Cardboard. It's about the easiest junk to acquire right now
(although empty plastic liquid containers are up there, at least
in my little slice of heaven).
Cardboard. It's easy to cut. It takes to the cheapest of glues.
Yes, use school glue on it [1]. It is very forgiving -- if you
get a cut slightly off, you can usually either bend or smosh
part of it to make it fit. This often looks charming and shows
off the handmade quality of the piece.
Cardboard. It is easy to write on, so it's easy to talk back to.
A box from a company tells me to "recycle this"? Nice
suggestion. But I'm going cross out "recycle" and write "reuse"
and proceed to reuse it. Not everyone knows that "reduce, reuse,
recycle" is a hierarchy. Reusing is better than recycling, and
it would be better for the environment if we reduced the stuff.
Maybe not so many deliveries to single households?
Cardboard. It's the place were you can start the work of
repairing the world.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Cardboard. +
+ It's Junk Punk on Easy Mode. +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is a call to action. I want YOU to make things. A shower
thought from last week was about seizing the means of
production. "Seizing" has not seemed to historically build a
better social order. But the kernel of truth is that the People
should not forfeit the means of production, and the pendulum has
swung far, far too far in that direction. So let's make stuff.
At least customize something! It is time to talk back to the
designs that want to be treated as givens. Cut two rectangles in
a box so that you have handles. Or write on some of your things
on your objects to show they are yours. Culture jam slogans on
*your* things in *your* home, to show you are not theirs.
Use cardboard to make the cutting board for your cardboard
projects. If you put a layer of tape on top this can now serve
as a board to paint things on or do glue ups. Heck, you could
make one board for each operation. You could put a handle at the
top of each and then hang them all -- together to save space, or
separate for ease of access. You have choices, you have options.
And the more you can make, the more choices and options you have.
==
[1] School glue is PVA, Polyvinyl Acetate, which is the same
substance in "wood glue," which it usually dyed yellow here in
the U.S. (but not everywhere). I don't know if the difference is
concentration, or other additives, or what, so I won't make any
claims about them being equivalent. But school glue is really
strong when it has set properly, with pressure applied and
enough time to dry.
If you are wondering why papers fall off when glued together
with children's projects, I would have to say it is the lack of
pressure applied.
You need clamps, friends. Or glue-up boards, or some other way
to apply pressure in order to join two things together using
glue.
