Full Circle

My very first blog post was nineteen years ago. In it, I talk about the disparity between the haves and have nots in Vancouver and how distressing I found it, and I show some work I made in response. Since then, I have been living on a small Gulf Island where, although there seems to be a growing number of entitled "Ritchie Riches", it's still a place where people care about community and look out for their neighbours.

Last Sunday, I found myself in Vancouver again. The city has become grotesquely focussed on maximizing the profits of developers and landlords. We did feel incredibly lucky to see a gorgeous sunrise and view over English Bay from our hotel room, and to enjoy a nice breakfast in the dining room. There was a table next to us of about ten VPD members in full gear also having breakfast, laughing and joking. An hour later, while walking down Granville Street, I witnessed one of those same cops with his boot to a homeless person sleeping in front of a vacant building. The person was yelling in pain. His crime, apparently, was lowering potential profits from some future sale of the building to build luxury condos.

Later in the day I went to get the car from the parking garage near the theatre where my partner had been performing an afternoon show. Although there was a security guard in the parkade, I found the rear window smashed and two shopping bags missing. One bag contained some lovely craft beer (no biggie), but the other contained two mending projects - a top I had made before I even started keeping this blog, an Issey Miyake pattern that I had worn and mended and mended again, and a pair of denim pants I had worn exclusively for the last three years as an experiment in austerity, similarly mended. Also in the bag were two balls of yarn I had hand spun from the fleece of a sheep raised by a local farmer, yarn that I was knitting into a hat for the farmer, so he could be warmed by the beautiful, soft result of his own care and attention. And my little sewing kit, that goes everywhere with me, had been in the bag too, full of thread and needles and my little scissors, some safety pins, and an antique stiletto for making eyelets.

Losing these things felt horrible, but even worse was the realization that they were just going to end up in a dumpster once the thief saw that they had no resale value - in fact may have looked to be no more than a bunch of rags. Vancouver is notorious for vehicle break-ins, and I knew that my loss was something that happens all the time. Just a few weeks ago, a friend had his stand up bass stolen in a smash and grab (how exactly does someone hide a giant musical instrument like that under their coat?). Luckily he was able to get it back after a concerted effort by the music community to spread the word. Apparently, thefts are big business for organized crime in Vancouver, there are reports of whole buildings filled with stolen goods. The people doing the actual smashing and grabbing just need the money for the drugs that make their lives bearable - I don't blame them. 

But I sure do blame the developers that have made housing unaffordable, the underfunding of social services and health care by government, the "Cops First" approach of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sims.  Organized crime sells the drugs and takes stolen goods in payment, while the VPD turns a blind eye, and only "serves and protects" property owners and land speculators.

The pants in their first year - there were three layers of patches by the time I last saw them.

 

The Issey Miyake top that I made from my own hand dyed indigo cotton and scraps of vintage Japanese kasuri fabric that my friend J.-P. found at temple markets and sent to me as a gift. Worn here at the opening of an art show I was in.

https://truestitches.blogspot.com/2017/01/opening.html

Here I am wearing the top for an interview about my mending practice. Photo by Margaret Gallagher of CBC's North by Northwest.

The waistband of the pants that I removed in order to replace with less worn out fabric. Luckily I still have it, and will mend and use it in a new garment.