Volume 11 Issue 2 | Winter 2020
Life of a
Cannabis Farmer
Editorial
Multimedia
Editor-in-Chief Renata S. Geraldo
Multimedia Director Jassy McKinley
Managing Editor Sophie Bange
Engagement Editor Emma Moyers
Associate Editor Marin Stuart
Multimedia Producers Emily Cline Meg Matsuzaki Kevin Wang Fallon Dunham
Fact-Checking Editor Kiki James
Creative Art Director Emma Nolan Illustrators Eleanor Klock Christina StaprĂŁns Garrett Dare Designers Sasha Heye Grace Payne
Business President and Publisher Bill Kunerth VP of Operations Kathy Carbone Director of Sales & Marketing Shelly Rondestvedt Creative Director Sam Rudkin
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Photography Photo Editor Payton Bruni Photographers Eric Woodall Josh Murray Meg Matsuzaki Evan Hazlett
Writing Copy Editor Abigail Winn
Fact Checkers Madeline Ryan Hailey O'Donnell Writers Sam Nguyen Jassy McKinley Jade Yamazaki Stewart Molly Schwartz Donny Morrison Julia Page Lisa Deluc
Letter from the
Editor hat makes the human ethos? I know, that's a huge question. But in my opinion, what sets us apart as a species (i.e., what makes us awesome) is that we adapt. Our social brains have made humans the most adaptable species on the planet, as we carry on knowledge that allows us to acclimate to new environments. Take archaeological record to illustrate this point. According to a 2014 study by Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and his colleagues, 2.5 million to 1.5 million years ago, "three lineages of early Homo evolved in a context of habitat instability and fragmentation on seasonal, intergenerational and evolutionary time scales. These contexts gave a selective advantage to traits, such as dietary flexibility and larger body size, that facilitated survival in shifting environments." In other words, humans have been adapting to difficult environments to ensure the species' survival since prehistory. And while survival knowledge was especially useful during our ancestors' time, it has been carried out through millions of years and lineages of Homos. We still have this innate ability, though we are faced with different challenges today.
Adaptability is, for me, being human. In each of the stories you're about to read, you'll find that this uniquely human trait is still there. Our core evolutionary adaptability is in the independent UO frisbee team overcoming financial challenges, slow fashion growing, struggling to overcome the horrors of slavery when faced with its inhumanity, a Lane County organization helping former convicts adapt to life in society, cannabis farmers adapting to the instability of the industry, a woman adapting to her personal challenges while keeping the Lane Area Ferret Shelter and Rescue and local band Laundry adapting to the life of student musicians. When reading these stories, I invite you, reader, to reflect on times when you had to adapt or overcome difficult situations. We have had this ability for millions of years and have survived years of strife, so be empowered by it. After all, adaptability is part of our most intimate ethos and is what connects us as a species.
Renata S. Geraldo Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 3
Finding Harmony UO women's ultimate frisbee team's off-field work to keep playing
Contents
Features
08 Saved by Ferrets Lane County's ferret shelter manager on owing her life to ferrets Features
14 How to Stay Out of Prison Former inmates share how a Lane County program helps them stay free Features
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22 Life of a Cannabis Farmer Cannabis farmers who ceased planting for a year make up for losses Features
Returning for the First Time Donny Morrison on facing white privilege at a slave castle in Ghana World
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Our Story Ethos is a nationally recognized, awardwinning student publication. Since our inception as Korean Ducks magazine in 2005, we’ve worked hard to share a multicultural spirit with our readership throughout the university and Eugene community. Ethos is, after all, defined as the fundamental characteristic of a spirit, people or culture.
One Man's Trash Thrifting consumers share their preference for secondhand shopping Features
Throughout our pages and on our website you’ll find unique, multicultural stories ranging from Eugene restaurants to international human rights debates. Our readers pick up Ethos to explore ethical, journalistic storytelling, beautiful photography and illustrations and innovative designs. We embrace diversity in our stories, in our student staff and in our readership.
39 From Lint to Laurels Eugene band Laundry on balancing life, school and music
Ethos recieves support from the ASUO. All content is legal property of Ethos except when noted. Permission is required to copy, reprint or use any content in Ethos. All views and opinions expressed are strictly those of the respective author or interviewee. Ethos is a publication of the Emerald Media Group.
Arts & Culture
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Independent Student Media The Emerald has served the University of Oregon with news and information since 1900. 100% of our content is produced by University of Oregon students. We are a non-profit organization, located in the Erb Memorial Union.
Our mission is:
• To serve the University of Oregon community with independent student journalism in the public interest. • To train students to professional standards and provide networking opportunities that make them coveted job candidates. • To ensure the long term financial viability of an independent student media company.
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The Emerald publishes news 24/7 on our website dailyemerald.com. Follow dailyemerald on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for news. Sports fans also follow odesports on Twitter. We deliver news to your inbox with our email edition. We print a newspaper weekly on Mondays, and a Game Day edition on Thursday during football season. In 2016, our newspaper was awarded The Associated Collegiate Press’ top award - The Pacemaker.
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We do a bunch of other stuff, too: Marketing, events, advertising, photo booth, design service and video production. Go to dailyemerald.com/apply for a list of available positions or email engage@dailyemerald.com for more information!
“Working at the Emerald was the single most important experience that shaped who I am as a professional today.” - Tyler Mack, Account Executive, Emerald Alumni ‘05
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Be part of a 119 year old organization!
We employ over 100 students each year. Our students go on to work for Washington Post, The Oregonian, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, The Oregonian, Nike, GQ, Google, Facebook, Amazon.
Student positions at the Emerald: Emerald Newsroom: Editor in Chief Managing Editor Art Director New Editor Sports Editor Arts & Culture Editor Opinion Editor Podcast Editor News Reporters Sports Reporters Arts & Culture Reporters Copy Chief Copy Editors Engagement Editor Social Media Producers Outreach Director Visual Arts Editor Photographers Illustrators Designers Video Editor Videographers
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dailyemerald.com/apply
Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 7
Finding Harmony Ultimate Frisbee team Fugue works off the field to combat small budget
I
Written by Sam Nguyen Photography by Evan Hazlett Illustrated by Garrett Dare
t was 3:30 p.m. on a Wednesday and the players trickled onto the field on their bikes. They quickly dismounted and threw their bikes and bags onto a damp and grassy hill on the edge of the Riverfront fields. The players jogged onto the field and started practice.
On one side of the field, smog was coming from a white factory-like building. The other side hugged the Willamette River. The trees by the river were losing their leaves enough to see through the branches. Right beyond them, a thick fog swallowed Autzen Stadium, and the team could faintly hear the University of Oregon marching band playing. But on the Riverfront fields, 15 Fugue players – the UO women’s ultimate frisbee team – started their throwing drills without paying any mind to the music. The field they practiced on looked less like a sports field and more like a neglected lot of grass. It didn’t have painted lines to separate Fugue from the men’s ultimate frisbee team that was practicing right next to them. Old trash and abandoned mouthguards lay on the outskirts of the field. Damp grass clippings stuck like glue onto the players’ cleats as they ran, but
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none of the unusual qualities of the field fazed the players. They were focused on getting through a wet and sticky practice. But their work doesn’t end when they leave the field. Cocaptain Rachel Hess says Fugue players spend just as much time off the field as they do on it. They are also responsible for scheduling practices, finding coaches, booking plane tickets and buying uniforms. The team receives some logistical and financial support from UO Club Sports, but it doesn’t meet all of the team’s needs. To keep their team running, Fugue uses teamwork both on and off the field.
Lack of safe practice conditions During the off-season, Fugue plays on the uneven and overgrown Riverfront fields, which aren’t well-suited for any sport. “A lot of people have gotten injured on those fields,” Hess says. One player twisted her ankle on the field and was out
for four weeks. Players who were injured in the past practice less during the off-season because they’re scared of injuring themselves again on the Riverfront fields, player T.K. Tarvin says. To reduce the chances of injury, Fugue avoids sprinting or jumping drills, but these adjustments make them practice less than they need to. Injuries become less of a problem during the regular season, when Fugue plays on UO’s turf fields, Hess says. Playing on turf fields allows the team to practice more intensely and freely. But there’s a catch: Intramural sports get priority over club sports to pick field times. Hess says that after intramurals set their practice times, the competition between other club sports can make it difficult to pick reasonable practice times. Because of the competition and lack of priority for practice times, Fugue often gets stuck with odd practice times. Some years, they had 6 a.m. frosty winter practices. Other times, they’ve had practices that ended at 10 p.m. This makes Fugue less accessible, Hess says. Construction at Hayward Field hasn’t affected the team significantly, but with fewer fields for all the UO intramurals and club teams to share, competition for practice times will be even fiercer than before, player TK Tarvin says. The fields at UO are free to use, but Hess says Fugue has considered renting fields out in the Eugene community to make practice more accessible. Players would be able to determine their own practice times and have better conditions during the off-season. Renting field space solves their scheduling issues, but it only adds to their list of expenses.
