is not the same as creating and revising without one.
Someone was asking me recently about how I had set about creating and writing the patterns for the blanket squares now on the RAHS Show website. B... has also just sent me a photograph of the way in which Shetland knitters still sometimes record their Fair Isle patterns - on paper.
Now I have done both those things. I still do both those things, especially if I have the time. They require different ways of thinking and working.
If I am working on paper then my work will be full of crossing out, rubbing out, scribbling over and more. I will discard a piece of paper and start again.
It is something I now use almost only for knitting or, less often, another craft. I do not usually write on paper. I have done very little of that since I obtained my first typewriter. That was long ago - in the days of "white out" and "correction tape". There was a limit to the amount of editing you could do without having to retype the entire page.
I can remember when "word processors" became the thing. J... in the Research Unit came back from the workshop excited at being able to do what we now call "cut and paste". At that time I typed my first doctoral thesis on a "golf-ball" typewriter. I had to keep changing the ball to use the mathematical symbols for the statistics. I typed my second doctoral thesis on this computer. It is still limping along after years of hard labour. Every so often "update" appears and things happen I know nothing about.
But there is something else to all this of which we are scarcely aware. We are losing sight of the drafts. We don't keep all those pieces of paper which tell us how our ideas developed. On the computer they get written over. When we hit "save" we actually lose something. It might be something we do not want to keep but it is also information lost.
Those studying and researching writing and designing in the computer age do not have the same resources. Often all they are going to see is the end result. At best they might see the final draft before it goes to editing. That will not provide nearly as much information as discarded pages and crossings out. We will not have the thought processes or the alternatives that might have gone into creating something.
Some people will say this does not matter, that the end result is all that matters. I find it hard to agree with that.
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3 comments:
In 1975 I studied Information Science 2A at University. Most of the subject matter is probably now obsolete. But the lecturer imparted several good ideas, one of which was “Write down, on the paper alongside your programme, the reasoning behind what you are doing. This will be helpful if you have to modify it or reuse it, and even more useful if someone else has to.” So, I write notes to myself on knitting patterns, recipes, etc for future improvements or variations.
I remember watching an artist inspecting an original artwork she had previously seen only in print. She could see far more “in the flesh” - the way it had been constructed, curators’ pencil notes, etc.
There’s a lot to be said for keeping notes, rough copies, etc, which show thought processes and insights.
LMcC
You are absolutely right. The thought processes that go into creating a thing, or an idea, are so important. How many times do we mutter "Would help if they were able to do joined-up thinking" Thats what it is all about.
I design quilts on a computer, and my advice to anyone else doing the same is to save often. in most project files you will have to rename the files, or number the files in a folder. but then early drafts will be there if required.
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