Crafting a Better World by Diana Weymar (book review)
A few of my generally uninformative thoughts...
So I debated even writing a review for this book because I felt like I would only be putting out negativity and that’s not really helpful at all, but this book landed for me as just “meh” unfortunately. Maybe because I went in with completely different expectations? So, in case you’d like to read this, here’s what to expect: this book is a collection of super super short little vignettes (either in the form of a brief essay or sometimes just a transcript of some interview questions) written by or about people who sing the praises of crafting as a means for their own personal activism. Sounds great? Great, enjoy! But it ended up being a little too surface-level only for me right now.
I had never heard of the “Tiny Pricks Project” before reading this, which the author founded, but it’s worth checking out if you haven’t either!
Ultimately I think I went in expecting a much more in-depth dive into maybe the history of crafts in activism which led to something like systemic changes as a result, but this is more of a collection of stories about individuals feeling frustrated by the troubles in the world (justified) and then what personal art projects they created to help process their frustration (also justified and completely valid, just not what I had mentally prepared to read). What I did enjoy most about this book was being introduced to new artists and craftivists whose work I was otherwise unfamiliar with before, so that was cool! It’s definitely a good starting point and an extremely quick read, but if you’re looking for something deeper you can also skip this one too and be just fine.
So, if you’d like to give this book a try I’d say find it at your library and enjoy!