Club funding Fugue receives some funding from UO Club Sports, but most of their expenses are covered out-of-pocket or through fundraising. Since Fugue is mostly on its own, it tries to make cuts where it can to keep dues low. Players use discs they already own and their coaches are unpaid community members. “It’s really freaking hard having to worry about if we have enough money to send more than one coach to a tournament,” Hess says. “Having to pay out of your own pocket for uniforms, travel, and all that stuff, it’s a pretty big pressure.” Tarvin says that some teams have dues that are over $1,000, whereas Fugue’s dues range from $100 to about $300 per person each season. ww To offset their costs, the team fundraises year-round, adding more hours to their workload. The additional time spent off the field on Fugue is what co-captain Maddy Boyle calls a “hidden cost.” “Most people on Fugue are full-time or part-time students, but they also work,” Hess says. “One thing we really try to do is make Fugue accessible to everyone by lowering the costs of dues.” Player Ellen Ipsen guards co-captain Maddy Boyle during practice Photo by Evan Hazlett
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Fugue players cheer at the end of their huddle during a scrimmage against a local high school frisbee team Photo by Evan Hazlett
Juggling priorities Even with the relatively low dues, players like Tarvin have considered quitting because of affordability. Tarvin quit the track team at Mount San Antonio College to join ultimate frisbee at UO. Used to the amount of funding for track, Tarvin expected ultimate frisbee to have the same funding for uniforms and equipment. But when she joined Fugue, Tarvin wondered where the uniforms and equipment were. She was in for a rude awakening: unlike the sports Tarvin used to play, there wasn’t a lot of money supporting ultimate frisbee. And she didn’t have much to spare either. Coming from an economically underprivileged background, Tarvin works up to 40 hours every week to pay for school and Fugue, not counting the babysitting gigs she has on the side. When she gets home from her long days, Tarvin immediately starts her schoolwork and usually finishes at 2 a.m. Despite Tarvin’s hectic schedule, she says she makes time for Fugue as best as she can, but sometimes her commitments conflict and she has to miss some practice time. “It’s so hard to manage both, especially at the beginning. And I was getting sick a lot and not sleeping, but now I’m a lot more used to it and can manage my time effectively,” Tarvin says. Tarvin was faced with a choice between working and playing with Fugue once when she had to leave practice 20 minutes early. As she was leaving, a teammate asked her to stay, not understanding why she had to go. With the goal of nationals in mind, Tarvin says her teammate wanted to make the most of every minute of practice. Leaving early meant that Tarvin wouldn’t be able to fully use the team’s practice time. 10 | ETHOS | Winter 2020
But Tarvin was leaving practice early not just to work, but also to make sure that she could afford to be a part of the team. The money she’d make from the babysitting job would ultimately go to Fugue dues. To help her teammates understand her situation, Tarvin said, “The most reasonable thing is for me not to do Fugue, but I like it so much that this is all that I can give.” Tarvin knows that playing ultimate frisbee makes her schedule tight and adds to her financial pressure, but she says that when she sees her teammates’ crying and laughing faces after a win, she knows it was worth staying.
