Quest for Creativity: Day 9, 10 & 11, Lessons 9, 10 & 11: Sometimes, raw materials are important. But in case of emergency, break the Mom-glass.
- That finger? It’s spasmed into place!
So I got my hands on a true-blue fisheye camera, and decided that my trip to visit the parentals in the Eastern Free State this past weekend (yep, the winter in Jozi just hasn’t been cold enough for me: I need some black frost, baby!) would be documented with some interesting lomography… And that could make a nice creative project that spanned the weekend. One tiny little flaw in my plan: I didn’t stock up on film before leaving the big city. No problem, though: I’ll just hop into the local Kodak. Only… They don’t sell film anymore. At all. “Don’t you know everything’s digital now?”
Uhm, what? Surely there are still people out there interested in practicing the art of actual film photography? Going through the whole process of trial and error and sometimes pure dumb luck to get that perfect image, and then hoping that that perfect image doesn’t get ruined in the development process? I was a bit flabbergasted. Okay, yeah, everything HAS gone digital. But some things are artforms, ya know? And I really didn’t deserve the supercilious look the teenaged counter girl gave me… Ever heard the term of golden oldie, huh? Huh?!
- Mom to the rescue… Note the debris of numerous projects…
Anyway, my humiliation was complete after buying the last and only roll of film at the local pharmacy, full well knowing that it’s the wrong kind of film for my precious camera. But by then, I just wanted film, any film, dammit! I’m putting it in my fridge and saving it for posterity. “Look, children, it’s the lesser spotted camera film. What do you mean what’s a camera?”
Anyway, this setback kind of put paid to my project plans for the weekend… Luckily for me, I found myself in the formidable presence of my mom, who’s one of the most insanely creative people I know. She only has to look at a rusty spoon and she’s already turned it into twenty different random arty objects. Salad Fingers would be proud. So she decided that she was single-handedly going to teach me how to mosaic a tile, make a craft cat, create a interesting salad (for real), paint with crayons and crochet some flowers, among other things. And she had all the gear ready in the blink of an eye, deciding we would start with the noble art of crocheting. Speed wobble number one: it seemed that her oldest daughter’s hand-eye coordination had taken a dip since, say, her second birthday, which kind of meant that the whole weekend was simply focused on crocheting. She couldn’t stop sniggering…
- Viola: ze broach!
Anyway, I pushed through the pain of a cricked neck and spasming muscles in my hand and learnt how to crochet. Well, I learnt the basics, anyway, and then put it all together to make a little brooch from a cutout piece of velvet from my matric farewell dress. (If my dad finds out, I’m dead.)
It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it turned out to be a lot of fun anyway… And I might be buying myself some actual crocheting needles now… Yes, you may laugh.
