Craft Activity: Western Gua Sha

January 25th, 2012 By Christine

In designing for this challenge, I drew heavily from the Niedderer reading:

This remarkable quality of craft seems to emanate from the emotion bestowed on craft objects both by the maker within their creation and by the owner through possession, display and use. They consist in material quality and sensitivity of a craft object which imbue it with personal emotions and meaning, values and memory that can be perceived as related to the idea of
the gift.
For this project, I chose an object from my childhood: a china or ceramic spoon that is used to give massages in a process called “Gua Sha”. This process is soothing and usually used to “remove fever” from the patient or receiver. This is a very personal exchange between the administrator and receiver, as it entails a certain trust that typically exists between doctor and patient, or parent and child (as this is typically a folk remedy).
Thus, the kit that I provided is to make a personal massager that can be given as a gift. The kit that I provided includes:
  • A vibrating core, composed of a NanoBug, air-dry clay, and tin-foil
  • A tub of clay, for the kit receiver to create a shape that may mold to their own hand
  • A pack of markers, to decorate after the clay is dry
  • An instruction sheet

Both the process of making and using will imbue this simple item with emotional value from both the creator and the user.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 1:09 pm and is filed under DIY. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Craft Activity: Western Gua Sha”

  1. Michael Nitsche Says:
    January 29th, 2012 at 8:51 pm

    As promised, I did Christine’s Gua Sha project but I tried to modify it a little bit. First, I decided that I wanted my HexBot to be removable. That was primarily for my son (who would hate to see a good HexBot go missing), but also for the battery change option. I wanted to be able to change the battery, just in case. So, my clay model has an opening in the bottom where you place the vibrating bot. This probably reduces the vibrations but we will see.
    Second, I already saw some small cracks in the original clay model – so I was thinking about using Oogoo. But that looked a bit too plasticy for such a personal object. So instead, I got some large ceramic beads and flexible string and made myself basically a stretchy ball. You stick your HexBot into the core of that bead-ball and it vibrates the beads. Again, you lose quite a bit of vibration but it has another advantage: you can put the bead-ball into the freezer and take it out when you need it. This way you can have a cool surface, much like with a cooling pack. Because you can leave the HexBot outside where it is warm you do not really affect its battery or function.

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