Entrance Slip Sept. 23rd

 One of the striking questions for me asked by Kallis is "what if we started to make some of the things we need for ourselves a social and cultural norm?". I think this is an incredibly powerful concept from an environmental perspective because it shifts us away from consumerism and into a mindset of recycling, upcycling, making use of what we have, and being thoughtful about what we need. Furthermore, I think this concept connects deeply with learning because it challenges us to produce things for ourselves and in doing so, solve the problems that might otherwise be fixed by someone else's product because it is convenient. This concept of producing what we need for ourselves helps us to become lifelong learners as well because to make a thing often requires some skill or other that we might not have developed otherwise. While we are making a conscious effort to help the environment, we are also learning and building upon are knowledge base to become more self-sustaining. This also provides an opportunity to connect with Indigenous ways of knowing and being in a more meaningful way by participating in those practices.

Of the three videos, I am very interested to try the Turkish string bag technique because it creates a very interesting geometrical 'web' pattern and I am wondering how that design could be altered. What other kinds of designs or patters could you imprint into the bag as you weave it? The 7-string braid video was also interesting because the pattern reminded me of Celtic designs I have seen before.