Framing Our Discussion

This is the blog entry of another; one Jeff Schuler. We had an especially nice time chitchatting in my shop one beautiful summer evening. Enjoy what he wrote; I sure did.

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I walked out of Art Etc. feeling full, connected, buoyant: way more than I paid for.

The look of the frame is called distressed, and that was probably the look on my face, too, when I saw it. That splotching wasn't there in the frame sample I'd chosen last month, though the previous attendant had spent quite awhile helping me select just the right match for the photo. Edie cheerfully offered to do it over. That would've required more time and another cross-town trip, though, and I explained I'm not so mobile with such parcels on bicycle. (I didn't tell her Jenita's Christmas present was already 7 months late.)

She said she carries framed photos on her bike all the time, but offered we experiment with the frame a bit -- and brought it into the studio. Steel wool and solvent to tone down the high-contrast speckles. Evened it down and odded it up ~ til I was happy.

She asked about my least favorite routes to ride.

Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth and we can be influenced by each other.

-- W.E.B. DuBois

Commiseration / Bridging: the Lorain-Carnegie puncture lane, fishtailing after rain on Columbus's slippery steel grating. Charging up Cedar, freedom on Hough, the highway that is Chester. Roads and roads.

She and her husband ride the winter too. Wool, neoprene, gore-tex. Balaklavas, breathe-ability. Boots in 40-or-below to avoid losing feet heat through clipless cleats. Racks, fenders, panniers. They have 18 bicycles in the garage: cargo bikes, winter bikes, touring bikes, a tandem...

Cars beget rage. The people inside, cagers. ("private metal pods with blackened windows".) Her cager friends ask just how to say "Hi." Two short beeps means hello. Anyone that lays on the horn is obviously saying something else.

She packaged and wrapped it when the paste had dried. I sat down and we continued talking. The world of cars, our house of cards. The future, if people don't wise up. The fun of slowing down. (If only they knew!) And one's freedoms at another's peril. Interdependence. The brick roads underneath the asphalt will resurface.

The gift of the multiple crises we face is that in order to address them successfully, we will have to fundamentally change who we are. Some say people don't change, but they do when they have to. And part of that change is the capacity to listen, to put aside those things that separate us as unimportant, and honor the core values that unite us.

-- Paul Hawken, on Blessed Unrest and Deep Economics, (interview by Jon Lebkowsky, Worldchanging.com)

We're wary but hopeful. She calls it skeptimism.

She's sure that we'll see each other out riding soon.
I'm sure that I'll suggest Art Etc. to anyone that wants a really great custom frame, and to find out what Etc. can mean for them.

So how about this? How about we plan our communities to be social and business hubs that people can walk to and from--cars unrequired--and participate in in meaningful way? How about we attach these hubs by public transportation? How about we build our communities in ways that both help people feel less alienated and let them lead less resource intensive lives?

-- Colin Beavan, (aka No Impact Man,) More on community versus consumption--smart growth