Making Matters: In Search of Creative Wonders

Heading to Toppings once again to enjoy another event; this time from author Clare Hunter, with her latest book ‘Making Matters’ :

Exploring craft traditions and forms of making from across centuries and cultures, Clare Hunter encourages to engage with the world afresh. To use our hands again, to see beauty in unexpected places, to play and protest and embrace imaginative possibilities. From paper crafts to wonders made from light and snow, she searches for creative delight - making lanterns, puppets and pinhole cameras.

To begin the discussion of her new book, Clare introduced the evening with a simple workshop on making origami cranes - a symbol of good fortune and happiness. The process of creating and learning in a group setting sets the scene for the concept of ‘Making Matters’; “participants and spectators can, for a little while, transcend their everyday lives and experience a moment of collective wonder”.

The small things we make are unique. They are intimate, creative expressions of celebration, commemoration and connection; imaginative, tactile markers of our human existence.

Clare writes about passing on knowledge and confidence to communities and striving to host workshops in public settings to share the process with as many people as possible. She notes that when crafting in a public space, people often approach with curiosity about what is being made, or share nostalgic stories of childhood crafts. With this simple act of crafting, it can connect people in a unique way; it can bridge the gap between cultures and languages and provide a space that welcomes people of all backgrounds, genders, and abilities. Craft, and making, has its own language that doesn’t speak through words but instead communicates through processes and materials. It can provide a space for individuals who are looking for an outlet that lets them express themselves without talking and “through them we can journey beyond the humdrum of everyday lives to embrace, however fleeting, a moment of mesmeric enchantment”.

Without having read this book yet, I can already tell it will be such a special celebration of what can be made with our hands and our imagination, and what we can build when we share our knowledge and our time with people to create meaningful and tangible memories.