A SONG FOR OCCUPATIONS

A song for occupations!
In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find
the developments,
And find the eternal meanings.

Workmen and Workwomen!
Were all educations practical and ornamental well display’d out
of me, what would it amount to?
Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman,
what would it amount to?
Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that
satisfy you?

The learn’d, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms,
A man like me and never the usual terms.

Neither a servant nor a master I,
I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have my
own whoever enjoys me,
I will be even with you and you shall be even with me.

If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest in
the same shop,
If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I demand as
good as your brother or dearest friend,
If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must
be personally as welcome,
If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your
sake,
If you remember your foolish and outlaw’d deeds, do you think
I cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw’d deeds?
If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of the
table,
If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why
I often meet strangers in the street and love them.

Why what have you thought of yourself?
Is it you then that thought yourself less?
Is it you that thought the President greater than you?
Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?

(Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a
thief,
Or that you are diseas’d, or rheumatic, or a prostitute,
Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar and
never saw your name in print,
Do you give in that you are any less immortal?)

2

Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard,
untouchable and untouching,
It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether
you are alive or no,
I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.

Grown, half-grown and babe, of this country and every country, in-
doors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see,
And all else behind or through them.

The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband,
The daughter, and she is just as good as the son,
The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father.

Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades,
Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms,
Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants,

… read the full text at the Walt Whitman Archive

Indigo Workshop

This indigo workshop was the first event we organized as a class.  I would say this experience brought all of us closer together. We shared time, space, and a wonderful experience. We all are individual, unique characters just like the things we brought to dye in indigo. This indigo experience left each of us something really strong and magical we’ll never forget. Now we are one team just like all the items hanging in the SMITH’S studio in one color -Indigo.  It was great to learn about the physical nature of the dye.  The videos we saw of the different cultures using this dye was mesmerizing.  Seeing the workers in India standing in the living vat of indigo showed a literal connection to the people and the process.  This is a connection that both producers and consumers in industrialized nations have largely lost.  This problem is one that a return localized crafts production can begin to address.

Beekeeping

This weekend was different than my expectations for the beekeeping workshop.  I was hoping to learn more about the practice of beekeeping in the context of an urban environment.  And although there was a very interesting discussion between J. Morgan Puett and her brother who is a fourth generation beekeeper with an apiary in Hawaii, this was more about his efforts in spite of the colony collapse disorder.  I was hoping to learn about the equipment and practice of beekeepers as it has been one of my dreams to keep bees myself one day.  This being said, I really enjoyed Mark Thompson’s lecture on his life and artwork involving bees.  It was beautiful to learn of his projects involving the bee backpack and the handcrafted objects he made in order to do them.  The footage of him walking alongside rivers and rice fields in Japan was incredible.  What struck me the most in this work was the notion of time.  Mark along with the water and plants and people of this countryside move slowly.  The only thing moving quickly were the bees, and yet in order for the bees to maintain a sense of “home” Mark was required to move very slowly.  The pace of this work was in sharp contrast to the dizzying effect of the film that he showed titled “Immersion.”  This contrast, for me, showed Marks remarkable understanding of the complex relationship we have with bees and the bees relationship to their environment.

Letterpress

Our class took a trip to Arion Press/ M & H Type.  This was my first time visiting a letterpress studio. My favorite moment was when I saw two generations of people working next to each other in the same room on the same project.  There was a girl, probably in her mid-twenties, book binding by hand.  Next to the girl there was a man in his sixties printing book covers.  It was a really beautiful sight- two workers from different generations sharing the same passion and creating beautiful books together. At that point I realized that beauty is  ageless and never out of style. Good crafts can live forever. Thank you, Arion Press/ M & H Type.  I enjoyed the tour very much.

Ceramics

As a female maker, I admire businesses founded by females.  Heath Ceramics was established in mid-1940s by Edith Heath.   After the tour, I thought that Heath Ceramics is a good example of a company that possesses a good balance of handcrafting and manufacturing.  They also have a great system to distribute good handcrafted products to the consumer. They are particular about how they want their business run.  I saw pride in every person that worked there.

