This thesis probes the interconnections between humans and material culture. Drawing from the areas of anthropology and philosophy, it searches for reasons to make in a complicated world over-saturated with stuff. With a process of practice-led research and a critical framework of thinking through making, this research investigates the interactions which occur between mind, body and materials when making an object from beginning to end, including the tools. Through working with green wood in a long-winded and low-tech way, I engage in a process that makes no sense to the economic systems we live within. This approach questions whether making can function as a way of living in the world that generates and sustains hope and provides a point of relation with other beings. The point of this project is not the finished objects or the acquisition of skills. Although these have a worth of their own, the significance is in the combining of the conceptual and the practical to bring new understandings to the urgency of making for the human condition