hooks

This past week at CCW was an overwhelmingly positive experience. I came in not feeling very well phyically: I was coming down with a cold and also had bad cramps, so was having trouble concentrating on anything. Going to my placement, though, actually focused and centered me, and helped me tackle the rest of my day.

From what I remember, this day was a lot different from some of the others. The other times that I went to CCW, I was paired up with one particular artist who I ended up spending a lot of time with and assisting in various ways, but this time I ended up spending a lot of time with around four to five people. The way that I work best, though, is by focusing on one person, so I did spend a little more time with one person than the rest. 

Friday, 9am

Yesterday, we gathered at Haverford with the artists with the intention of collecting twigs and leaves to fill our boxes. The artists arrived late, and we were all moving slowly, so it took about half an hour to gather by the duck pond. When we got there, we wandered around, checked out the skate house, watched the fish and geese, and collected interesting things we found on the ground, including sticks, seed pods, and leaves. Because not all of the artists had fit in the car, Stacie* went back to the center to pick up Valerie*. I thought it was interesting that we decided collectively not to budge until Valerie was there, not even to wander around the pond--we really wanted to wait until she got there to experience everything, because each step was an important one.

Field notes: April 15, 2016

10am

Wednesday was a hectic day in the woodshop, as it was our last time visiting the center before our gallery at Haverford. The goal was to finish our boxes, and Carl and I were in pretty good shape compared to the other pairs, so we went ahead and got started by drilling holes into the legs of the box. After that, we had to glue in the pegs that connected the legs to the box, and then had to attach the sides of the box to the bottom by drilling holes and hammering in small wooden dowels. Because there was only one set of tools available for everyone, we had to take turns with the other pairs, and the process was stretched out over the course of the two hours. When Carl got to the room after snacktime, he greeted me loudly and excitedly, and seemed to be in good spirits.

Three trains passed, on their way from Villanova to the parade in Philadelphia, without stopping. I eventually just took a cab to the center. By that point, I was late, but I was still there to help with clean-up. “Hope”, the woman who had told me on a previous visit that she didn’t want to go home, that the people there were rude and it was too far away, came up to me, said she had missed me, and told me excitedly that she was getting a new apartment, with different people, closer to the Center. I told her (truthfully) that I was very excited for her. Several other people came up to me, shook my hand, and either asked me my name or welcomed me back. I saw “Usmail” for the first time since I had helped him with his horse sculpture.

I was told by *Sam* (the guy I work with) that he wouldn't be in the center at the time that I usually visit. We tried finding another time, but our schedules weren't aligning. He told me to take the day off and that we would see each other next week. 

This past Wednesday we returned to the center to continue work on our boxes. When the artists came back from their snack break, we split off into our pairs, and made a kind of assembly line to get things done--although Carl* and I had to work on our project alone, since we were a little bit behind after I missed a week. We used one of the tools to carve our legs into fun, curvy shapes, and I rode the stationary bike for a *long* time. While we did that, another pair worked on cutting the pegs for all of the boxes, so that we could attach the legs with wood glue. When we finished our leg cutting, we took a brief musical interlude (I made some beats on the table with the wooden legs and Carl and I danced).

“The capacity to do research, in this broad sense, is also tied to what I have recently called ‘the capacity to aspire’ [. . .], the social and cultural capacity to plan, hope, desire, and achieve socially valuable goals. The uneven distribution of this capacity is both a symptom and a measure of poverty, and it is a form of maldistribution that can be changed by policy and politics” (Appadurai 176-77)