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  • Author Author: Jan Cumps
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My Parents were Makers before 1970

Jan Cumps

When you look at this pre-1970 photo of @me,

you can see that I'm offspring of a maker family

image

 

The late 60's were not really golden years (first house with warm water, bath, shower, flushing toilet in 1984), so a happy childhood depended on the maker spirit of the family.

 

All clothes except shoes made by mom. Wool recovered from discarded pull-overs

Toy made by dad. From throwaway wheelbarrow and bicycle parts, plus some scrap wood.

 

Thanks Mom and Dad.

 

inspired by a tweet.

  • in reply to bluescreen

    Makers want to know how it works. They want to take it apart and look under the hood-- to satisfy their curiosity, but also to have an aesthetic experience with the object

    You could add to that they also want to be able to reuse for another purpose, or fix issues that may have been missed during manufacture.

     

    Mark

  • Jan, you inspired me to re-read a section from Walter Isaacson's masterful biography of Steve Jobs:

     

    This passion for perfection led him to indulge his instinct to control. Most hackers and hobbyists liked to customize, modify, and jack various things into their computers. To Jobs, this was a threat to a seamless end-to-end user experience. Wozniak, a hacker at heart, disagreed. He wanted to include eight slots on the Apple II for users to insert whatever smaller circuit boards and peripherals they might want. Jobs insisted there be only two, for a printer and a modem. "Usually, I'm really easy to get along with, but this time I told him, 'If that's what you want, go get yourself another computer,'" Wozniak recalled. "I knew that people like me would eventually come up with things to add to any computer." Wozniak won the argument that time, but he could sense his power waning. "I was in a position to do that then. I wouldn't always be."

     

    I think this split symbolizes one of the main differences between the culture of making and the culture of consuming. Consumers want pretty, tied-up devices that you don't need to open because they will pretty much do what you want right out of the box. Makers want to know how it works. They want to take it apart and look under the hood-- not to only to satisfy their curiosity, but also to have an aesthetic experience with the object. Marx once observed that industrial workers were not only alienated from their fellow human being, but also from the products they made. Churning out 20,000 chairs by occupying one spot on a massive assembly line does not impart any kind of intimate connection between the worker and the final product, especially when compared to the lone artisan lovingly crafting a hand-carved chair in the privacy of his workshop.

     

    I think the culture of making derives a lot of its power precisely because it restores a connection between the artist and the object of his craft.

  • What a beautiful photo and post!  Thank you for sharing this with us image

  • Absolutely true !

     

    Me too I have lived very child experiences as a maker image image image

     

    Started with poor technologies and year by year always used more complex ones. First PC was in 1979 ...

  • Nice.

    I was intrigued how little it took to keep you fully entertained....it takes more now.image

     

    I'm sure the Health and Safety people would be gob smacked at the sticking out bits, but you seem to have survived ...

     

    Mark