If I had to rate my artistic ability on a scale of 1 to 10 (and I’ll extend this rating to my craft skills), I’d give myself a 4. On a day I was feeling particularly generous.
I never advanced much past stick men in the drawing stakes, and I’ve always lacked the manual precision (or patience, or both) to excel at anything that involves making something: school woodwork and sewing projects were equally disastrous.
Given this track record, my involvement with the Adelaide Reef project was a radical departure from the script. This is a satellite of the worldwide Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef and links art, science and environmentalism. In a nutshell, the project has brought hundreds of people together to crochet a coral reef to display at the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) as part of the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) festival.
The reef is on display at RiAus Future Space Gallery until 7th September.
It is very unlikely I would have even considered getting involved were it not for the fact that I know some of the staff at RiAus who have been responsible for bringing the Adelaide Reef into being.
So about three months ago – having never crocheted before in my life – I turned up to one of the RiAus’ crochet workshops. At first it was just as I expected – I was pretty useless. I just couldn’t co-ordinate my fingers, hook and yarn in any way even vaguely resembling the effortless work of the experienced crocheters. But I wasn’t the only beginner and I pressed on, gradually gaining confidence, dexterity and an understanding of what I was supposed to be doing.
I continued to practice and soon I was experimenting with different techniques to create different kinds of shapes. In the end I made about eight pieces, with the biggest (not shown here) about the size of a lettuce (albeit floppier).
As my confidence and skills improved, I found crochet very satisfying and I could happily dedicate whole evenings to working on my pieces. I think it was a good example of a ‘flow experience‘ as described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, tasks where you are able to get completely absorbed in the moment. Such levels of engagement are considered to be optimal for psychological health and wellbeing. It’s very meditative (hence the Zen reference in the title).
My supervisor, Jan Packer, has written about ‘flow’ in museum visits, which is how I first came to be aware of the concept. Flow experiences are those that a offer challenge that stretches your ability without over-stretching it, as this diagram illustrates:
Other hallmarks of the flow experience which I think my crochet experience had:
- Clear goals – the task had a defined scope and end point
- It required a level of concentration, but not taxingly so
- Direct and immediate feedback (once you got going, the corals started to take shape fairly quickly)
- A sense of control, but at the same time losing yourself in the activity
I’m glad that such an event gave me an opportunity to try something that I wouldn’t otherwise have tried, and I plan to continue crocheting and expanding upon my (admittedly basic) skills.
Now that my services are no longer required for making coral, I’ll need to find other things to learn how to make!