I educate. I analyze. I characterize. I critique. Almost everything I do these days is about communicating with others. To characterize what I do as “making” is either to mistake the methods — the research, the editorials, the workshops, the courses — for the purpose or, worse, to describe what I do as “making” other people, diminishing their own agency and role in sensemaking, as if their learning is something I impose on them.
-Debbie Chachra (Beyond Making)
This quote actually grabbed me because I disagree with it. While it’s true that much of what is created and valued today has monetary ties and is only possible because of the labor of many who are underappreciated, I feel this definition of what making is and what context it operates in is limiting. I feel this description of what it is to make and why people make misses the human aspect of making. I work in the makerspace on campus and part of my job is to make things. I don’t make things for money, I predominantly make things for two reasons; either because it would benefit myself or another person, or because making it would make me happy. Then there is also art, another thing people make. People make art to share and communicate with others. I don’t disagree that too much emphasis can be placed on what a person does and many peoples’ labor goes underappreciated because of what our society values, but I don’t think ‘maker’ or ‘making’ are as negative as described in the reading. I also think it would be nice to instead of turning away from the term, focus instead on both acknowledging more of the labor of others that allows for people to create, lower the barrier of entry to making, and acknowledge more historically undervalued making.
I’m still not sure what I want to pursue most this term, I also don’t know if this is what the question means when it asks for ‘methods’ but I would like to pursue modeling in Blender. I’ve seen a lot of people use it for animation and I like the results and have been interested in animation for a long time but didn’t know where to start.
