Agraria_Journal_WINTER_2022

AGRARIA JOURNAL 2022 25 serve California and parts of Oregon. Then the later parts of the supply chain . . . You could have, town by town, a bespoke mending, over dyeing, piece dyeing person. And the more you focus on those big wins, like the wool scour and maybe the larger scale spinning, you open the door for all the bespoke actors, design houses, artisan makers. Bachman: Absolutely. Can you tell me maybe a little bit about your learning center and what you’ve been doing there as one part of the fiber ecosystem? Burgess: We have a mending bar the third Thursday of every month. We have two teachers come, one who’s focused on knit repair, one who’s focused on wovens repair. You can come and repair your clothing in community. We are about to launch our clothing swap closet. You bring something and trade it for something of equal value. So non-commodified ways of repairing your clothing and non-commodified ways of acquiring new clothing . . . .We have to have fewer items that we wear more and we wear longer. That’s the only way to protect the Global South from Western shenanigans of overconsumption. The learning center also has a pigment garden. We grow all of our natural dyes. We grow indigo and marigold and coreopsis, these very basic, easy-to-grow dyes that we want to show how accessible it is to grow. We have farmers markets that are focused on fiber and natural dye only. Bachman: Some years ago you undertook this challenge to source all of your clothing for a year from within 150 miles. You’ve talked and written a lot about this experience, but I wanted to ask you if you would share a little more about what that was like for you, in terms of how it felt. Burgess: It helped me reconnect to the geography. It was like a bird’s eye view.. . . Memory is invoked, place is invoked. You remember how dry or how wet the land was. You remember what vegetation was growing at that time and how hot was the drive. It’s like a tuning fork. Your wardrobe is tuning you into your geography. It’s a way in. Plus on top of it, you’re learning about who’s out there and building relationships with them. Fibershed is always about “whoever is in your community is who you’re working with.” It was a deepening of relationship. But maybe that’s also my nature to be searching and looking for deeper forms of connection. For more information about Fibershed, visit fibershed.org . Megan Bachman is the Assistant Director of Agraria. PAIGE GREEN The Fibershed’s Learning Center in Point Reyes Station, Calif., hosts regular Mending Bars. MEGAN BACHMAN Natural dyes used at the Fibershed Learning Centrer.