My sister went to a neighborhood arts festival last weekend and has been talking about one vendor in particular. The woman makes jewelry from motherboards. “I’ve seen the inside of computers,” my sister said, “but who would have thought you could make necklaces and earrings from that stuff?”
Who indeed? That’s my reaction. It was 1978 when I first removed the top from a computer at the United Press International office in Pierre, South Dakota, and hands trembling, reseated the eight cards. I suppose it was in violation of our Wire Service Guild contract, but Pierre was hundreds of miles from the nearest UPI service tech and we had to get the news out. So, the tech would guide us on what to do, whether it was reseating cards or flipping teeny switches to set a new network address or replacing the fan.
For me, getting the computer to work was necessary but mundane. The creativity, the artistry came in what we did with it, whether it was writing up a one-person traffic fatality or a feature on South Dakota’s Wall Drug that would put my byline in newspapers like the Washington Post.
I wonder about this woman who finds magic in motherboards. I wonder if she’s my mirror image and thinks the words she reads in books and magazines and newspaper are perhaps necessary but not particularly magical. And I wonder where else, beyond motherboards, I am failing to appreciate the creative possibilities in the mundane.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Love this. Have you ever read Kathleen Norris’ “The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and ‘Women’s Work'”? It’s a lovely little book. Not about creativity per se, but finding the holy in the everyday.
How easy to miss. There is an old saying among nurses, “A good nurse knows how to improvise.” Does that count?? :~)
No, but I will! Thanks for the recommend, Trudy!