by Chad Campbell, senior producer
Mark Frauenfelder is the editor-in-chief of Make Magazine which features do-it yourself projects for everything from building a chair from a single piece of plywood, to constructing a homemade washing machine, to making your own chicken coop. Frauendfelder has also written a book for do-it-yourselfers called Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. He helped found and is the co-editor of one of the worlds most popular blog sites, www.boingboing.net. And here’s the link to Cigar Box Nation, to learn more than you ever thought you wanted to know about the homemade instruments.
Mark Frauenfelder’s interview immediately brought Rosie the Riveters to my mind. See links below.
I head a model project to get Americans to learn from and about our Rosie the Riveters before they die. We are using many methods to teach – from interviews on video and CD, to writing, to the arts, such as music, plays, art, quilts, dance.
Two issues are important:
1) These women worked as children with their hands. Many made clothing from feed sacks, grew their own food, helped build the homes, pumped the water, walked to school, made the very beds they make up every day.
2) The work they did to make airplanes, ships, parts is clearly highest quality.
We find these women more than a piece of history. Those who live and work with us, are planting trees, making quilts, writing music and more. How can we work together?
.Below is an Email I sent about bookends made to show Rosie the Riveter. We are ready to get the women involved to design similar products.
Please tell Bob Edwards he should interview a Rosie – and you should find one and interview her, too.
======= Response to bookends.
I love this bookend. Yet, I think that Americans and our allied nations should design many more things that tell about the contribution these women made to freedom and much more, such as women in labor.
Please contribute your ideas, resources, energies. We have a grant application to the National Endowment for the Arts, to use many forms of the arts (music, plays, portraits, quilts, dance) to teach about these women. Key to our work is that the women, themselves, help make decisions and give ideas about how their legacy is to be passed on. What role will you play?
Regarding technology: We are now looking for someone who knows polymers to help create a marker for a tree that veterans planted to honor our Rosies here and in allied nations. We hope to make it a statement that these women are a very important link between the past and future.
From our very many interviews of these women’s first-hand accounts, we find many patterns. One is "We pulled together."
Let’s start by designing something that shows that unity.
We also want to teach these women new technologies. They are outstanding, and some still drive at nearly 90 years old.
http://www.thanksplainandsimple.org
http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201006050391
http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/95735004.html
http://wvgazette.com/News/SandyWells/201005230475?page=2&build=cache