Way back in 2001, Shoshana Berger and Grace Hawthorne launched a magazine that taught people how to make stuff out of other stuff. It wasn't a novel idea. In fact the Do It Yourself (DIY) movement began with the rise of How to books being published in the late 19th century, and Berger and Hawthorne named their magazine Readymade, after French Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp's "Ready-Mades," everyday objects which Duchamp reinvented as art. One of the more striking of these was a urinal he turned on its back and titled "Fountain." More Environmentalists than Dadaists, the founders of ReadyMade magazine challenged their readers to rethink, re-use, and reinvent stuff that might otherwise end up in a landfill.
Fast-forward four years and ReadyMade has gone from being a quarterly newbie to a bi-monthly magazine with a large readership of 20-30-somethings who eschew the organic facades of lifestyle magazines pretending to advocate the real simple life for one that takes a critical approach to our wasteful consumer culture, calls attention to sustainable design aesthetics, and actually teaches readers how to make things from other things.
Fast-forward four years and ReadyMade has gone from being a quarterly newbie to a bi-monthly magazine with a large readership of 20-30-somethings who eschew the organic facades of lifestyle magazines pretending to advocate the real simple life for one that takes a critical approach to our wasteful consumer culture, calls attention to sustainable design aesthetics, and actually teaches readers how to make things from other things.
ReadyMade: How to Make {Almost} Everything, is a book of such projects, a "do-it yourself primer." Bound in sturdy recycled cardboard with a straight-edged ruler on the front cover, Berger and Hawthorne's book itself exemplifies the multi-use ethic it espouses within: "It is a picture frame, a straight edge, a demonstration of how gravity works (look how swiftly it falls from your hands!), and a good anchor when your balloon is in danger of floating away."
The book is generously packed with instructive illustrations and photographs and divided into sections by material (paper, plastic, wood, metal, glass, fabric). Readers will find instructions for making a shopping-bag rug, a wood pallet bike rack, a martini glass birdfeeder, and much much more. Over 50 projects grace these pages in the same clearly-outlined format used by the magazine, with the project's ingredients, tools, and time and money estimates clearly defined up front. Interspersed between the projects are brief histories of each material (did you know that early Egyptians used lead sulfide as eyeliner?) and an eclectic collection of essays (the origins of heavy metal, forks versus chopsticks, avoiding plastic surgery…). As if that weren't enough, the authors include in each section, several mini-projects under the header, "Why Don't I Do This Every Day?" For those of us too timid to make a living room table out of old phonebooks, these projects afford us small successes: a Pringles can mug caddy, a colander light sconce… you get the idea.
My personal favorite project is the picture frame made from a hardcover book, mostly because it's the one I'll most likely be able to create as a gift in time for the holidays. The creative DIYer will get a lot of bang for their buck from this book, opting for the workshop over the mall this holiday season, but even if you never put hand to tool, Readymade's Do-It-Yourself Primer will spark your creativity and open your eyes to our culture of waste.
