Despite my pudgy fingers.
Japanese Star Wars "paper theatre"
The past two weekends, I have induged in physical crafts. It’s been surprisingly enjoyable. Growing up, I never was a very enthusiastic artist. It is probably because I have sausage like fingers which offer little to no dexterity. But these past two weeks have seen me being drawn to physical crafts despite my non-cooperative digits.
Last week, I went to a Friend’s place. There, we worked on putting together something called “paper theatre”. Her friend had brought back for her a Star Wars themed paper theatre craft kit from Japan, where such craft kits are quite popular. It had been gathering dust for nearly 3 years. We decided that it was time for it to see the light of the day.
Such kits comprise of laser cut pieces of paper that have to be layered in a manner that it creates a nice 3D scene.
The laser cut pieces that came with our kit
All of these layered sheets once put together with glue, clever folds and sheer will come together to form a very satisfying frame, almost a painting.
I struggled a lot while making this. The glue kept sticking to my hands. The pieces kept falling apart. And it was really hard to even remove the laser cut pieces. My Friend’s more supple female fingers were not much more useful either, since the person in charge of the said digits was outsourcing the bulk of the gluing and cutting gruntwork to me.
Something about dealing with analog articles like glue and scissors was very therapeutic. This may not seem like a big thing for a lot of people, but I rarely spend time in such pursuits. I doubt a lot of us do. We fill our free time binging shows, playing games and living in other digital worlds. This felt different, better.
This weekend too, I wanted to spend more time living in the real world. I wanted to use my uncooperative fingers to make something. I wanted to pursue a physical craft. I decided to paint my 3D print of the 2018 Ferrari that was driven by Vettel and Kimi.
The result of my paintjob.
I painted the car an iconic ferrari red, and coated it in a layer of glossy epoxy spray paint to finish it off.
It was hard painting this. The model was tiny. The paint kept rubbing off on my fingers. I could not even paint in uniform strokes. But I loved every second of it.
Therapy
The pursuit of physical crafts is therapeutic in nature. I think I have developed stockholm syndrome towards technology. It lured me in with shiny colours, bright lights and a wild promise of power, but cleverly hid its consequences in the terms and conditions.
Or, how to get into physical crafts
Indugling in these tiny art projects has made me congizant of the terms and conditions of being a tech bro™️, the ones I initially overlooked. You may also be like me. Get into pottery, carpentry, painting, drawing, anything really. I assure you, you will feel a lot more at peace.