Mae West weighs in on rugs & craft methodology

Reductio ad absurdum is Latin for “reduction to absurdity”. A principle or proposition is demolished by a logical process that reveals an absurd outcome. Design is not immune from reductio ad absurdum. The field is rich with crafters who reduce a good idea (e.g. recycling) to questionable outcome by applying...

Reductio ad absurdum is Latin for “reduction to absurdity”. A principle or proposition is demolished by a logical process that reveals an absurd outcome. Design is not immune from reductio ad absurdum. The field is rich with crafters who reduce a good idea (e.g. recycling) to questionable outcome by applying what your scribe calls a Mae West methodology. “If a little is great, and a lot is better”, quipped West, “then way too much is just about right!” “Noooo”, cries your scribe; West was referring to sex, not product design! With an aesthete’s eye for quality and style, what would West make of the sock and shirt carpets by K.S. Design? Your scribe can guess.

Karen Shiker of K.S. Design is attracted to the “obsessive repetitiveness of a single product”. She makes rugs out of socks and wife beaters. Is it absurd to suggest she “transforms” the socks? A glance makes it clear these are nothing more, nothing less than stitched together socks. Recycled yes, but with no kinship to recycled Gee’s Bend quilts, poetic Japanese Boro, or rugs made from recycled saris. And the black and white sock carpet? Your scribe suggests zebras club together for a class action lawsuit.

If Latin is a little too high falutin’, how about this everyday phrase as a craft watchword writ large as a poster over the studio desk. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. Put the socks back in the drawer, and return to the drawing board. DJ