First met Tom Stempel back
in the old
Fremont Fine Arts Foundry days.
The Foundry was a lively, working
live/work space back then, the
brainchild of Pete Bevis, the impresario
who brought the Kalakala back
to Seattle. The
Kalakala was scrapped, the
Foundry is now a catering hall,
and Pete Bevis moved away
(possibly has passed). But some of that
DIY can-do spirit lives on in Ballard,
tucked away on an asphalt patch at a
shipyard in the shadow of the Ballard Bridge, an
aggregation of artists and tradespeople
occupying a makeshift compound of
converted shipping containers. At house
parties, people gather in the kitchen;
here, crusty dudes gravitate to the
metalshop--oldtimers Tom Stempel
(briefly visiting from Hawaii), Steve, and
Chris, newcomer
Jeff (a fabricator who works across the
street), and me, the witness. On a break
from boozing, I'm seeing things a little
more clearly. I watched from across the
way as someone by the burn barrel took a
long drink, head tilted back as if
playing a bugle to greet a glorious
dawn. The longer he held it to his lips,
the more I could see the bottle was
taking something in return.
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