Sunday, January 13, 2013

Stop being a child!

 I miss being a kid. If that is not a truism then I don't know what is...

I remember being a wee lass of 5 or 6 looking up in wonder at kids who were in the 2nd grade and who could multiply with two digits- what was that sorcery?! Then I learned how to do that and I wanted to be able to do geometry and then I wanted to own big notebooks with metal spines instead of my boring tiny A5 stationery.... then I wanted to go out with members of the previously-disregarded gender, then I wanted to own my own lipstick, then I wanted to leave home and go to school in a big city and feel cool and mature, then I wanted a job and then I wanted to travel and now I have a list of stuff I want to do that could cover the walls of my room in some sort of weird, tiny written and personalized wallpaper.

The only problem is that I think I've lost that sense of wonder I had when I was as tall as pot plant.

When Mariana moved back to Romania, her idea was to teach people her craft and give them the chance to make stuff they would wear- stuff that would be THEM- stuff that would be cool and unique! Sadly, whenever something does not have a practical application, around here it's filed under useless shenanigans and people move on. Why spend hours on a trinket when I can go to a shop and buy something already made, give them my money and it’s a done deal?

But do you know who does not ask such a pragmatic and realistic question? Children.

Mariana sent over some photos from last summer, when she set up a booth of sorts in front of the town museum. One of her friends is an architect who brought over her kids to look at Mariana’s finished work and her materials and technique. I’m pretty sure that at no point did any of the kids ask why they should be learning knots or making necklaces or being intrigued by beads. All they knew was that they were given free reign over a kingdom of shinny, colorful stuff that they could shape and mold in any way they chose.

I am almost 25 years old, but when I met Mariana and saw her little workshop I got a little giddy inside. I mean there were boxes and boxes of stuff and I don’t even know how to knot or knit or how to properly sow a button (don’t tell my mum! J ), but I thought that it was awesome that someone took something so mundane and so dismissed and turned it into literal head-turners.

Not only does Mariana knot the whole bead thing, she is also moving on to wooden accessories. Who else would see a tiny cherry wood twig and decide to make a hair pin out of it? One that shines brilliantly under New Year’s Eve fireworks, by the way!

So I guess what I’m saying is that it’s a shame when people lose their inner child or tune him out with too much pragmatism. I don’t mean we should all act as children- that would be really creepy. I just think that from time to time, we should listen to that version of us from ye’ olden days and let go for a while of the boring and the mundane.  And maybe wear something fun and one of a kind or why not even make something with your own two hands? Mariana does and I have rarely met someone with more optimism and more drive for something she truly believes in.

So what if people might think it’s a wacko endeavor? So what if people think it’s useless and with no practical application? Just look at kids and the stuff- it’s like freakin’ catnip without the frowned upon side-effects of course.

Added bonus to the impromptu photo shoot: photo of a really cool piece Mariana designed and perfected also a sneak peak at her treasured aloe cove.