1. indoor gardens.
2. shadows and light and string bags.
3. knits in progress.
4. nail polish on keys.
5. dried flowers strung up.
other things:
my week in objects (mostly).
October 14, 2022
1. indoor gardens.
2. shadows and light and string bags.
3. knits in progress.
4. nail polish on keys.
5. dried flowers strung up.
other things:
12 Comments
So glad to see your week’s photo series back. I’ve missed these beautiful glimpses into another life, and a very different one to my life as an empty-nester with my dear husband in the most rural of New Mexico.
Please let us know what you’re knitting?
Br Sanna
A little scarf for Faye!
Thank you for this post! I have missed your photos and links round-ups and am so delighted to see this one. <3
FYI — you can find vintage versions of that luxury dustpan on ebay for less than $50, chipping paint and all.
I think I prefer to squat while sweeping up dust, because use it or loose it. Housework as exercise!
I find the price of that dustpan infuriating. Eco friendliness for very rich and out of touch people.
It’s definitely expensive, but I can only imagine that it’s also a fair price for a piece of hand-wrought steel and copper! there’s so much disconnect between the actual cost of materials, environmental impact of goods, fair wages for workers etc, etc, I can only guess we’re all desperately out of touch with regards to the real cost of things!
Fair point, though my husband makes lots of stuff out of repurposed copper by hand and this seems like a very, very steep markup affordable only to the top 1% or so who are responsible for the cognitive disconnect between our goods and where they come from. I also think about how the company is named Custodian and that it’s (unintentionally) insulting to working poor people who actually work as custodians who could never afford something like this. My two cents.
Is your husband’s metal work also his livelihood? It’s really interesting to unpack what we think of us as overpriced or marked up, while also acknowledging that pricing handcrafted goods at a fair price for the maker often makes those things inaccessible to the majority of folks! As for the name being insulting, I can see your point, of course the the word custodian also means to care for. We’re all custodians of our home and we might be able to or choose to use a handmade tool or implement to do so.
Erin, I had similar thoughts about the price point and name of the company.
I’ve noticed a fetishization of the simple life by the wealthy.
As wealth disparity widens, signifiers of wealth are no longer mansions and excess.
Wealth is having stable shelter, nutritious food, clean air, clean water, access to green spaces, access to health care, access to education.
I live in a neighborhood in SF where ordinary, single family homes cost $2M to $5M. These are not mansions and are quite ordinary in design.
The people able to afford these homes have access to world class parks, clean air, public transportation. We have multiple community gardens in our neighborhood. I can walk to any number of local grocery stores selling organic produce.
The wealthy here post instagram pictures of their garden plots, their simple interiors with handmade, artisan brooms and rustic wooden painter’s benches. They can go out to their garden and pick fresh herbs for their carefully crafted meals, served on handmade pottery.
Re-creation of a bygone, rustic (fictional) time. Playing pretend while the “essential workers” are Black and Brown people who live hours away. These are the people that deliver packages, staff restaurants & retail stores, keep our city running, teach our children, mind our children, grow the majority of the food (which the wealthy can get via CSA boxes and feel so virtuous about supporting local farms as workers toil in 3 digit heat for minimum wage).
House cleaners, commuting 3 hrs or more to the city, wearing clothing with company logos like “Polo Ralph Lauren”, etc. that they picked up at Ross or another discount store. While the employers are dressed in high end clothing mimicking the workwear of bygone eras ($100 plain t-shirts, with $300 selvedge jeans or carpenter pants, $400 “chore” coats). It’s like only the wealthy can afford simple, unbranded clothing. The rest of us have to go around with billboards on our clothing.
The point is not to ignore that our work should be valued. The point is that one who can afford $275 dustpan shouldn’t feel virtuous, citing that they are compensating artisans for their labor. Because I can guarantee that same person is benefiting in so many ways from underpaid cheap labor behind the scenes.
No one is blameless under this capitalist system. Until everyone has stable, safe shelter, clean air & water, access to nutritious, fresh food and healthcare, quality education and green spaces, no one should feel smug about “supporting artisans” by paying a few hundred dollars for a dustpan.
There is a lot more I can say on this but I feel like the people that visit your website like a certain aesthetic. I do, too. I am not blameless in this. I am also a tenant, living in a very wealthy city and I notice that there is a class divide between “homeowners” and “tenants”. Like there is virtue assigned to those lucky enough to own homes and there is something unsavory about renters. And that scares me.
Totally agreed that feeling smug about one consumer choice over another while failing to recognize all of the layers of privilege and particulars that allow for that choice is probably not a good laurel to rest on, under capitalism or otherwise!
These photos and the thoughtfulness that sees the simple beauty is so inspiring to me. Thank you for offering that to the world.
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