My Personal Renaissance

SOOOO it's back. Did anyone miss it? Probably not. I did. A bit. Anyway shall we get on with it?

Recently I've been very busy. I've been a very busy bee. I've been making stuff ya see. Making stuff left right and center. As is my nature, I couldn't just keep making stuff without stopping and asking "Why? Why am I making stuff?" Well after some thinking I think I know why...

About two years ago, a little while after moving to Finland I was browsing through the website Tumblr (if you don't know what it is then Google it. If you don't know what Google is then I'm kind of amazed you found this blog) and I stumbled upon the ancient board game Hnefetafl. No it really is a thing. It was played by the Vikings. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. Anyway, I saw this game and I thought to myself "I could totally make the board and pieces for this game". Why did I think this? I don't know. At least I had no idea why at the time. So I made the board. I made the pieces. It turned out pretty well. It was fun making it. Great.

Then for a bit I was satisfied. I made a thing and it was great. But then...

I made a Cthulhu statue. And then I made another one. And another one. And then a few more. And I made some other stuff. I have now become a person that makes stuff. Like regularly. I have a list of 16 things (and I'm sure the list will grow in no time) that I am planning to make. I have 3 to 4 things currently in production. I am now a maker. How has this happened?

As a child I did make things, I had Lego and K'Nex and I made monsters and spaceships out of junk, but I have never thought of myself as a creative person particularly. I was ok at writing and most of the time the "stories" I wrote for English lessons went down well and I got fairly good marks for them but I still didn't ever think of myself as the creative type. I couldn't draw and paint and art lessons both bored and embarrassed me (mostly bored). Now at the age of 21 I find myself painting latex onto the leg bones of a glow-in-the-dark skeleton and trying to shape cotton so that it resembles a calf muscle. Once it's ready I will then spend a ridiculously long time painting it (along with the rest of the skeleton) to resemble a mummy. Why? What the hell has happened to me?

Here is my theory. I have now lived in Finland for 2 years. The Finnish language is hard. Really hard. Like super hard. Like really really hard, especially when you are English and you've never been taught how to learn a language and really only just know the basics of your own language. And everyone speaks English with you. And you're lazy. So yeah it's hard. Now I have (despite not thinking of myself as being creative) have felt somewhat proud of my vocabulary and my ability to express myself verbally (in English). Now that I've moved to another country with a very foreign language though, I perhaps have not been able to use English in the same way I would in England. Couple this with my level of Finnish being nowhere near as good as I would wish it, leaving me completely unable to express myself using Finnish, and I think we might be heading slightly closer to why I suddenly want to create things with my hands, things that interest me or based on things that I enjoy (at this point H.P. Lovecraft and spooky weird stuff. Why I like these things may well need more psychological evaluation...).

Perhaps this personal Renaissance has come about because I've felt hemmed in verbally. Words aren't working so my brain has gone in a bold new direction and chosen objects as the prime medium to express myself. Of course it would be a bit simplistic if it came down just to language. Maybe moving to another country, away from my parents, friends and the city I called home for close to 16 or so years, has had some effect. Having lost a lot of things (gained as well but undeniably also lost) I might sub-consciously be looking for physical objects to "hold onto". Maybe moving into a more adult stage of my life is another factor, reaching back and bringing forward the childhood past time of "making monsters out of junk", trying to regress to escape the reality that at some point I'm going to have to grow up for real and start paying bills and taxes and ohgodpleasedon'tmakeme.

Really, the last two years have brought so many changes to my life (amazing wonderful changes that I wouldn't take back for all the tea in China [and believe me I freaking love tea]) that it's kind of surprising that it took this long for something to manifest. Any sane person would have had much more immediate reactions to such seismic changes, surely. In any case out of all the things that I could end up doing, making stuff is quite possibly the most tame, inoffensive, innocent, harmless thing that I could do so really I should be thankful I'm not a raging alcoholic or a sky diver or something.

Now I should say here that no-one should start worrying about me. This post might have you thinking I'm not happy with my life right now and quite frankly you couldn't be more wrong. I'm happy and contented. Well as contented as one can be when one does not have a flat of one's own and still struggles with a language seemingly devised to be as different from one's native language as possible. But yeah overall I'm damn happy. My life is great. The fact that I have the freedom to ponce about making stuff and considering the psychological reasons behind the things I've made should indicate that I'm doing pretty bloody well and I will be the last person on this Earth to start complaining about the opportunities and resources that have not only been handed to me on a silver platter but have also been drenched in a high quality dressing of luck and undeserved kindness. So yeah worrying or sympathy is the last thing I need. Actually what I need most at this point is a heat gun. Or maybe you could get me some more liquid latex. Actually if you have any spare acrylic paint lying around I can take it off your hands. I mean just if it's going spare...

It would seem that my creative streak has yet to end and the end is not yet in sight. I do hope it doesn't end for a long while yet because I am really enjoying it. Like a lot. The satisfaction of a well-constructed plan that comes together in a finished object is only beaten by the satisfaction brought by a well-constructed plan changing or falling apart and something even greater than you originally envisaged rising from the ashes. It's really great. I encourage everyone to make something. Go find something you like. Anything. Go make one of them. Don't know how to make it? Learn how. It ends up being crap? Better try again then. Go on.

So read this as post as a sort of "This is what I've been thinking about myself recently do you think I could be on to something here?" sort of a thing and also a "You should totally go make stuff" sort of thing. Bit short. No real concrete conclusions except for half-baked introspection and a last minute splurge of motivational nonsense. Very few people will actually be interested in reading it.

The blog is back on top form!