Making Sense out of the Creative Process: Make and Meaning

The meaning of making is always an issue for those of us who create…who make. That sentence feels like a circle. When you choose to forge your career out of making things, you make a lot. And personally, there are a lot of questions that come up during that process.

My friend, collaborator, and mentor Diane Gilleland started a new blog awhile back with a few of her fellow craft bloggers called Make and Meaning. It’s a blog all about making and all those questions that come up along the way.

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“…making connects us to our best selves.

We believe in making, and we love the fact that the internet allows makers to meet and geek out together, regardless of geography. There are many, many websites that celebrate making in all its forms. We created Make & Meaning to celebrate all the ways making enhances our lives, and all the things it causes us think about.”

Many of the articles feel like they’ve been pulled straight out of my brain. Like today’s post on Who’s in my Tribe is a discussion I had just last night with Jason or last week’s post on The Wisdom of Mistakes is a convo I had with my buddy Aimee. I laughed out loud when I read Not without my Pen. I just last month I discovered my writer’s block was coming from not using the right type of notebook with the right type of pen when attempting to write my book on mending. Turns out I need a dark blue UniBall Singo DX in the .38 size on a graph paper-filled faux moleskin notebook to make book writing happen with ease and confidence. :)

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Many love to make and honestly, when it comes down to it, the meaning isn’t key to the making. But it’s great to have place to talk about these things. To me, it is important. A place to talk about what do you do when you feel someone isn’t being genuine. Or how to organize and handle the mess of emailing pouring in. Or how to keep being creative when you are feeling uninspired. Or how to pick yourself up after big whopping failure and see the positive in the experience. :)

It’s like the online version of the conversations I’ve been having in private with many of my friends who make for a living. I encourage you to take a look and read through at least a few articles. You might just love it as much as I do. It might not be your cup of tea. I love art theory, so craft theory is right up my alley. My alley might not be the same as yours as the “Who’s in MY Tribe” article points out. And that’s totally okay. And that’s even totally awesome.

Make and Meaning definitely gives a lot of food for thought. Enjoy!

And happy crafting!

Kristin

3 thoughts on “Making Sense out of the Creative Process: Make and Meaning

  1. Wow! This was the first blog post I read this morning, and what a lovely frame for this day. I can’t thank you enough for this thoughtful and beautiful review of our site. You’ve encapsulated just what we want to do with this ongoing collection of articles – to offer a forum for discussing all the questions that bubble up through the creative process.

    Thank you so, so much!

  2. Kristin – Thanks so much for the amazing article on Make and Meaning. It’s so nice to experience such a high level of participation and engagement on our little blog. We are lucky to have readers like you. Thanks again for the great write up!

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