In pursuit of mucky hands
In pursuit of mucky hands: why making stuff us essential
Most weekends, I end up with very dirty hands.
Get your brain out of the gutter, you smutty sausage, I am talking HOBBIES.
As the hands of time tug at my eye bags and turn an ever-increasing number of my hairs a fetching shade of grey, I am convinced of less and less in this world with total certainty, except this:
Making stuff is an essential part of life.
Is it just me, or does the notion of ‘hobby’ - and particularly the idea of ‘crafting’ - feel a little sneered at? Is it because it is often decorative, amateur and… hang onto your stereotype hat, I’m about to dip my toe into gender politics for a moment… perceived as a female pursuit? (Okay, I think we survived that, you can let go of your hat). Maybe it’s because the BroCult Inc. don’t ram it down our throats as a valid way to 10X your life. I can’t quite see ol’ Stevie Bartlett being sponsored by embroidery kits any time soon, unless HobbyCraft start selling a kit to stitch ‘Incel Lovers Unite’ on a black tee shirt. (Soz, you probably should have re-grasped your hat for that, but I promise, I’m done now).
Where was I?
Ah yes, making stuff is an essential part of life, regardless of any misplaced value judgements others may have. And I am here to wang on about the benefits of it in an attempt to urge everyone to have a go at making something. Anything. Just get your hands involved.
Why?
The psychological benefits of using your hands as part of a creative exercise is well researched and pretty compelling. Making stuff makes you happier.
As I have been a craft amateur for most of my life, I feel this to be utterly true, but someone much cleverer, an actual psychiatrist and co-author of The Creativity Cure: How to Build Happiness with your Own Two Hands knows this for a fact:
“You may or may not be conscious of what perturbs you, but creative action with your hands, mind and body can turning undermining forces into usable energies.”
And the co-author is her husband and actual HAND SURGEON Alton Barron, which is very…handy. What these two don’t know about this subject can be counted on the fingers of one hand. (I will accept a verbal warning for that joke).
Behavioural neuroscientist Kelly Lambert calls hands-on activities ‘behavioraceuticals’. Okay, she may not win the crown for the snappiest port manteau every invented, but her point very much stands:
“Tasks involving the hands have a therapeutic effect… creating something with your hands fosters pride and satisfaction, but also provides psychological benefits… the engagement and exploration involved in the doing can move your mind and elevate your mood.”
Call it brain hemisphere integration to strengthen the corpus callosum and trigger neuroplasticity (try dropping that into conversation, you’ll either be applauded or slapped) or simply call it exercising your brain to improve problem solving skills… making stuff does you the world of creative good.
And it almost goes without saying (but I will say it for the benefit of those who have already started googling mail order craft kits and are not paying full attention) that making stuff boosts your creative skills. Get a making hobby and it’s like regular visits to a gym for your creative muscles, just with slightly less sweat and absolutely no yoga leggings.
Whether you’re fashioning something from a pot of Play-Doh or building a 1:20 replica of Noah’s Ark in matchsticks, you are engaging brain and hands in a continual feedback loop of micro-decisions and flexible thinking, what-if scenarios and creative exploration.
Craft as a hobby essentially means the maker is a rank amateur.
Depending on the craft, it can take tens, if not hundreds of hours, to achieve competency. Take it from someone who has been visiting a pottery studio for two hours a week for about 30 weeks of the year for the past four years… and this weekend spent four hours building something that with one ill-conceived cut of the clay knife collapsed slowly and inelegantly in front of my eyes: making stuff means failure. You are working with unfamiliar materials – whether it be clay, thread, paint or fern leaves – that don’t play by your rules, they play by theirs. Rules that often remain hidden until you attempt something, and fail.
And if there is one thing that small business owners need right now is resilience in the failure department. Getting ideas to launch quickly is a small business owner’s superpower – witnessing an idea not working is (whilst let’s face it, not a whole barrel of laughs) is feedback of the highest order. Which you won’t see through a veil of tears, so get making if for no other reason than to get really bloody comfortable with things not going to plan in a low-stakes way.
I built a ceramic cactus that defied most of the laws of physics. It looked (in my eyes and I am happy to admit, probably only in my eyes) fabulous. It took me over nine hours to create. And about ten seconds to be subject to a slight nudge of the table it sat on to seemingly explode into about forty pieces which were swept unceremoniously into the bin. A lovingly-glazed vase came out of the kiln looking like someone had snotted a particularly large load of mucus all the way down it. It went in the bin. A 3D wire illustration that took me aaaaaages looked like the scribblings of an over-wrought toddler who’d stolen a pair of pliers… and went in the bin.
Not losing your mind when things don’t go to plan (hello to all the founding members of the Control Freak Club out there) is a skill that making stuff gives you in spades. And in doing so, gives you the freedom to unleash better creativity.
There is no down-side to getting a craft hobby. Okay, it can get expensive, but it doesn’t have to. But there is a potential downside for your friends. I now recognise the very particular expression on the face of my mates when I hand over a lumpy, weird-shaped gift wrapped present for their birthday or Christmas – a sort of ‘oh shit, it’s something she’s made, how do I look grateful when every fibre of my being wants to lob it away as if it were a live hand grenade?’.
But it’s a small price they have to pay for your increased happiness, creativity and ability to be a better business owner, surely?