MakeDo, 2004

4-format project on poverty, various mediums

Commissioned by the Weatherspoon Art Museum (University of NC/Greensboro) for their show Borne of Necessity, this project concerned poverty, simple living, and making do with less. It evolved out of interviews with folks who were poor and those who worked with the poor; with Quakers who live simply in intentional communities, and with War Tax Resisters who choose to live without making more than $10,000/year. Four pieces came from this research:

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Part 1: Has Money Hurt You?

Diggs interviewed people who were poor and from her notes, she came up with a series of questions. Some of these included: What is satisfied in you by buying things? What if you only had what you needed? How do you show generosity if you have nothing? When did you last choose ethics over money? In what ways has money hurt you? These and other related questions were made into rubber stamps that were distributed around the country. The individual questions were stamped onto paper currency, and then distributed by spending.

Part 2: Take It You Need It

The same questions from Part 1 were made into clothing labels which were then attached to individual second-hand clothes. These were then distributed for free at the end of the show.

Part 3: Bags to Bags

With used plastic grocery bags, Diggs crocheted many reusable grocery bags.

Part 4: Working Flag

A major blue jean manufacturer in Greensboro, NC closed, laying off hundreds of employees. Diggs made several "seasonal flags" which normally hang outside residential homes, carrying cheerful messages. These were patched together with pieces of denim, spelling out HELP on one side and NEED WORK on the other.