The Clutter Museum blog hosts an interesting post about scrapbooking. Below is an excerpt:
“…when we scrapbook, we’re not just “telling stories” as a journalist, or even a photojournalist, might. Instead, we’re imposing narratives, and therefore fairly explicit meanings, onto our lives. We omit many details and bring others into sharp relief. Most of us put the best possible face we can on our family life. And isn’t that our job as wives and mothers? (Single women certainly have some of the same impulses, which may be centered more on self-presentation, forging a sense of extended family, or the role of daughter.)
“We pose and then crop photos. We frame them in paper of particular patterns. We stencil. We write brief journal entries. We apply stickers with pre-printed words And the results are, well. . . here, here, and all over here. (In this sense, perhaps scrapbooking is kin to blogging, where most of us use templates created by others but fill them with our own photos and journal entries, but do so often by basing our posts on what we’ve seen on others’ blogs (through memes, responses to posts, etc.).
“In light of these first thoughts, could scrapbooking be considered feminist? Could a self-described feminist participate in scrapbooking without feeling too much angst? If the prescribed, cookie-cutter Creative Memories brand of scrapbooking makes us uncomfortable, how far from it do we need to go before we’re back in emancipatory territory? What does a feminist scrapbook look like? Does it use new or recycled materials? What does it chronicle? Does it attempt a linear, chronological narrative?”
