Ah, to be a maker

 

I've been a Wired magazine subscriber for years.

It's edgy. It's geeky. It's ridiculous. It's offensive.

But every once in a while it's totally inspirational. It kick starts my creative juices in a way that no job, hobby or book can.

Today I finished the magazine that came in the mail just yesterday and felt a jolt of refreshment. The ideas have just started whirling inside my head.

This month's magazine features "How to Make Stuff" and is chock-full of the kind of information one in our latest DIY-crazed society needs to get started...to be a maker.

They list the latest "tools" to be a maker.

No, it's not a sewing machine. That was my first maker phase.
No, it's not a camera and darkroom stuff. That was my next maker phase.
No, it's not children (the hardest maker phase I've attempted).
No, it's not fabric, batting, needle, and thread.
No, it's not paint and brushes along with design software.
No, it's not HTML and java-scripting.

The latest tools I would need:

1. Computer-aided design software. It's a natural next step for me considering the design software I've been using and the year I spent doing 3-D computer modeling in a past life. Any suggestions you CAD aficionados, for the Mac?
2. 3-D printers "unlike mills and lathes, which make parts by removing material from a solid block of stock, 3-D printers make physical objects by adding material a little at a time...melting powdered metal or plastic into durable 3-D parts...or liquid polymer." How cool is that?!
3. Arduino micro-controller. "...you connect input pins (sensors, say or buttons) and output pins (LEDs, motors, sirens, servos, and more.) Then use the free software to write a program that tells the outputs what to do with the input signals." Simple, versatile.
4. Rapid-prototyping services. Hey, just like the service bureaus for designers in the late 80s. Somewhere to upload my designs and have them made of wood, plastic, rubber, or metals.

The wheels are turning!

Okay, wait, maybe I'm just enamored with the IDEA of being a maker.

I credit a certain can-do maker attitude to a certain Algebra teacher in 8th grade, Mrs. Jensen. She told us she was an inventor. We giggled behind our hands at that. Why would an 8th grade Algebra teacher be teaching Algebra to us every day if she was an inventor?!

She would come to class all excited to tell us of this idea or that and again we would giggle. She told us of all the ideas she had first, that someone else had now made real. She constantly encouraged us to think new thoughts and not wait to act on them. (She also had an amazing talent for explaining a math concept in four or five different ways until everyone in the class understood in their own way.)

Looking back I see it as a defining moment in my life...that. has. laid. dormant. for. years.

Maybe it's time to jump start the little spark ignited by a Jr. High math teacher.

Or, maybe I'm just poised to start a new career considering where I am with the current one.

Or, maybe I'm just inhabiting my rich inner life with these new dreams.

Or, maybe just being curious is so satisfying. (I just recently picked a friend's brain regarding his e-Bay store of collectibles, how he goes to auctions, how he manages shipping, and how he's grown his business to almost a full-time pursuit.)

I love self-discovery. I love seeing what makes people tick, makes them (and me) whole, makes one feel well and happy. Somewhere in all these ramblings is the answer to the positive change I seek in my life.

Or, maybe I'll put my brilliant mechanical-engineer brother onto the idea and watch him create a second career! After all he had the same Algebra teacher!

What inspires you? And why aren't you acting on it?!

e

Cool links:
Wired.com
Wired's how-to wiki
Howtomakestuff.com
Instructibles.com
How to make stuff videos

P.S. Related article: 3-D printing using sawdust

The Art of Folding Paper

Stumbled upon this documentary on Netflix, Between the Folds. It's fascinating. I highly recommend seeing it.

Filmmaker Vanessa Gould takes you on a provocative odyssey into the mesmerizing world of modern origami, where artists and scientists use the ancient art form to craft works of delicate beauty and to model cutting-edge mathematical theories. Pushing the envelope of origami to include caricatured portraits and elaborate abstract designs, these experts examine how paper folding can reveal the profound connection between art, science and philosophy.

It sparked a long-forgotten memory, lost in the necessity of day-t0-day demands of current circumstances.

I love math.

Few people know that about me.

It started with pop-up books. I remember when I was three years old, or four, sitting on the floor in the children's book section of a large department store, looking at the magic of a pop-up book, and closing my eyes, imagining what the shapes would look like if I took them off the page and laid them flat, and wondering if I could put it all back together to work again.

I loved the fun of learning math. I've loved solving those little puzzles of number logic since I was in elementary school first learning the rules of the game. So black and white. Either your solution was wrong or it was right. But rewarding when it was right. A game.

I remember one Jr. High math teacher, who fancied herself an inventor, who could explain an algebra problem in several different ways until nearly all the students understood, one way or another. We caught her enthusiasm for algebra and learned that it could be practical and not just theoretical.

Later in high school I found such a sense of accomplishment at completing a complex proof of a theorem, proving a truth through a series of logical steps, or explaining a complex trigonometry shape with a formula of numbers and letters. But these were always private victories because what girl brags about that to their friends. Not cool. Such a geek.

Then came a fascination with Tessalations, then fractals, and on to scherenschnitte (paper-cutting) and then quiltmaking. The folding, bending, reflecting, matching, and snipping and cutting, and then the recombining, repeating, rotating, seeing it come together in new and intricate and interesting ways.

Art and math.

Wanting to continue on in the same vein I chose Graphic Design as a career...art, and possibly beauty, explained mathematically through the Golden mean and the Fibonacci series and more. To take line and shape and make something beautiful and meaningful and useful. Visual explanations that communicate on several levels. And then came web design where math and code is what underlies some beautiful digital work.

Now today, I'm inspired by this documentary on Origami, and paper folding. Math can be explained through art. Art can be explained by math. The color, the feel of the paper, the old-fashioned work of hands...making something dimensional from a flat 2-dimensional plane.

Hmm, maybe it's time for a new hobby.

e

Photo credit