One is having a heck of a time finding a way to get to this project with any regularity. I am not unaware of the situation and intend to get it together as soon as possible.
By now I suppose that I've given you a pretty good idea of what our place on Divisadero was like on the day we were visited by the Rastas. But just to make sure....fourteen rooms, upstairs housing 15 more or less permanent volunteers who provided our services to as many as 50 overniters in our street-level dormatory and quasi-cafeteria. A number of those being served were already active volunteers, waiting for space to open up in one of the flats. Some permanents preferred sleeping in the dorm. It was very informal: Beds were laid out on our large work tables each of which contained as many square feet as the floor of a small room. Most of our work on those tables was what we called "Carpet Art". It involved using high-quality,commercial-grade carpet donated by local carpet vendors (our
first had the contract to do the public areas of the then-being-constructed
Bank of America building). The carpet was cut to fit specific patterns,then
glued to the burlap/tarpaper wrapper in which the carpet travels from manufacturer to dealer. Another of our active cells received the three or four inch paper tubes (thick-walled) around which the new carpets were wound for shipment and storage. There, they became cat-scratchers, mod lamps, mobiles, sculptures of wide variety,art-deco rat traps,(really) and large candle-forms. I've only mentioned a couple of our cells and there actually were many.I,m sure we didn't use the word "cell" as I've used it here, but today it seems the best way to describe the "departments". Most of us were involved in more than a few of the cells and a few of us had a hand in every project. All of the cells had the same basic goal and worked pretty much hand-in-hand, giving aid to each other as needed. The place was active 24/7. No one had specefic tasks or specific times to perform them so there were those who found themselves at their chosen task in the middle of the night,and often found themselves welcoming new-comers at 2 or 3 in the morning. I'm probably making this sound like a boring place by focusing on the mundane more than on persons, but know that the buzz in that place was a constant delight owing to those very folks happily passing the days doing satisfying work in an inspiring environment.
So,THAT is the place the Rastas found on that summer day in 1970.
I'm not sure when the opportunity to continue will avail itself again, but when it does we WILL meet the visiting Rastas.
No comments:
Post a Comment