Here are the hands of Thomas, delving deep into the belly of the fan, coils cast out, covers ripped asunder. They work amongst scattered mouse poo pellets and spanners. Discarded surgical gloves give the scene a slightly sinister air. But that’s before I have really settled in.
I have entered a room packed full of workers, the repairers, and expectant repairees at the St Kilda Repair Cafe. Held at the EcoCentre on the second Sunday of each month, the repair cafe exists to promote repairing and recycling of household goods, to foster an appreciation of ‘making good’, repairing to restore functionality, rather than throwing away.
Thomas picks up a mouse poo pellet using a scrunched up latex glove: it looks like he’s holding a tiny turd with a condom. Flick. Away with you, mouse poo! A necessary output of the disassembled toasters, brought to bare their innards to a community of fixers. Fixer-upper-ers. Or nerds. Earnest workers. Carers. People who care. Possible carriers of genius.
Men peering pointedly into the bellies of toasters, burnt crumbs spilling, mouse poo slipping from within; women turning kettles upside down, dragging a needle through old cushion fabric, righting a zipper, making a curtain edge seem new again. There’s a slight lifting of heads, a turning of eyes, a scrunched nose: ‘what is burning? Can anyone smell that burning?’ An iron glides across old cotton.
Around us, the ripped open sides of toasters. Lights flickering on in an old lamp. A slightly unnerving buzz, of electrical sizzle. A surprised yelp of excitement, a head held atilt in wonder.
As a community service, I can feel the change being wrought as I sit face to face with a stranger, who has it in his power to fix my goods, or not. In the process, does he work something on my being too? Is he drawing me out as he delves deep into the oscillating column?
Pieces I would never have seen are drawn out of the internal cavities: a heavy, bound cylinder encased in gleaming metal, tiny washers, threatening to fall from the end of the screw. My mind goes to words to describe a foreign country of physics and forces: capacitator. What does it even mean? I drop the word, like an offering, but it turns out to be more like a piece of mouse poo. It’s no capacitator. Oh well, I’m messing with the lingo, swirling words in my mouth as I watch Thomas work.
As he works, we talk of Seattle, and the night he met his girlfriend at a band, 17 years ago. He is wearing a t-shirt, which holds all the Washington State cities within a lexicon map of Australia. Words at right angles, and twisted around coastlines to fit. He has shaped himself now to St Kilda, where he is making sense, or not, of my old retro fan. His white sticky name tag, THOMAS, sits just above Queensland, over his left nipple.
At the end of the bench, a repair man is cradling his head, tilting, looking perplexed and murmuring, ‘I feel so embarrassed…I can’t fix it. I feel…so embarrassed.’ It’s like a confessional. There is support, no condemnation, a gathering around of the clan. Still, he seems inconsolable, in a quiet, devastated way.
But, back to my fan. My fan had stopped spinning over those hot weeks in November, and now Thomas has found out why: a metal bridge, built to hold the spinning shaft in a central position between magnets, has snapped. There would be no way to get parts for this old fan. It’s an AIKO. Op shop bought, certified safe, but now bound for the bin. Jonathan, who has set the Repair Cafe up, comes to offer his wisdom, dispensing a second opinion: ‘we’d need a 3D printer to fix that. If we had one, we could print the part.’
My mind starts whirring. Something transformative has happened in the unmaking and the surrender, the opportunity to again create from what has been deemed worthless rubbish. The room is filled with common purpose, shared wisdom, care, respect, wonder, delight-I think it’s a thing called community, and it’s been a while since I have sat in its embrace.
I entrust to Thomas one of my belongings, he deconstructs it, and it disgorges pieces across the table, sprawled amongst the pellets and spanners. At a certain point I realise we have crossed over the line of where the piece can be reassembled and made to work anew. A sense of surrender gently moves through me and the hands of Thomas. My mind turns to art, and what could be made with the bits of cast off metal, the decorative covers, the plastic propeller. With some springs from a broken toaster, or a lamp shade…
There’s a thought. Recycled art prospects for future creations. So many things to make, connections to work on, community to foster. We can rebuild it! Art from rubbish, and yeah, a 3D printer would be handy, thanks. So I shake the hands of Thomas, and say goodbye, and start thinking about the next session, when I can bring in that dinky old lamp of great grand nan. I'm sure we can make it shine again.
