Hand Made

It’s amazing what a master maker can fashion with the hands. This group of thirteen origami cranes is made from a single piece of paper. Little clusters of three cranes are attached to the beak, wingtips, and tail of the large one in the center.


The maker was one of the most remarkable teenagers I’ve ever met, Rose Dawson, who gave it to me at a Dinotopia booksigning. Rose is homeschooled, and encouraged to follow her own interests.

The joy of making things with the hands is the topic of Mark Frauenfelder’s new book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. Frauenfelder is the founder of the BoingBoing blog, Editor-in-Chief of Make Magazine, and instigator of the Maker Faire.

He decided to take some time away from his work on the computer to figure out how to whittle wooden spoons, raise chickens and bees, construct cigar box guitars, and retrofit his espresso maker.

Less a how-to book and more a rumination on the value of screwing up as a path to mastery, Made by Hand is impossible to set down once you start reading it.

Mark's enthusiasm for the little successes and failures of the DIY neophyte makes you want to take a screwdriver and start taking things apart and putting them together in a new way.

Made by Hand on Amazon
Mark on Colbert Report
Make magazine
Maker Faire
GurneyJourney post "Origami Mystery" about a culture-jamming use of origami.