This project weekend was a wonderful way to see the potential that these workshop events at the Smiths Storefront can have.  We began the first day by diving directly into the process of indigo dying.  The vat of indigo was prepared ahead of time and was waiting, warm and alive with a dark, dense, oily surface.  The dying process is one that cannot be rushed, and life of the vat and quality of the dye benefits from cooperation.  The oily film needs to be parted, exposing a surprising nuclear green liquid below.  Once the item is fully submerged, great care is taken to ensure little or no air bubbles escape into the indigo.  Indigo, unlike synthetic dyes, is done through a natural fermentation process, this process relies on a form of “reduction” meaning it is necessary not to introduce oxygen into the process until it is removed from the vat.  The Item is “massaged” underneath the surface of the indigo ensuring that the entire surface has been in sufficient contact with the live agents of the indigo.  A few minutes was enough time to allow the indigo to penetrate the fibers of the fabric, although in a workshop vat like the one that we were using, all of us beginners, it was inevitable that some air was introduced therefore lowering the potency and hence requiring some more time in the vat.  Again, care was taken to part the oily surface on the removal of the item being dyed.  This is the real magical moment of indigo dying.  The item emerges from the vat a bright neon green color, and as it has been “reducing” in the vat, the exposure to air quickly “oxidizes” with exposure to the air in the room.  This oxidation takes only a minute or so and we were able to see the  fruits of our effort and care.  The room quickly filled with items of all sorts, from shirts to books and all fibrous materials in between, all a beautiful rich indigo color.

With the room filled with shades of indigo clothing drying on lines, and our noses burning with the urine smell that powers the vat, we sat and together and talked about the process.  For many of us, this was the first time we had experienced indigo dying and therefore we were drawing comparisons with other processes.  For me, the process of reduction and oxidation provided a link to the ceramic process.  Removing the item from the vat and seeing the result felt as familiar as  opening a kiln after a firing.

On the second day of the workshop we opened the doors to the public.  This day was the most inspiring.  After the potential of the dye had been revealed to us, the potential of using indigo to create community became apparent.  We, after only one day of instruction and participation, were now teaching the public how to use and carefully maintain the vat.  We witnessed not only the strength of the indigo in its ability to breath new life into fabric, but its strength in bringing people together around a craft.

Beekeeping

This weekend provided an amazing look into the life and work of artist Mark Thompson.  Now a 40 year beekeeper, Mark’s practice has involved bees throughout in some very interesting and inspiring ways.  Together in conversation with J. Morgan Puett he discussed his various projects with an honesty and candidness that demonstrated his love and respect for the life of the honeybee.  The guests to the storefront were then treated to the west coast premiere of his 30 minute film “Immersion” in which Thompson’s head is entirely covered with bees.  The discussion following was dynamic and by request of the artist critiqued both the physical and social aspects of the work.

Letterpress

The letterpress event found us at M&H Foundry and Arion Press.  The foundry, located in the Preisidio in San Francisco, is the oldest and largest type foundry in the United States.  This is really a remarkable place!  To enter the foundry you must first walk down a long hallway lined with shelves filled top to bottom with boxes of type in stock or ready to be shipped out.  This gave us a sense of the production scale of this place.  the foundry itself consisted of about 12 or so stations and although none of the stations were running, a worker ran us through the process.  After a tour of the press itself and the bookmaking department, we moved on to the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley where artist and fellow CCA graduate student Nicholas Hurd guided us through setting our own type for a broadside to be used at the storefront.  We comprised a list of makers; shopkeeper, tailor, homemaker etc, and then began to set the type.  Nicholas helped us place the type on the press and prepare the ink and the paper.  Once everything was set up, the printing went quite quickly on the Vandercook Press. For those of us who have never used a press like this, the experience was very satisfying.