Repair Cafes around Melbourne
St Kilda Repair Cafe runs the second Sunday of every month. NB no cafe in January, 2018.
Carolyn Webb from The Age writes on the Yarraville Repair Cafe.
Published in The Guardian 6 January 2018
Thomas picks up a mouse poo pellet using a scrunched up latex glove: it looks like he’s holding a tiny turd with a condom. Flick. Away with you, mouse poo! A necessary output of the disassembled toasters, brought to bare their innards to a community of fixers. Fixer-upper-ers. Or nerds. Earnest workers. Carers. People who care. Possible carriers of genius.
Men peering pointedly into the bellies of toasters, burnt crumbs spilling, mouse poo slipping from within; women turning kettles upside down, dragging a needle through old cushion fabric, righting a zipper, making a curtain edge seem new again. There’s a slight lifting of heads, a turning of eyes, a scrunched nose: ‘what is burning? Can anyone smell that burning?’ An iron glides across old cotton.
Around us, the ripped open sides of toasters. Lights flickering on in an old lamp. A slightly unnerving buzz, of electrical sizzle. A surprised yelp of excitement, a head held atilt in wonder.
As a community service, I can feel the change being wrought as I sit face to face with a stranger, who has it in his power to fix my goods, or not. In the process, does he work something on my being too? Is he drawing me out as he delves deep into the oscillating column?
Pieces I would never have seen are drawn out of the internal cavities: a heavy, bound cylinder encased in gleaming metal, tiny washers, threatening to fall from the end of the screw. My mind goes to words to describe a foreign country of physics and forces: capacitator. What does it even mean? I drop the word, like an offering, but it turns out to be more like a piece of mouse poo. It’s no capacitator. Oh well, I’m messing with the lingo, swirling words in my mouth as I watch Thomas work.
As he works, we talk of Seattle, and the night he met his girlfriend at a band, 17 years ago. He is wearing a t-shirt, which holds all the Washington State cities within a lexicon map of Australia. Words at right angles, and twisted around coastlines to fit. He has shaped himself now to St Kilda, where he is making sense, or not, of my old retro fan. His white sticky name tag, THOMAS, sits just above Queensland, over his left nipple.
At the end of the bench, a repair man is cradling his head, tilting, looking perplexed and murmuring, ‘I feel so embarrassed…I can’t fix it. I feel…so embarrassed.’ It’s like a confessional. There is support, no condemnation, a gathering around of the clan. Still, he seems inconsolable, in a quiet, devastated way.
But, back to my fan. My fan had stopped spinning over those hot weeks in November, and now Thomas has found out why: a metal bridge, built to hold the spinning shaft in a central position between magnets, has snapped. There would be no way to get parts for this old fan. It’s an AIKO. Op shop bought, certified safe, but now bound for the bin. Jonathan, who has set the Repair Cafe up, comes to offer his wisdom, dispensing a second opinion: ‘we’d need a 3D printer to fix that. If we had one, we could print the part.’
My mind starts whirring. Something transformative has happened in the unmaking and the surrender, the opportunity to again create from what has been deemed worthless rubbish. The room is filled with common purpose, shared wisdom, care, respect, wonder, delight-I think it’s a thing called community, and it’s been a while since I have sat in its embrace.
I entrust to Thomas one of my belongings, he deconstructs it, and it disgorges pieces across the table, sprawled amongst the pellets and spanners. At a certain point I realise we have crossed over the line of where the piece can be reassembled and made to work anew. A sense of surrender gently moves through me and the hands of Thomas. My mind turns to art, and what could be made with the bits of cast off metal, the decorative covers, the plastic propeller. With some springs from a broken toaster, or a lamp shade…
There’s a thought. Recycled art prospects for future creations. So many things to make, connections to work on, community to foster. We can rebuild it! Art from rubbish, and yeah, a 3D printer would be handy, thanks. So I shake the hands of Thomas, and say goodbye, and start thinking about the next session, when I can bring in that dinky old lamp of great grand nan. I'm sure we can make it shine again.
Repair Cafes around Melbourne
St Kilda Repair Cafe runs the second Sunday of every month. NB no cafe in January, 2018.
Carolyn Webb from The Age writes on the Yarraville Repair Cafe.
Published in The Guardian 6 January 2018
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