First off, thanks so much to people that have gotten in touch with us about the flooding in Nashville. Thankfully and very luckily, our work and living spaces and those of most of our friends and family are all safe and relatively unaffected. Just down the street from us, however, is almost complete devastation, and this destruction is replicated in wide swaths all over Nashville and the surrounding areas. We have been trying as we are able to help out in any way we can. There’s a good list of ways to help in this article, although I would add St. Luke’s Community House, one of the oldest community organizations in our part of West Nashville, and one which does really good, really committed, really rooted and really effective work for our neighborhoods.
Many of our farmer friends also have had their hands full trying to stabilize fields, salvage crops, and begin the general task of rebuilding. The spot in Bells Bend where we planted our dyeplants last year is completely underwater, our friends at Hill and Hollow, Arugula’s Star, Sulphur Creek, and a host of other farms also experienced record flooding, and the wet-weather springs at West Nashville Community Farm are running at full bore. We’ll be waiting for the fields at Sulphur Creek, where we will be planting this year, to dry out a little before setting in this year’s crop of dyeplants.
In seemingly unrelated-but-to-our-thinking-connected news, we’ve been implementing some long-term changes over here at ASK Apparel World Headquarters. ASK is shifting its focus to establish itself as an artisanal natural dyehouse (named, appropriately enough, Artisan Natural Dyeworks), focused on using all-natural plant- and earth-based dyes to do natural dye work on a larger-but-still-human-sized scale. We’ll be providing dye services for designers and craftspeople working to produce their lines with ecological integrity and beautiful natural color (although we’re always available to do custom dyework for individuals, as well). That being said, our attention will shift away from producing our own line of shirts, accessories and baby items. We’ll still be able to fulfill orders from our online store using our existing inventory, but once those pieces are gone, they’re gone. We also will still be creating beautiful one-of-a-kind and experimental pieces using natural dyes, so please check back to see what we have to offer on that front.
The flood of 2010 has only strengthened the beliefs that have shaped our business model and our lives, and, at the risk of sounding trite or cliche, I’m going to list some of them here, in no particular order. Honor and respect the earth. Try to work in harmony with nature. Community matters. Small is beautiful — local, too. Help those around you. We’re all in this together. Be grateful. Count your blessings, but more importantly, share them.
Hope to see you soon, if, as they say, the good lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise …
