Megan Grandstaff and Becky Kidd

Recorded November 17, 2019 Archived November 19, 2019 28:47 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: chd001187

Description

Megan Grandstaff (35) and her colleague Becky Kidd (51) talk about their involvement as volunteer fixers at Community Glue Workshop, a free monthly community repair clinic in Chicago.

Subject Log / Time Code

BK talks about how she started participating in Community Glue repair clinic as a volunteer fixer.
MG talks about the first time she came into the clinic and BK fixed her lamp, and she ended up sewing something for someone that night and was asked to come back the next time. She talks about all the coats and sweaters she repairs for people in the winter in Chicago.
BK talks about how MG's approachable nature and friendliness sometimes attracts the creepiest people.
BK describes the things that can be fixed and some of the things that cannot be repaired. She says what she loves about the clinic is that they'll look at anything.
BK describes her most memorable repair: a "mannequin piss decanter."
MG talks about how volunteering at the clinic has made her good at saying "no." They talk about how they sometimes have to draw a line when it comes to what repair projects they will take on.
BK talks about the art of "teasing out the questions" to get to the heart of what's wrong with a thing.
BK talks about how people have gotten away from working with their hands these days. She talks about how people at Community Glue all learn from each other and are open to trying to fix anything. She says, "If I fail, well, it was broken anyway."
MG talks about how people she knows always ask her to fix their stuff, and how she encourages and empowers them to do it themselves.

Participants

  • Megan Grandstaff
  • Becky Kidd

Recording Locations

Community Glue Workshop

Venue / Recording Kit

Partnership Type

Outreach

Transcript

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00:01 This is Megan Grandstaff. I'm 35 years old. Today's date is November 17th 2019. The location is Chicago, Illinois. My name of my interview partner today is Becky and Becky is my colleague.

00:17 My name is Becky Kidd. I am 51 years old. It is November 17th 2019 where I'm in Chicago, Illinois and animal of my interview partner is Megan Grandstaff, and she is my colleague.

00:40 So

00:42 I started with Community glue Workshop in.

00:47 I don't know 2014 or 15 and I just kind of wandered in off the street a friend had told me about this Fix-It Cafe thing as it was happening and I kind of had to track it down because it was in transition of moving from there was a cafe space and then there was like a theater space and then there was an address they thought they were going to have done on Bryn Mawr and it's settled at the Edgewater workbench word is now and I think it was because aliens do they on the workbench business and they finally swerve got a space for their business and it became kind of the permanent home and I just wandered in and said I like to fix stuff and

01:32 I never left. I think I saw something on Facebook. I'm not exactly sure but I was like, oh I have two lamps that need to be fixed if I brought in one and I don't remember if you looked at that one, but you were like other wiring is fine. It's like a ticket home disappointed cuz I was like come on. I wanted to see somebody fix my lamp. But then I remembered I had the second broken one as I brought that one in and Becky you were the one that rewired AOL rewiring that I was I was like, oh I can so and this woman have been waiting for sewing help and she had the silk kimono in I remember the fabric was beautiful and it would have just had holes cuz it was from the sixties or the seventies and it had been her mother's and so she was like, oh can you repair this? And so that's how I just haven't stopped going back to party like the sewing contingent. I think you do like the electrical repair in like all around construction worker that right? Yeah.

02:32 I do my handywoman by trade and but at the time that I started I had been for like 7 years in a sort of soul-sucking desk job and I wasn't getting opportunities to to fix things to puzzle with things to tear things apart. So I was like, I loved it. I was I was all over it. So I just showed up and so yeah, if I get a lot of carpentry things, I got a lot of chairs with loose legs and drawers that have come apart and electrical things. I I feel like lamps is kind of where I started cuz if you can demystify lamps people will just go they'll just take off the be like, oh my gosh, you mean I can make a lamp out of anything and I'll say yes. I have one at home that I made out of a shotgun. I have one now that I made out of a tub faucet.

03:32 The next one's going to be from a bowling ball.

03:39 How do you how do you do that drill bowling balls? You like drill to drill a hole all the way through as long as you can drill a hole all the way through something. You can make a lamp out of anything. Wow, I would have never occurred to me. I love it. I can't wait to see it.

03:56 Yelp

03:58 So I think

04:01 I love our sewing crew because you all just come in and you you park yourselves and set up your stuff and then people just to start flowing in and there's this constant I look up and there's pants and then I look up an old there's a sweater. Oh my gosh, there's another sweater. Oh my gosh. There's another the winter season which means I'm about to get a lot of underarm jacket repairs from people grabbing onto the CTA handles and their armpits is tearing that was last year repair 2 ton of puffy coats. I think sweaters are really good at darning. That's one of the skills that kind of picked up working at the glue clinic, but unfortunately, that means I get people sweaters like the one gentleman who came in who bought the sweater at a thrift store 20 years ago.

04:50 And he never washed it and it was crunchy and he told me as I was halfway through the repair that you've never watched. It was like you never watched it when you bought it from like this Vengeance store, and I was just I went home in like tore all my clothes off and threw them in the laundry at my took a really hot shower. But yeah, that was probably the most interesting class growth repair of ever had.

05:18 I think that you're very approachable. I think that you're very friendly you're very you disarm people and unfortunately, I think that means that sometimes you seem to get some kind of weird people who just got out come up to you and and I feel bad and I feel like I should go over and sort of act as a gatekeeper to protect Megan from kind of creepy people sometimes sewing machine that was in a cabinet at her home and we were like we don't do that bring it here. And then she was like that. These hands have touched Lou Reed and I can give you massages to pay you and we were like no.

06:05 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm actually really glad that I never learned how to fix sewing machines of all the things that we fix. That's one thing. I just don't have any direct experience with and I'm kind of glad because that the two or three people who've come in wanting sewing machine repairs there like they're sort of they stand a little too close and they're a little too friendly in there like and then if if you do fix the thing then they they're your best friend forever and I would like when they come in, I'm psych. I'm really sorry one of these folks probably can help you cuz they work with sewing machines right way more often. And so that's the person who can who can probably help you and then I feel bad cuz I sent them over to you.

06:51 With what I love about the sign contingent is the one person has vintage Singer sewing machine. That was her grandmother's and then one of the other people has a brand new brother machine and then I have my very first sewing machine that I bring with me that my parents bought me in 2005. That's a Kenmore from Sears was like $100 and it's a Workhorse unless I love it. So that's what I love about our tools. Is there on varying shapes and sizes and I love that you bring in your tool bag full of all kinds of goodies. It's like Mary Poppins bag. I never know what's coming out of it. How have you acquired so many great schools?

07:30 30 years of never throwing anything away

07:35 I my dad was my dad as a minister was a minister and he's retired now, but he was also a carpenter and so I started out like every Carpenters kids starts out pulling Nails out of boards, but there came a point where he realized that I was digging this and so he started he wouldn't give me his duplicate tools. He would give me his triplicate tool. So cuz he always had to have a spare but when he got three of something then he'd give me one and so my my first tools were my dad's extra extra's and I still have some of those but I had a home repair business for several years in Chicago in the 90s and 2000 and so I bought a certain number of tools that I needed and like everybody else you've sort of budget and you put off buying a tool to absolutely need it and then and then you have it but now I work for a

08:35 Home repair business a handyman business and they provide the business provides fixer provides us with a basic set of hand tools, LOL and that's helpful.

08:46 And then but I power tools drills things like that. I just collect yard sales thrift stores. Lots of things find things in the trash like you do. I think I've seen on most locations people putting out like sewing machines and their cabinets and then I don't have any room in my apartment by one bedroom Chicago Apartment. I don't have any room I have at last count I have for sewing machines and I have one serger and every time I pass another sewing machine people. Do you need one? I saw one for you, and I said no no, no, no, no don't feed this.

09:34 What is going through your mind based on your experience of having been there and things that you needed?

09:41 I think when I'm packing my things up to go to the clinic I have this great sewing box. That was my mom's and it's electric orange and brown velour top and it's awful and I love it. But what I fill it with standard was like I came across this bag at thread that has all these beautiful colors in it and somehow there's a color in there for every project that someone comes into a spit them out to go bad if thread and so we all pass around between the three of us in the sewing contingent. I also have started putting a lot of like fingering weight yarn in there that I used to darn people's like a dachshund sweater because it's really great when you wash it all felt just a little bit and then I'll make the patch so much stronger, of course, it's packed like a seam ripper to put the next person to work like someone's like, oh can you repair this thing in the next person behind them and has another thing to repair and like I will start seeing ripping. Here you go.