Amigurumi is a personal revolution

Amigurumi as a career

Amigurumi as a career is always under development. In this society, any activity that goes against the status quo is considered subversive and unuseful. The biggest understanding that designing Amigurumi has given me is being able to realize that my hands are political and my mind can shape reality by creating our own post-industrial utopia.

“Beneath the dream of fame, another dream, a dream of no longer dissolving and staying dissolved in the grey, faceless and insipid mass of commodities, a dream of turning into a notable, noticed and coveted commodity, a talked about commodity, a commodity standing out from the mass of commodities, a commodity impossible to overlook, to deride, to be dismissed. In a society of consumers, turning into a desirable commodity is the stuff of which dreams, and fairy tales, are made.”

– Zygmunt Bauman, Consuming Life.

Creativity is subversive

Being able to create goes against the consumption society. To start from zero and re-make yourself is a painful and long process that has personally brought much happiness to my life. For many years I battled with anxiety, dyslexia and depression issues that led me to physical and spiritual diseases.

Through discovering fiber arts and Amigurumi I gradually start finding what makes me calm, happy and fulfilled. Amigurumi and fiber arts somehow opened Pandora’s box and presented me the choice of making radical decisions in my life in order to fulfill a sense of peace and curiosity for self achievement, not based in academic or work related activities. This questioning about the nature of my own choices, thoughts and decisions are gradually allowing me to discover many traits in my personality that I appreciate and many that I despise.

Through designing Amigurumis I am everyday learning about self healing, empathy, self compassion and strength. In this process I had the opportunity to discuss with many people in diverse parts of the world and receive help from ancient medicines. These experiences have definitely helped me to have a starting point in constructing what I want to be as a human being, after being force fed ideas of success that did not include me as an active participant.

Notes in the Jungle:

“In the Amazon, sitting in the darkness in what was the hardest night of my life I was alone. I died and disintegrated into pieces. I lost control and allowed demons to use my body to cause myself harm. I was disgusted of everything and everybody. I wanted to stop breathing. I wanted the world to smash me and leave no trace of what I thought was my own self. Somehow I recalled Harry Potter’s Dementors stealing all what I considered to be happy and pure.

Then demons came out of my body, laughing and insulting everybody who was around, animals tried to protect me from my own fears and my inner traumas unsuccessfully.

My mind was chaos. A combination of Dante’s Inferno and the hall of illusions of the Mahabarata. Maya leading me to complete destruction through illusion and chaos. I was death. I was sadness, I was garbage. I crawled with my arms while my legs were cramped seeking for help. No one was there.

When I decided it was time to end everything and stop breathing I was forced by the voices of my head to breath. They kept me breathing by extracting the air out of my lungs and whispering in my ear “ You don’t decide when is over even if you die”. The smell of the plant was driving me insane, the rope of death was not letting me rest. I gave up, I allowed mother nature to take care of business with humility and no pretentious intentions.

In that moment I touched a flower and I held it in my arms. It was not a magic flower, it was a humble crocheted flower, the execution was not the best and the material was not exceptional but it was my own magical special flower. I grabbed it with the feeling of that flower being the only real thing I could find pure and honest in that horrible mess
I was calling life. The softness of the material brought me back from the sticky, pungent chaotic mess I was diving into and it allowed me to see myself from an observer point of view.

In that moment I realized that I had a choice. I could choose my own path and see the consequences of my actions. I could predict my future. From that moment I embraced forgiveness towards all the people who damaged me one way or another, I decided how much I allowed my fears to control my decisions in life and I embraced with tranquility the fact that I will never be perfect enough for this airbrushed, plastic based, superficial and contaminated society. I found peace with my own self.

I understood that I can make my hands powerful through the daily practice of reclaiming my consumption dignity and reclaiming the ownership of my own being. Through the humble act of crocheting Amigurumis one day at a time.“

Jennifer Ramirez
Isla del Amor, Pucallpa, Peru. 2016.