Getting Unstuckified

Crafting heals.

Things are weird in life, at work, and in the news. The mood is chaos, and conditions are ripe for stuckness. So today, how to make a cage instead of putting yourself in one.

Problem

I feel stuck.

Solution

This is a common problem for me, maybe for you too? Well, I have a little crafty girl magic for you to solve this one.

I spent three weeks in Ballyvaughan, Ireland for a study abroad program during grad school. I spent most of my time making these paintings of the sky, because it was so powerful. I was there with six people from my school, and one, who shall remain nameless, wasn’t my biggest fan. I can’t blame her. I was really cocky in grad school.

So, a couple weeks into the trip, she took a look at my paintings and called them “sweet little cloud paintings.” She wasn’t wrong, but I was devastated. It felt like I’d spent that whole time working on garbage. I felt stuck.

I cried for a while in the bedroom of our cute little Irish cottage. Grad school often means an excessive level of self-reflection. I used to tell the students I advised that it feels like a bunch of people poking holes in you and seeing what you do when they stick their fingers in the holes.

But this new habit of self-reflection led me to remember something I did as a kid. For a few years, we lived near my Great Aunty Pat and Uncle Bill. And every Christmas day, we spent the whole day at their house while the adults got smashed on mimosas. No shade to them, but I was eight, and there was nowhere to play at Aunty Pat’s, so it blew. One year, someone brought a bunch of cut paper and scotch tape, and I remembered myself sitting on a carpet-covered nook of their house, happily building things with cut paper and tape.

Fast forward back to Ireland, I remembered that, grabbed some paper, and started tearing it into strips. I didn’t have any tape, so I just tore and folded the ends so they held together, and I made this awkward little paper cage. I found some string and hung it from the ceiling, stared at it for a while, and felt better. That silly little cage became the work I showed at my MFA exhibition.

Today I’m going to teach you how to get unstuck with a paper cage. You’ll need:

• Paper and pen

• Scotch tape

• Scissors

Next, we’ll walk through it step by step.

1. Grab your paper.

• I write in sketchbooks because lines freak me out when I’m writing. But there are no rules here. Write on what you have and what you’re comfortable with.

2. Fill the page with writing.

• For this example, I wrote out all the things I hate. I’m feeling stuck right now, and free writing helps a shit ton.

3. Grab your scissors and cut the paper into length-wise strips.

• Make the strips as long as you can.

4. Cut one of the strips in half, and tape the extra halves onto two on the long strips.

• These will be the circumference of your cage.

5. Set aside 3-5 strips. Lay the rest out perpendicular to the two long strips.

• The cage will hold together best if they’re equidistant apart, but don’t worry a lot about it. I’m obsessive and I’ve made 100s of these things. They won’t be pretty at first. That’s part of the fun.

6. Add scotch tape at all the places where the long strips overlap with the wide strips.

• The tape won’t exactly match the width of the strips. It will be messy. Get over it or clean it up, your choice.

7. Connect the long pieces to each other at the ends. This should give you the horizontal bars of your cage.

8. Connect the strips at the top, one at a time.

• Try to add the tape so it always touches more than one piece and holds together. Most of your cage is complete!

9. Optional step: Add the floor of the cage.

• A word to the wise: This part looks easy, but will be the biggest pain in the ass. You can leave it off, and the cage should still do its job. (ie. it will still look pretty.)

• But if you want to try it, lay the strips you set aside in the beginning like a tic-tac-toe board. Tape at the intersections.

10. To finish the bottom, set your cage on top of your tic-tac-toe board and cut around the bottom of the cage. Then, struggle with the flimsy floopity paper cage as you tape the cage bottom to the cage itself.

11. Finally, tape together the scraps you have left to make a hanger.

• This lets you hang your cage and admire your work.

Voila! Your witch-craft is complete. For the few minutes you spent making that cage, you weren’t stuck. Repeat as needed. :)

p.s. I know the instructional graphic is a little hard to see, but want to keep it small for email sendability. If you’d like a full-size version of this graphic, leave a comment and I’ll send it to you.

Playground

Meet Dutch, one of the stars of Our Urban Forest Network, singing a forest love song.

Motion Picture

Image source, image source, image source, image source

• Sometimes the bog needs something that inspires wild, childlike joy. Even bogs can be a source of inspiration.

(If you’re new to the bog, it’s an ongoing creative experiment that will eventually be a stop motion animation. I call it Bogspot, a riff on Blogspot, which you may know from early blogging days.You get to watch how it evolves, like when animals are feeding at the zoo.)

Question

What does it feel like in your body when you feel stuck?

Good Night

My mind is sometimes a mean story factory, maybe yours too? I’m constantly fighting it. And most of the time that means stepping away from the things that fuel the stories (like my damn phone) and making something, like a little cage that holds nothing but dreams. I hope you have fun with this. See you next week.

XO,

Jana

———

Good Morning Sweetie is a weekly newsletter/experiment by Jana Rumberger, with editing by Casey Rumberger.