How to Start Your Own Economy During a Pandemic
05/06/20
By Andi Crist
The day usually starts with a hunt around the basement for boxes that can be taped up and cut in half to make small crates. I like to save boxes because buying cardboard is a drag; there always seems to be a need for it in our industry, even if it’s just for hauling tools or supplies from the studio to a job. Next, we raid the fridge for almost-empty condiment jars that could be used up and emptied with the day’s meals. “Maybe today we’ll make chilaquiles (gotta fry up those stale tortillas) and use up the rest of these pickled radishes,” I say out loud as I dump the radishes into a plastic container and rinse out the jar. Now all we need is to scrub out last night’s beer bottles and try to hammer the caps back into shapes that will suit re-capping. Did we drink enough beer to bottle the soap going out today?
With the world shifting and reshaping around us, the house is also in flux. No room is safe from being torn apart for resources: even my kid’s “science lab” is scoured for funnels and jelly jars. There’s a series of prerequisites around every movement that creates a rippling effect of repurposing containers that’s both chaotic and strategic. Do we need what’s inside this container? Can what’s in this be moved to another container? Do I want to keep this particular container, and if so, can the contents be shifted from an unwanted container to this one, so we can give away the one we don’t want?
This new morning dance and internal dialogue is part of a routine that’s developed organically since my husband has been out of work. He’s a self-employed art-handler and preparator that makes a living doing contract exhibition installations for various galleries and institutions around Chicago. I don’t need to tell you that all the museums are closed at this point, and what was once a full schedule of months of install work is cancelled through at least July. Luckily, I married a partner who has many skills complementing what I lack. He is good at saving money for emergencies. His panic didn’t set in the way mine did. Even as a salaried, full-time employee who is still being paid, I immediately feared that it would only be a matter of time before my employer would realize this economic flaw and reconsider my needfulness. JP and I do the same work: we are both preparators working in different formats. Before I was hired at my current job, I spent several years as a single parent trying to pack my calendar with freelance art-handling and fabrication gigs. As soon as JP’s schedule evaporated, my old month-to-month contractor anxiety kicked into overdrive and I began plotting how we would make up for the loss of half our income by cleverly using the resources we have at home.
Our household is full of active projects that are probably novel to most. We roast our own coffee, pickle and can produce (either purchased on sale or grown in our garden), make stock, bake bread, and brew kombucha and many other fermented goodies like hot sauce, kimchi, and ginger beer. We spend less than $200 a month on groceries normally and it’s a point of pride. We eat three meals prepared from scratch each day and ordered take-out only once in the last two months. All of this activity stems out of a desire to have quality through labor, not money, but also a wish for sustainability and self-sufficiency. We are thrifty, we buy in bulk, and it’s a personal pet peeve of mine to run out of anything because there’s almost always a back-up in our deep pantry stock or basement freezer.
That’s where this all started, really: the pantry. I rediscovered some potassium hydroxide lye flakes that I’d purchased back in January when we started to run out of dish soap. The mission had been to make our own castile soap, which we use for everything from dishes to bathing to homemade disinfectant spray. The next trip to the restaurant supply store bought us a couple gallons of olive and coconut oil and I got to work cooking up a potful of soap to sell in what would become the Homestead CSA, or, now, the Sacramento River CSH (Community Supported Homesteading). We call Sacramento Boulevard “Sacramento River” because the traffic is always flowing in full force.
I am the type of person that needs productive, fruitful, perpetual motion to stay sane. It’s one of the reasons I’m suited to my job: I like to help people translate their ideas into physical space, and the structure of planning, construction, and implementation of exhibition turnovers. Since the pandemic hit, my work building has been closed, so access to my woodshop has been cut. Our studio building has been less than keen to establish healthy practices to keep the occupants safe, so our usual outlets for productivity are no longer safely available to us. It’s been a frustrating series of blockades that forced us to look elsewhere for relief. One of my greatest comforts is food and good eating; it was a happy coincidence that we could share what we already love to do and fulfill that need for others while sustaining ourselves financially.
