Why Make?

Staple draping at the Toi Whakaari School of Drama in Wellington, NZ. 2012. Photo by David Robkin.

One of the main things I'm asked about staple draping is "why?". Why bother? Why make your own stuff, when you can just buy cheap things at the store?
There are so many reasons.
Because it will fit you. And only you. Not like a mass produced piece from a store that never fit right.
It’s easy to get started. You’ve got spare fabrics around the house. And you probably have a stapler and scissors lying around.
Whatever you make is guaranteed to be unique. Just because you made it.
You’re making a new life for old and discarded items. And it’s very satisfying to know you made it yourself.
But really, this is about freedom. Freedom from malls and advertising and all that pervasive junk that fills up our lives. Every day we’re bombarded with ads telling us how we should look, what our houses should be like, what our lives should be like. As the song goes, “He can’t be a man because he does not smoke the same cigarettes as me.” We’re smart people. We know better. But it’s nearly impossible to be unaffected by this onslaught.
Modern urban life divorces us from where things come from and how things are made. Food comes in plastic wrapped packages. Clothes and furniture come from the store. We don’t see the process, so we don’t think about the individuals who actually make the things we use who maybe get $200 a month. If they’re lucky. We don’t see the people who make the stuff we buy and throw away. We lose touch.
Once we start making things ourselves, our eyes open. We see the world differently. That old tablecloth, the discarded plumbing pipe or broken radio becomes material we can use.  We become creators, not just consumers or spectators. We are active. And we can make better choices about the things we choose to buy.

Staple Draping by A.Laura Brody is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.