This time in my home has brought out a weirdly craft obsessed version of me. Since being home, I have sewed, made jewelry, knit, and written more than I have since being in college. I am bizarrely obsessed with creation right now, but am also incredibly distracted. I can't settle to any single task, so I bounce from task to task and accomplish a myriad of small, mishmash crafts that I am ever dissatisfied by. I pulled out my Kenmore 10 sewing machine that I inherited from my great aunt Evelyn, and she bought it in 1985. The box it was in was packed by my mother in my childhood room, which, due to a sudden move, was packed up without me. All of the belongings that had not made the move to college with me; simple, sentimental things or clutter that mattered but was maybe too youthful to follow me was unceremoniously shoved into boxes. The unboxing was musty and bittersweet, smelling faintly of oil and machinery and plenty of old fabric. It is the machine I learned to sew on, from many sweet, older ladies that had patience for my seven year old curiosity. The machine reminded me of the connection I had with the women in my family before me, who were all artistic makers and creators.
This machine was a physical tie to my past and a tool for the present. I sewed medical grade masks for my workplace, out of old fabric. Fabric that was clearly purchased in the 90's by older women of questionable taste. My machine broke after 5 days of use. And I moved on to my next project.
What have you been up to in your quarantine?
I'm sorry to hear about your sewing machine. I like that you saved the detail of it breaking until the end, you made me sad. Rhetoric!
I'm a plant person now. The downstairs roommates skedaddled early on in the distancing process, leaving me the herbs, succulents, and various spiderworts to water and tend for the time being. I've waged war on mealybugs in the name of plant sovereignty throughout the small nation of Windowseal. It has ended, for the time being, in unprecedented insectocide. The parallels one could draw from historical events would leave me an unpopular figure undoubtedly. Perhaps that is why I have no desire to be a historian. I'm currently much too pro-plant to care what mealybug dies and which lives, so history will not be my friend. Conveniently, I am also launching an anti-psychoanalytics campaign along similar lines. In other news, the nursery is coming along nicely. I have learned that have no desire to be an autocrat, but such is life.
I've also recently become a baker. It's the word I use in public anyway. Personally, I prefer Willy Nelson's best boy, but since we are in a forum among friends, I'll answer to either just fine. Anyway, sourdough is the game. Here, I cite a few key sources of material and inspiration, both appropriately interchangeable; Chad Robertson from Tartine, without whom this enterprise would have been less visually clear, thank you for your photographs; Kaleb Beavers from his house, without whom the variables would be less isolated and therefore confounded by free-radicals; finally I want to thank my wife, Blake Dokken, without whom collaboration would be impossible, capital investment limited, and my preferred name, ill-used
.
Beyond all this lies the realm of Sam Beckett's logoclasm, light beer, New Criticism, bicycle de-railers, and cheap smoke.
From Gallatin County Jail, 2020 A.D.