In Which I Eat Cookies for Research Purposes: A Review of Reed’s Craft Event Quintuple Confluence
Not counting the recurring meeting of Knot Binary: A Trans and Nonbinary Craft Circle, there were between three and five (depending on how you define them) single-session arts and craft events open to the Reed community on Wednesday, December 3. Four of the five even happened to occur during the same time, and, strikingly, this confluence seems to have happened by accident. I did not have the time or energy to check every single day ever on the Reed events calendar to verify this fact, but I assume this may be the first time this has happened, not counting Paideia, O-Week, Renn Fayre, Spring Fall, or RAW. I propose we name this a Quint-craft-fluence.
First of all, Honor Council hosted crafts and snacks from 11am to 1pm, featuring cookies and hot chocolate, with the former having the most perfect balance of chewy and crispy I have encountered in a holiday sugar cookie. Honor Council members answered questions about what Honor Council does while visitors partook in snacking and crafting. The atmosphere was cozy given the small space and there was a perfect number of people to feel calm and have one shared conversation.The main activity was decorating round glass ornaments. Pom-poms and sequins were provided to fill the ornaments, producing a snow globe or gumball machine-like effect, with paint markers available to decorate the outside too. It was a creative craft I haven’t seen before. I ended up staying for a while playing with different color combinations of pom-poms like a kid in a candy store. The fidget potential was enormous! I could flip those ornaments over and watch the pom-poms and sequins fall all day.
Upstairs in the SU, a simultaneous bash was taking place from 11:30am to 1:30pm: the Welcome Winter Cozy Event, hosted by Gray Fund Arts & Culture. As always, there was a significant line for the snacks: cookies, mini quiches, and pigs in a blanket. The main event was creating and decorating your own hot chocolate jar with candy cane bits and towering mountains of mini marshmallows along with a staggering assortment of string and washi tape that were all provided. There was also greeting card decorating, paint-your-own-lasercut wooden coasters, and stickers galore! I found the coaster decorating to be a particularly useful craft, since coasters can be used at any time of the year, instead of the relatively limiting specificity too many holiday-themed crafts tend to have. The coasters even featured generic landscape and geometric designs instead of holiday-themed designs; I found it refreshing to have a neutral craft during a time of year in which the barrage of holiday-themed decor is unrelenting.
The ambience was completed by holiday music, paper snowflakes, and snow and pinecone decorations at every table. I estimate that over 100 people attended, including faculty and staff. Despite the overwhelming crowd, the overall mood was chill and relaxing, as far as crowded events in the SU go. The only issue was that the pigs in a blanket ran out by 12:30. For research purposes, I taste-tested the cookies and found them to have a less magical texture than the Honor Council cookies, but they were still delicious; the frosting was at the literal sweet spot of very sweet but not so much that it felt artificial.
Later on the same day, there was the Soup and Scribble in Kaul from 3 to 5pm, “sponsored by members of the faculty, the student body, president's office, the office for institutional diversity, Bon Appetit, and student life,” according to the Events Calendar. Soup and Scribble was advertised as “a cozy Reed gathering where our campus comes together to share hot soup, cookies, and a common Honorable goal of celebrating one another.” In my opinion, it definitely followed through on its promise.
The entire space was taken up by round tables covered in markers, washi tape, and partially blank uplifting posters to be decorated by attendees. The slogans on the posters included “Reedies Keep Reedies Standing Upright” and “Love Is Medicine.” I would estimate more than 200 people attended, including students, faculty, and staff. There was a bar by the stage and delicious vegetarian chili for all in the middle, along with cookies that I was too full to try, but I assume were delicious given that they ran out before the event was over. After first having my taste buds taken to heaven by Honor Council’s delectable cookies earlier that day, I thought things couldn’t get any better—until I tried the scrumptious chili at the Soup and Scribble, which was the best chili I have ever tasted in my life!
Finally, I will give an honorable mention to the oSTEM table in front of Commons from 11am to 1:30pm, which gave out stickers and beautifully color-coordinated bracelet-making kits, and the stuffed animal pet adoption table hosted by Senate outside of the GCC from 12 to 2pm), which unfortunately ran out of stuffies before I could get there to review them. That leaves us with a quandary: does a table that gives out craft materials to the public, while not providing a venue to construct said crafts, still count as a craft event? Does adopting a stuffie count as a craft? I’ll leave that for you to ponder while I stare into the crystal ball of my pom-pom ornament for answers.