WHY-WE-MAKE

This project looks to create an archive of stories from makers on their experiences leading up to where they are today. It aims to aggregate tactical and practical advice for emerging artists, designers, and all young makers in this world, as well as collect stories on turning points and overcoming obstacles. I'm speaking and writing with engineers, designers, thinkers, and entrepreneurs to get at why they make—make being used in the most abstract form. What drives someone to want to create or makes them want to create something and bring it into the world?

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In this TEDx talk, Andreas Nicholas speaks on the power of story-telling, something that initially drew him to filmmaking and that continues to be a thread throughout his work. I spoke with Andreas earlier this month about this compulsion to tell the story that is not being told, and how he decides which story to tell next. "First of all, I'm attracted to people who—or people in organizations—that do good work. I'm attracted to people in organizations that conduct their work with a level of empathy that you don't always see with a lot of different groups and I'm also attracted to people in organizations that are easily forgotten," he said during our interview.

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"I want to have kids. I want to show them this planet," said Phoebe Wahl, a RISD senior. "As artists and designers, we are innovators with the ability to shape our own future. The way that our generation deals with this issue will define the future of civilization." I interviewed Phoebe earlier this week, and now her words are in the Huffington Post as part of an article on the nation's first fossil fuel divestment sit-in. "I think freedom to experiment within the supportive environment of RISD has been invaluable in developing my sense of direction and style in my work," she said in our interview. "I am extremely self motivated, and that has been helped greatly by understanding professors along the way." Read the full article on divestment over on the Huffington Post.

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A recent alumnus of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Micah Barrett works out of The Design Office, a place for independent designers to work and collaborate in downtown Providence. Micah is a graduate of the Graphic Design department here at RISD. I spoke with him earlier this month on what initially drew him to design and making. Like many of the people I've spoken with, Micah got his start by putting pencil to paper and drawing. Sketching airplanes, athletes, and Ninja Turtles were some of his beginning dabbles in creating something from nothing, creating something new and bringing it into the world. "I think it was because the act of doing it was fun but then it was also taking me out of—I was able to engage with a thing that I liked without that thing. That thing isn’t here. I don’t have a tank, for instance, but I could draw one and all of a sudden there’s a tank and I can be enjoying whatever it is that I wanted to be doing."—Micah The compulsion to engage—with his environment and what wasn't immediately there—was his biggest drive in making initially. Play is a large part of Micah's work. Although it's no longer crime-fighting turtles, Micah engages with play as a way of solving problems. Through play, Micah puts his attention and engagement elsewhere, creating small projects that always end up tying back to later to his work further down the road. "I always try to have play be a thing that I’m engaging with. Last night I was making weird stupid compositions out of tape. Putting tape on paper. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I spent $40 on tape today. I don’t know why but I just am doing that. It’s either that or photography or something; always engaging with something that’s keeping the electricity going somewhere then I can leave the stuff that I’m stuck on. ‘I’m just going to put that to the side for a little while,’ which when you have a deadline means you just stay up later. I’ve got to go fulfil the compulsion and then come back to the responsibility." Check out some of his tape compositions above.

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"Machines are becoming devastatedly capable of things like killing. Those machines have no place for empathy and there are billions of dollars being spent on that. Sharacter robotics could plant the seed for robots that actually have empathy." —David Hanson I had an excellent conversation with David Hanson today, the founder and CEO of Hanson Robotics — a company that aims to create robots as socially adept as any human being. David has some fantastic thoughts on what it means to make, and what drives him to create, particularly to create AI that can create itself. The ethical dilemma to that was a very interesting vein of thought, but, at the end of the day, David said he what compelled him to create wasn't the affirmation (although the affirmation of others was what initially set him on that route, and that affirmation is what continues to bring in the funding that allows him to make), rather, an innate compulsion. As nature makes, so do we as a product of nature. Above is David's TEDtalk from 2009 where he exhibits robots that "show emotion."

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Download the full proposal here.

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Each week, I've been able to speak with around 3-5 amazing people on why they make. Above are a just a few of the faces from these past few weeks, with many more to come!

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Sarah Pease student designer, maker, and researcher I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Sarah about her work as a student and what drives her. Recently noted in Dwell Magazine as one of the “youngest and most promising designing minds at work today,” Sarah has been highlighted by Core77 and Lifehacker for her work as a visiting student at the MIT Media Lab. What's the first thing that you made that you were proud of? "The first thing I ever made was a model sail boat for a competition I entered in my town when I was in first grade. My dad is a boat captain and a lot of the things I did when I was little were all about boats because thats what my dad did and thats what I thought was cool because I thought my dad was coolest; I still do. I drew my picture of what the boat should look like and helped me make it... I think I remember using a chopstick for a mast, but it like had, definitely it had more detail than any boat a first grader could have made." Do you want to continue making furniture beyond graduation? "No, I mean yes but no. It’s kind of at this other end now where I’ve made a lot of three dimensional objects and I really enjoy making objects but I have also along the way discovered design as thought. I guess it’s not just making—you can design anything—everything is designed. Whether its an object or a system or a structure or a business —I’m really keen towards learning more about those things. I’m really interested in interface design and I think it’s cool coming from a background in objects because every object has an interface. So, whether, you know, you are designing digitally or for touch screen or whatever it is, if it has a user then it has an interface." You can see more of her work here.

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why-we-make is part of my capstone project as a senior in the Industrial Design department at the Rhode Island School of Design. I have always had an insatiable urge to make. A compulsion, I believe, that led me to study design here in Providence. From Legos to plywood, my medium has changed and evolved, along with the technology and my skills, yet I continue to have a thirst for making and the process behind it. My hope is that through this project, I'll be able to glean a further insight into the motivations and passions that drive us to make, as well as take away advice on tips for making better.