The first real attempt at a story I've had planned out for the better part of five years now. Who knows if it'll become anything, but I'm hopeful.
We begin with Oliver, a forest ranger in Sydcedar, a forest just barely clinging to the Pacific Northwest United States.
I’m making a patched jacket right now. I bought the jacket base last week, and fabric dye this Monday. It’s a project I’ve been meaning to get to for the better part of a decade, and I’ve finally been encouraged to. I want to have a piece of art to wear, partially, and also want a project to keep my hands busy. (I’ve been helping a friend with his jacket, and I’m always happy to stitch down patches and reinforce seams for him, but it’s not my project. I don’t truly benefit in the end, other than in my excitement at his fulfillment).
My bathtub is slightly stained from the fabric dye. I’m not an idiot, I didn’t do the dye bath in my tub, but I did wash out the jacket multiple times, and the bottom lining of the white bathtub is stained a light grey, if you look at it close enough. The jacket isn’t quite the color I want, not yet. It’s too indigo, not faded black like I originally intended. It’s certainly growing on me, though, and now I understand that it’s my process, and my hands made it, no matter how it looks by the end.
I spent a collective two, maybe three hours crouched by my bathtub, stirring hot black water and squeezing dye residue out of the denim. My hands and back ached by the end, and the jacket is still damp after daily washings since Sunday (it’s Tuesday now, and I finally threw it in the washer today). I watched a film while I sat there, early Monday morning, and my fingernails were stained by the dye bath, as I’d given up on formalities after the first few hours of dyeing the night before.
I never wear gloves when I do dyeing, not with hair nor clothes. I find the staining amusing, it tells others that I made something. I changed something. It’s gone by a few days regardless, and it’s not going to kill me to have blue-tinged fingernails a couple times a year, so I let it happen.
Every night since Saturday, I’ve sat on my floor until at least midnight with a friend. We’ve been watching movies and painting patches for our respective projects. The patches aren’t similar, as his music taste is much different compared to mine, but we sit regardless. His hands are steadier than mine when it comes to lettering, but mine are more adept at stitching, so we trade pieces every once in a while, and I get to add to his gallery as he does mine. It’s simple, but I enjoy it. I add little handmade touches to my stitching, some x’s on the border of a patch above the knee of his pants. He endorses my jokes, as he tends to do, just this time on fabric.
I look forward to decorating my jacket with the patches we’ve made, and scouring the area for small artist markets where I can obtain more. I look forward to the imperfections that are bound to come with it, as they prove my project’s nature. I’ve worn a piece of my art before, a shirt I screen-printed at home with the logo of a video game I enjoy, and I always appreciate how hand-crafted it looks, even while people tell me it seems like a legitimate piece of merchandise. The imperfections are prevalent to only me, part of why I value them so greatly. My hands made each piece, even as I cannot remember crafting them.
I look forward to the completion of this project, even as its end means that the quirks of its creation will someday be forgotten by me.
In response to:
“Sometimes the mistakes are what makes a work great. Humanity breathes in mistakes.”
- Rick Rubin
