This week at college - open seminar

On the way in - via the North London Line from Kensal Rise, and changing to the East London Line at Highbury - almost an hour of drawing (to be used for a screen later in the day). On the other page, compulsive note-taking -

The open seminars are chances to find out about the work of the other course leaders, and to get a different slant on your own work. This one turned out to be a good choice -

Title: Undoing Objects
Led by Maiko Tsutsumi, Pathway Leader MA Designer Maker
Dates: 7th and 14th April
Time: 11am-1pm
Venue: Small Lecture Theatre
What makes things ‘thing-like’? This seminar will explore the ways objects potentially communicate by looking into the ways meanings of man-made objects are created and embodied in the objects.
The first part of the seminar will introduce the theme the ‘poetics of objects’ that is loosely based on the practice-based PhD, The Poetics of Everyday Objects completed in 2007. The seminar touches on the themes such as material culture, consumerism, and design practice/history(1988 onwards). In the second part, the students will be asked to bring in objects (found or made by themselves) to further discuss the theme in the material form.
Recommended reading can be found on:
http://madesignermaker.wikispaces.com/Recommended+reading

At the start of her undergraduate work in Japan, which was in traditional laquerware, Maiko was given metal and told to make her chisel, and then used it to make her mallet and the pot for oil. This idea of the maker/artisan first making the tools is something that used to happen all the time -- before factory production (and DIY) took over. Now if we adapt a "proper" tool so that it works better for our own purposes, we call that bodging... it's a derogatory term.

This has spurred me on to both read about "objects" - and to "get making" ... don't know which to do first ... We are to bring in an object, for discussion, next week.