As all good and sensible journalists know, in order to feed your family, you have to do other stuff to make money. And for a while I chose pots. Everyone, I decided, would always need something to eat their breakfast out of while reading fake news on the internet. No one can drink a cup of tea out of nothing. They can post about drinking a cup of tea but they cannot actually drink it, into their actual stomachs.
So in-between listicles and editing maths text books and the occasional travel piece, I made things. During this heady time playing midwife to new vessels it became difficult to operate my mouse because the surface of my desk was bumpy with left over bits of plaster of paris, stuck to it. The kitchen and parts of the garden became permanently stained with cement, resin and slip as these substances leaked out of faulty moulds belonging to the process that is understanding how to make them successfully.
I became even more ambitious. I discovered silicon, and the challenge that is making a 3D mould out of sticky toxic bright pink stuff. And then a case. With no leaks, and locks and air vents. Making this was like climbing El Capitan with only four fingers. For me. My hands were burned and calloused. I already knew I was blessed with no real sense of inside-out or which way is which and therefore hopeless at many essential life skills, including walking in the right direction, sewing and mould-making. And it took me longer than I dare confess to perfect the mould which would contain and then birth these bookends. It was a feat of the utmost perseverance and determination. Half the time I was in kind of a trance, working against my genetic misfortunes, the creative spirit of designing soon-to-be-redundant objects pulsing through my soul. I was missing print deadlines, contributing to my own other-worldly demise and frankly annoying everyone.
But once these figures announced their arrival on Earth with fewer missing limbs and intact hands, and I started spraying them with fashionable gold interior-decorating colours, those who still had books to be held upright began to take notice. Children wanted them and adults wanted them. I was swapping them for haircuts and boxes of fruit. They were booked on international flights every week and happy owners were sending me photos of my men propping up the design magazines they were being featured in. Capetonians were buying them faster than I could make them. I bought a new pair of jeans because for one or two days I was richer than in my wildest imaginings.
But of course I knew these fellows wouldn’t be flying off the shelves forever. Of course deep down I knew that they were not useful for holding up three kindles per household. As we all entered more firmly the historical era now unfondly known as the death of quailty print media, my lego guys kept me company. All good creatives must constantly reinvent themselves.
And yesterday, after time spent at a new coffee shop to mark the next phase, finally biting the bullet that is joining linkedIn and looking for a real job, I arrived home to these special creatures, painted black, drying in the sun. These are the last, good people. They are the end of my supply of Material One, the substance I now understand so well. So if you still have books that look better upright, come and get ‘em.
