Urge to Make

The article "The Urge To Make Things" was a refreshing and interesting read, and I found myself agreeing with everything that Leo Lionni was saying in it. The simplicity of being able to use our hands to make something is a wonderful thing, and Lionni says it perfectly when he calls it "that magic moment of pure making, when suddenly all interface vanish, leaving the hands free to perform their assigned task swiftly, lightly..."

While working on the mark makings this week, I've been reminded of the line project a lot because of how we are looking for connections between our marks and our symbols the same way we tried to match our lines with photographs. But personally, the haiku project is more fun. Using unorthodox tools to make our stamps and smears and spots is an almost therapeutic process. Just allowing the tool to do it's own thing, then discovering serendipitous markings that are similar to our symbols is a "magical moment." I think I prefer the more hand-made projects over the ones where we have to spend lots of time in front of the computer.