{"id":215,"date":"2023-02-06T15:12:36","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T19:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mutualmorris.com\/?p=215"},"modified":"2023-02-06T15:12:36","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T19:12:36","slug":"what-do-arts-and-crafts-have-to-do-with-mutual-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mutualmorris.com\/what-do-arts-and-crafts-have-to-do-with-mutual-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"What do arts and crafts have to do with mutual aid?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Creating Community through Crafting: Welcome to Mutual Morris\u2019s Crafting Guild<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arts and crafts are fun, relaxing, stimulating of creativity, good for our health, and rewarding in many ways for individuals. Like most things, doing them collectively multiplies the benefits as people come together to learn new skills from one another, but also socialize, bond, and create community. In recognition of these benefits, Mutual Morris created a Crafting Guild this past year and is using it to develop a framework for relationships, long-term sustainability, and abundance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing knowledge with each other is a core part of mutual aid. Those who have something, give or share it with those in need of it. That is the heart of an abundant and caring community. And it’s not just for hand-me-down clothes or furniture you no longer need. Members of sewing and quilting circles have been practicing in community with each other for a long time. Members of small villages in our ancient past crafted items together in camaraderie and shared those items. Fast forward to now, especially post-COVID, where many people feel alone, disconnected from others, or are in need of a friend. They are looking for ways to connect with others, which is why providing opportunities to socialize and build relationships is so important to restore in a world of rugged individualism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mutual aid projects have long-term sustainability and self-sufficiency at heart. We seek to reduce the need for toxic, mass-produced, or wasteful products and the usage of polluting factories, warehouses, and extractive consumerism. The more items we have the time and knowledge for making ourselves locally, the less we will have to buy and ship. We can reuse items, upcycle, restore, repurpose, rescue from landfills, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arts and crafts skills are also free to practice and share. Members of our community have many skills, and we enjoy sharing them with each other. Plus many of the tools and materials are already out there, all around us, and can be donated or shared with us. Recently, we were gifted a Cricut Maker 3 machine! Volunteers with knowledge can teach us for free, and many of us in the community already have knowledge to share without us needing to go to formal institutions for learning. This gives us, as a community, the ownership of the means of production and the freedom to use them for our own material needs rather than for profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a mutual aid project, building alternatives to the systems that oppress and keep us poor is the top goal. So we must always have an anti-capitalist purpose and understanding as well. The goal is not simply to make money to survive, but to build power, resources, skills, and relationships that allow us to no longer need money to survive. This is one of many steps we are taking on a long journey, and not an end in itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since forming our Crafting Guild we have been:<\/p>\n\n\n\n