yes to the priorities the Maker’s Marathon helped me identify. I’ve found that simplifying my daily routines has reduced my anxiety and existential doubts, and helped me show up to attend the things that matter most to me, day after day. I’m fond of the Annie Dillard quote “our days are our lives”, which helps me focus on having ordinary days that are creative and calm and trusting that’s how I find and stay on a path that’s mine.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? I read a lot of advice from other makers as part of this marathon. I felt myself supported by an invisible network of creative mentors found in books, podcasts and social media streams as well as by our peer community. I loved learning how other makers organised their days to do their best work. But what helped me most was learning to trust myself more, to know that doing what I love is an expression of gratitude in being alive and trust that being joyful is a worthy contribution to the world. So that’s also what I’d hope for anyone else making friends with an overlooked or undernourished maker hiding inside them.
Notice when you are stepping in to speak for the tree and let your thinking mind take a back seat. Let the tree whisper it’s secrets to you. Scribe what you receive. It needn’t take longer than five minutes, though if the tree magnetises you for longer and seems to have more wisdom to reveal, please surrender. And if it offers you material gifts, graciously accept them.
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Before
Corinne’s Potager
Now
Harvey Hare!
Corinne The question I came with: How can I use my creativity to develop my garden space to be a beautiful, productive haven for family and friends? The question I leave with: How will I continue to bring fun and magic into my garden?
How would you sum up your Makers Marathon in 3 words? Interesting, fulfilling, motivational. How would you define making? Using yourself (generally hands) to choose to make certain things/materials interact, to create. What have you learned from this process? To be resilient, not everything goes as you would like it to, all the time. Keep trying, learn! Tell us about something you’ve made. A vegetable bed, with potager. Never having grown things to eat before, it was a joy to sample and share the fruits of my labour. What advice would you give to someone who wants to connect with their inner maker? Go for it, don’t be put off by what you perceive to be hurdles. Great things can even come out of mistakes. If you don’t start, when will it happen? 36
Ali and Rilke in the garden
Isla making in Corinne’s kitchen
Activity: Willow Weaving One of Corinne’s intentions at the start of the Marathon was to make some sculptural features for her garden. Melise - Corinne’s buddy for the first half of the Makers’ Marathon - found a willow workshop for her to attend, where she made Harvey Hare. Corinne decided to bring this new skill to the group for her meet-up, where we all made willow wreaths. We used a kit from The Willow Barn - see here: https://tinyurl.com/5dtrsbta If sourcing your own, you will need: • • • •
30 pieces of 4ft willow A soaking bag A circular frame (optional) Secateurs
Preparation: Set your willow to soak 4.5 days before you want to work with it. After 4 days, drain the willow and let it sit in the bag for 8 hours to mellow.
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Step 4:
Insert the butt (the thick end) of 1 willow rod through the wire ring leaving it sticking out 5cm or so. Taking hold of the thin end, start feeding the rod around the wire ring, making sure you let the willow lay where it wants to and don’t force it.
Next, 10cm along from the previous piece, insert another rod of willow. All your rods must go in the same direction.
As it becomes fuller, trim the thick ends.
Now it’s time to decorate your wreath.
Continue until you have the look you want.
What would you like to weave into yours?
Continue adding the rods at 10cm intervals. This will help the wreath be even in shape.
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Six months ago a dozen makers planted a dozen seeds, in the form of ‘learning questions’ such as ‘how can I explore human emotions through creativity and making?’ and ‘how can I make from the heart?’
Since then we’ve been growing these seeds alongside one another, into projects, songs, practices, poems and more. The Makers’ Marathon is drawing to a close, but a new chapter is just starting to unfurl.