Now a few rounds in, we have a pattern of operations and a spreadsheet of loyal customers. At the beginning of the week, the five items available and their variable choices are listed in a public Facebook post. The standard box has become some combination of the following: a 12oz beer bottle of scented castile soap, a boule of sourdough, two bags of coffee beans, a jar of something pickled or fermented, and one other rotating culinary additive. In the beginning we offered eggs from our chickens, but after the first wave of interest proved high, that was a supply we could no longer reasonably ask of “the girls.” When someone chimes in on the post, they’re directed to send me a private message with their order; I then add them to my spreadsheet with their preferences, pick-up date, and any other notes that might affect packaging (vehicle, weather, etc.). The pick-ups are spread out throughout the week because we can only bake a few boules of sourdough each day. When the pick-up day arrives, items are packaged in a miniature crate with repurposed containers and labeled with a checklist of items for each customer. Everything is wiped down with Clorox wipes and set out on a table by our sliding gate. $30 payments are made via Venmo or Paypal. Folks are invited to come at their convenience after a certain time and take their box with no contact needed.
One of the unexpectedly satisfying aspects of this project has been exchanging messages with folks who are interested in picking up a box from us. We exchange the usual pleasantries, wishing each other well, inquiring about work and health, but sometimes it goes on. I’ve connected with people I haven’t seen in person for years (and still have not because of our no-contact pick up system) who tell me about how much they are looking forward to homemade comfort foods after being cooped up with a microwave for the last few weeks. We talk about how to make soap, what the ingredients in kimchi are, how long we’ve had our chickens and how difficult it is to keep them in the winter. They ask us how to keep sourdough starter thriving and problem-solve their own baking experiments. One woman I’ve never met in person but befriended on Facebook months ago has ordered bread from us several times; we’ve vowed to exchange knowledge on bee-keeping and raising chickens when this whole thing blows over. Somehow I feel a little closer to many people being trapped at home because our interaction stems from a purpose and a mutually meaningful exchange.
The generosity of our network has been astounding. People have been bringing us jars and sending extra money just to help out. This project truly feels community supported, and reminds me of how lucky we are to be loved by (and appropriately socially-distanced from) some pretty amazing Chicagoans. We had a magical moment the other day when my husband lamented having to cook lunch. “I wish we had a pizza,” he moaned. No less than two hours later, a dear friend texted to say she and her partner were dropping off a treat: they were driving around the neighborhood delivering homemade pizzas. We laughed at the serendipity and I choked up a bit thinking about how much I miss drinking beers in our yard with friends. It was a loving reminder that my over-stocked pantry isn’t the only resource we have to sustain ourselves; we are woven into a city that cares whether or not we fail and fall away.
Some of the extra money sent to us has gone towards a few small commissions from other creative community members that I want to support in turn. It would be disingenuous to say that we are struggling now after so much uplifting support from our people. We are privileged to have everything that we do, not in a boot-straps kind of way, but a community-fueled kind of way. We have to acknowledge this support is an undeniable part of what’s given us success, and we are humbled. I look forward to the day we can host a barbeque to reconnect with our neighbors and share stories once that’s safe again. It's the combination of the resourcefulness, kindness and initiative of everyone around us that gets recycled and keeps the stove hot. We’ll be out here cooking next week.
Andi Crist and JP Culligan are a husband and wife artist team, both preparators and self-proclaimed urban homesteaders, living and working in Chicago. They live in East Garfield Park with 7-year old Oliver, Brisket the cat, and their chickens Snuggles, Pretty, Monica, and Also Monica. Follow their stories on Instagram @theandicrist and #SacramentoRiverCSH.
Andi and JP worked on this piece with Marc Fischer, the Quarantine Times special editor. Occasionally, Marc selects a Chicagoan to share a commissioned creative response to the pandemic.