Revolutionary Ceramics

For this response, I would like to offer a brief description of my work which was included in the exhibition “Super Pop-Up Shop” at the Alameda Towne Centere which along with a tour of Heath Ceramics was part of our workshop weekend.  I slip-cast over 500 porcelain cups made from a mold of an aluminum can of food.  These cups were lined up in 16 rows of 32 on a freestanding wall in the gallery space.  Visitors were asked to bring in a can of food to donate and in return were presented with a gift of one of the cups.  All of the food generated was donated to the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Oakland.  Cans donated by the public replaced one of the ceramic cups on the wall, allowing the visual component of the work to evolve over the course of the exhibition, and I spoke to each and every participant asking them to use the cup as a reminder of this act of generosity on both of our parts.  This work encourages us to look upon each and every member of our community as someone with whom which we have an opportunity to interact openly and honestly.  I have made a concerted effort to use generosity to locate this interaction.

Indigo.

As our first project, Indigo dying set the sights for where this class was to go, we followed it in to new worlds of shared experience.  As we placed our hand in to the dark waters we could only imagine what was going on under the surface. The millions of tiny living organisms reacted with the objects we gently placed inside, and when they were withdrawn a magical experience took place, as the air touched the surface the colors slowly shifted from a pale green to that of indigo. It took me back to the 80′s when hyper-color t-shirts were popular, they reacted the wearers body heat to create psychedelic patterns. The indigo experience was much more enticing know that it was a natural chemical change that is centuries old, rather than some dudes sweaty back.

Beekeeping.

We followed our second project with the preparation of bees wax candles for a communal dinner. The low light led to an intimate experience with talks from Mark Thompson and J. Morgan Puett. Both talked on the influence of bees in their lives and that of their art work. One of the most interesting moments was when Morgan’s brother skyped in from his bee farm in Hawaii. He filled us with knowledge of the actual workings of harvesting not only honey, but queen bees, and his struggle with the disappointing reality of colony collapse syndrome, that is destroying massive amounts of the bee population.

Letterpress.

This project was by far the most hands on. We started our day with a tour of M&H type foundry, they showed us the process of of making lead type that they ship around the world. The machines were quite fascinating, and they turned one on to show us how they worked. They ran by a printed paper ribbon similar to the ones in player pianos, and would print a line of type in seconds. What was more amazing were the ages of the machines some were around  100 years and still pumping. After we had a demo at Kala Art Institute in Berkley by fellow CCA graduate student Nicholas Hurd on the letterpress they have functioning there. We all took our own rolls as typesetters and printers as we produced a class broadside. The learning experience we shared in these demos made this a favorite project all around the class.

Ceramics.

For this project we toured heath ceramics facilities in Sausalito, and learned about their use of turning utilitarian objects into highly valued craft pieces. This brought up many different conflicts in our own minds about the purpose of craft as a work of art verses its functional value. We also took a class trip to visit Pop Up Shop, a show put on by many of our fellow CCA classmates, where they transformed a vacant mall store space in the Alameda Towne Center into a new venue for exhibiting art. The work was quite interesting, placing each artists interests inside of a space usually reserved for consumption. The show brought on many on lookers that are normally absent from viewing contemporary art, and allowed it inline their everyday tasks.

Handling the type to create these words was perhaps more satisfying for me than the actual printing and final product. It necessitated thinking upside down and backwards, finding the type amidst a foreign system of organization, and eventually transferring one line after the other in preparation for printing. In pairs, we handled the type, searched for letters and punctuation, putting together a list of craftsman and fellow makers. My fingers quickly adjusted to the repetition and pattern, as I instinctively reached for letters in oblong cubbies, finding what I needed quickly and efficiently. After some time, my fingertips were coated in a dust of metal, and I found myself in some odd way akin to the process and material. What I have always loved about every aspect of printmaking, no matter the process or the materials used, is that there is room for a rigid technicality, but also for a meditative trance. Once familiarized with the practice, the body seems to usurp the mind, and the flow of actions helps to create a product somehow in tune with all the work that came before, but also completely unique on its own. Whether carving a woodblock, etching copper in ferric, or setting type, there is a wonderful relationship that occurs between the presence of the maker, and the opportunity in the printing process.

