Discussion of poverty has been largely concerned with an abject state of being resulting from social and economic forces which deprive populations of the means of making a living wage. Wanting another view on people who also live at a lower end of the economic scale, I became interested in another kind of poverty. This I would typify as a chosen lifestyle of living simply, of doing without, an unwillingness to prioritize material goods over meaningful work, strong relationships, and responsible ties to the community. So the overall project addresses the state of having little and doing without as a positive way of living for those who have the choice. This is not to say that true poverty is a positive way of life. Rather, the people with whom I spoke spend less time at paying jobs, more time growing their own food or volunteering in the community. They are necessarily more self-reliant and multiply-skilled in order to make or fix many of their basic structures. They often choose to live near others of like mindset, working together to solve community problems or to help one another with tasks and services. None of the people I spoke with concerning simple living would describe themselves as poor, out of a respect for those who are genuinely without and not by choice. As our culture as a whole values wealth and accumulation of valuable goods as a life goal, I am pursuing with this project what might be gained by emphasizing other values: questioning one’s desires, defining enoughness, engaging in deep recycling, and actively engaging with community.
Several projects have come together to form the project MakeDo:
Part 1 is called Has Money Hurt You?, and consists of a series of questions that I formulated to be stamped on dollar bills and put into circulation. This project began April 1, 2003. The questions were developed after speaking with people in Greensboro, NC involved in the social services for the poor; with Quakers who follow the principles of Simple Living, some of whom live in intentional communities; and with War Tax Resisters, who usually choose to live with very little in order to avoid having to pay taxes. My interviews have been with people who have very little and those who work to help them attain services; people who choose a life of few possessions and much recycling; and people who refuse to pay taxes on the grounds that 60% of any income tax money goes to support the military, which they believe to be morally wrong. This last group, as a result, typically aims to make $10,000 a year or less so as not to HAVE to pay taxes. From these conversations, I devised eight questions that I had made into hand stamps--questions aimed principally at the wealthy:
• In what ways has money hurt you?
• What is satisfied in you by buying things?
• What do you think is gained in poverty and lost through wealth?
• What if you only had what you needed?
• Does this purchase give you any social power?
• Where do you find your real security?
• Do you feel the need to be paid for everything you do?
• When did you last choose ethics over money?
These questions are stamped onto the edges of paper bills of any and all denominations that come into and go out of my wallet. In addition, colleagues in New York City, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, are also printing and spending their printed bills. I think that these questions have particular relevance to the rich. I’m not printing a web-site address or anything else on the bills, so I’m hoping that these ‘authorless’ questions will resonate with those who value the Mighty Dollar above most everything else.*
Part 2, called Take It You Need It, is a project aimed at people who recycle clothing. Sometimes these are poor people, other times people who choose not to put their money in high-priced fashionable clothes. I’ve had a series of clothing labels printed which are being sewn into the seams of these cast-off clothes, and then after the exhibition, the clothes will be given away to shelters, to the homeless, and to Goodwill. Along with a MakeDo logo, the questions printed on the labels include:
• What would you do if you had all you needed?
• Can you imagine having a job that reflected your values?
• Do you desire anything that can’t be bought?
• Where do you find your deepest security?
• If you have nothing, how do you show generosity?
• What do you think is gained by poverty and lost by wealth?
• What do you need versus what do you want?
• What kinds of political action result in poverty as a by-product?
Part 3, called Bags to Bags, involves collecting as many plastic grocery store bags as possible, slicing them into strips, tying those strips together, and then crocheting them into a replica of those ubiquitous two-handled canvas grocery shopping bags. It takes 60 plastic bags to make one finished two-handled shopping bag. Continuously crocheting from now until the exhibition opens in early 2004, I will sew labels inside the bags and sell them at high-end stores in the Greensboro area, proceeds again to go to shelters, etc., in the Greensboro area.
Part 4, called Working Flag, involves my collecting discarded blue jeans, slicing them into 3” strips, sewing these together, and making them into a variety of “seasonal flag.” These are based on the brightly printed flags sometimes hung from houses both in cities and in rural areas, celebrating the holidays or a change of season in a cutesy, cliched way (I hate them). But these flags, made of differently toned denim strips have a serious message also sewn into them. On one side of the flag, the upper half of the word HELP is cut out of white jeans and sewn on to one of the strips; on the other side, the lower half of the words NEED WORK are cut out of black jeans and sewn on to one of the strips. A small number of these, as well, will be sold, with the proceeds going back into the community.
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* Interested in where these bills go, I am registering many of my own stamped bills with the Where’s George website (www.wheresgeorge.com). This is a site for finding out where your money travels as it’s repeatedly spent.
