Mending Dialogue with Tom of Holland

My good friend Tom and I are embarking on a project together. We met through our common interest in mending and have decided to translate our verbal dialogue into a physical (re)making dialogue. 

Tom had 2 old tea towels, well used and with a historical significance to his life. (Read more about  that here). 

We decided that one should be mended for practical use, and one impractically, each of us starting with one of the tea towels and posting them between us. As we are both busy with various projects we have set no time limit on ourselves, allowing the project to develop naturally at its own pace. 

This very much is in line with my interests in temporal appropriateness, I believe slowness in design or craft making not to mean that everything should take a long time but that it should take an appropriate amount of time, be that the task or the time-space for it in ones life. Reading about sustainism recently have a similar view. The authors refer to 'proportionality' - giving appropriate proportion to tasks and practices. I am going to attempt to form a proportional relationship with this project !

Slow Words

This article from the School of Life is quite interesting.  I am not convinced that the idea of the use of simple words to make a clearer message is a new one, or that describing a pie as a cottage with subsidence is that simple an analogy however words (and the use there of, percieved and actual meaning etc) surrounding Slow interest me as does this idea of using words with a (assumed) Slower feeling.

Is Slow an outdated word, no.2

Is Slow an outmoded word in Design terms?  More musings on this topic here, brought about after reading about the origin, meaning and implications of words, also after watching Helvetica and wondering about the implications of text and graphics.  What imagery does Slow bring to mind? 

When the word Slow is used in design terms it instantly brings to mind slowness, timescales and lengthy jobs (ie tedium and ennui).  In this world of go go go thinking, instant information and high-speed living would this philosophy benefit from a more appropriate name?  Using my Slow theory to discuss this goes as follows:

Stop Think Explore Enjoy Rethink

STOP:  What does Slow instantly bring to mind?
THINK: What do I want Slow to mean?
EXPLORE: what other words (if any) are more appropriate?
ENJOY: Are any of them totally appropriate?  If not can I word-play with them?  Can I make a neologism?
RETHINK:  Will this word be appropriate in a weeks time?  A years time?  etc


First blog post on this thought here

Slow as an outdated word

Is Slow as a word misleading or outdated?  How up to date are words to do with sustainability ?  is there a comfort or familiarity with words such as green and does that lessen their impact?  These are questions I will be looking at further.  One of the many things that has got me thinking about these words, their true meanings and their implications is this quote:
'I ... prefer to use the term "trade" over "craft" to emphasize the prosaic nature of my subject (though I won't observe this distinction rigorously) '      p5-6 Shop Class as Soulcraft; An inquiry into the value of work, Matthew B. Crawford

Also a conversation had in the TED office about the greenwashing of green terms.