I still have images of bees bustling in my mind, clinging to one another, in a vestige of harmony and unison, in a skilled manor of compensation and cooperation. A united goal, an innate force of responsibility and constant motion, keep the hive in order, and maintain a life of controlled existence. And yet, even in the dedication and prescribed roles, I find the system akin to our own functions within society, within our smaller circles of engagement, and especially within our personal and private worlds of family and loved ones. Bees are creatures of nurture, instinct, community and love. They form chains to hold on to one another. Where the honeybees seem to be driven by an instinctive pattern and character, we seem to strive for the very harmony they naturally create and live by.

Mark Thompson’s film produced a lengthy, internal reaction—his beard of bees was a culmination of cooperation, stability, transference and love. There can be no existing moment of loneliness, as separate entities become one, and those identities are blurred and reformed. In constant motion, no moment is ever the same.

I found myself lingering on these thoughts and ideas, watching bees with a new appreciation, and imagining where the bee-line might be headed next.

Perhaps the first thing to affect me was the smell—a burning, pungent smell that I felt slipping to the back of my throat. My eyes stung a bit, watering only when I lingered above the vat of indigo, but I was left seeing blue and smelling urine for days. The smell wasn’t enough, though, to curb curiosity or weaken enthusiasm, because the vat itself was inviting. The iridescent surface of the indigo, slightly shifting, frothy and speckled with residue, hid the liquid beneath. Parting the surface was akin to removing a veil—yet the face, the true characteristics of the dye, remained beyond comprehension still.

The first time, I used gloves when I dipped my hands and cloth into the vat. The pressure against the gloves, the warmth of the indigo, and the completely obscured process led me to shed the second skin. I wanted to feel it. As opaque as the indigo remained, when I touched with bare hands, experiencing the heat and fluidity of the liquid against my skin, nudity awarded a moment of harmony. Naked skin gave the gift of sight amid the shadowy indigo.

The “birthing bucket” lingered above the surface of the indigo womb, catching the newly transformed cloth as it emerged from the liquid, a startling, acid green that slowly became a tender, rich vein of beating blue. A quiet chorus of cloth, shirts, dresses, strings and ribbons, hang about the room in an opus of indigo blue, a testament to the living dye, the process that fosters motherly associations, and the beauty of transformation.

Each immersion was a collaboration between two partners, doing what he or she could to support the (re)birth of whatever object had been placed in the blue-black water.  Besides achieving the darkest blue possible, the goal was to avoid introducing additional oxygen to the vat, for fear of exhausting the dye.  To begin with, one person had to part the sludge that sat on top of the rest of the dye so that their partner’s hands could plunge straight down into the depths without fear of ruining the protection that the sludge provided.  At the end of the process, you had to be on hand with a plastic bucket to catch whatever your partner had hidden in the depths, not too mention any excess slop before it could hit the rest of the vat’s contents.  Up to our elbows in blue goo, we made jokes about midwifery.

Reflecting back, did any of us know the reality?  Many cultures with indigo-dyeing traditions really do link the process to magic, to fertility, even to witchcraft, which manifests in all types of social strictures.  The one that I learned of, by happenstance and after the fact, is that of the Kodi, amongst whom only the women are allowed to dye, and even then only when they are not pregnant or menstruating.  The act of menstruation is thought to be powerful enough to ruin the vat; conversely, the vat is thought to be powerful enough to ruin the pregnancy.

The Kodi are not the only group for whom the vat mixture is a living being.  If cared for properly, it can last for generations, and we knew that much.  The contents of our vat that first weekend were about a month old, left over from a dyeing event with Travis Boyer over the summer.  Our vat was a newbie, almost a preemie, and by the end of the day I think we’d managed to exhaust it, probably due to excitement and poor handling.  We were enthusiastic midwives to our objects, but perhaps not as successful with the dye itself.  I’m curious, though…at some point, was one of us told about all the ways in which we weren’t the first to conflate tending the vat with the processes of birth and death?

Or did we just manage to come to those conclusions all on our own?