Fundraising opportunities Tarvin is also part of Fugue’s fundraising committee. She says the primary way that Fugue fundraises is through “Rent-AFuguer.” The Eugene community can “rent” a Fugue player to pick up odd jobs such as helping people move or doing yard work. The money they earn can go towards their own dues. Players can also do fundraising for the team in general, which can go to general expenses or to other players’ dues, Tarvin says. Tarvin also says that friends, family and alumni donations are another source of funds. When the players send out a certain number of donation solicitations, UO Club Sports agrees to help cover the costs of going to nationals. But she says donations are unreliable for funding because they fluctuate from year to year. In addition to the fundraising committee, Fugue players take on leadership roles and split into committees to handle the team logistics. UO Club Sports offers resources and help where they can, but the players are in charge of all the logistics of the
teams.
Club leadership The president and the three Fugue co-captains share the leadership of the team. Fugue’s president, Shae Davis, handles all the logistics, while the co-captains work with coaches on practice plans and strategies. The president works closely with Club Sports to facilitate functions that the team plans. Cocaptains plan practices and work on building the team culture that is productive towards their goals.
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Hess says that she puts in over 10 hours a week doing captain work off the field. “It’s definitely like a part-time job, but I don’t get paid,” she says. The rest of the players are split into different committees to handle fundraising, treasury, logistics, recruitment and equipment. Players plan out their events and responsibilities accordingly. “Everyone has a role. Everyone gives something and everyone gets something back,” Hess says.
Bonding as a team Fugue’s teamwork on and off the field is rooted in their bonds with each other. In their huddle while talking about strategy, they joke and debate about the correct way to spell “sco.” They also keep a buddy system to have a go-to person on the team that will support the players no matter what. The system helps keep the players accountable and provide emotional support, making the team’s bond stronger. says.
Both teams start on their endzone lines and throw to the other team
Ultimate is self-refereed players must resolve all fouls + conflicts
“Once you’re in the Fugue family, you’re in it forever,” Hess
The Fugue family is comforting for incoming players, especially ones from out of state, like Ava Jones. Originally from Arlington, Virginia, Jones was sure that she would stay on the East Coast for college, but her friends who played for Fugue convinced her to consider UO. She flew to Eugene to visit the campus and meet up with her Fugue friends, with whom she spent time getting to know. Before Jones even attended practice, she says she decided to go to UO for Fugue.
Ultimate is a non-contact sport. Doing so results in a foul.
“I was kind of nervous about going to school across the country, and I felt like I would be okay because they seemed like people who would be super supportive and act like a family,” Jones says. Her transition into college life was easier knowing that she had a support system ready for her when she settled in Eugene. “It’s a way to bring people together,” Jones says about Fugue. Now a sophomore, Jones says she appreciates having some of her teammates as her closest friends because they understand her commitment to the sport. She also says that the friendships on the team help strengthen their teamwork on the field.
Players can't run with the disc
Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 11
YEARS
Duck Store
Championing p ote nt ial since 1920. In 1920, enrollment at the University of Oregon surged to a post-World War I high of 1,913 students. A movement formed on campus around access to classroom essentials like books, pens, papers and binders — basic student needs since well before 1920. Two years earlier the university-affiliated store had been sold and only for-profit stores remained. On the founding principles of access and independence, the student-owned University of Oregon Cooperative Store opened its doors on June 16, 1920. In the past 100 years we’ve grown along with the university we serve. Our corner store has turned into ten more. Classroom essentials now includes laptops and hard drives (we still have the pens and paper, too). And those principles of access and independence that formed the Cooperative Store and later the University of Oregon Bookstore, guide us today as The Duck Store. While we were founded with a simple mission, the items we offer have always been more than they seem. That old college t-shirt doesn’t mean much without the nostalgia and experiences that go along with it — experiences we’re proud to be a part of. We’re looking ahead to the next 100 years of first roommates, fall terms, walks to Autzen and grad parades.
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UODuckStore.com
One of Ellis’s ferrets rests its nose through its cage bars. Ferrets have poor eyesight but an excellent sense of smell and hearing. Photo by Payton Bruni
Saved by Ferrets The woman behind Eugene’s ferret shelter
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Ellis refills the food dish for two of her ferrets. The food Ellis provides contains ingredients and nutrients specific to the sensitive diet of ferrets. Photo by Payton Bruni
Written by Renata S. Geraldo Photography by Payton Bruni
E
ven with 42 ferrets in it, the Lane Area Ferret Shelter and Rescue is as tidy as can be. Nine-foot tall black cages line the 10-by-10 foot room, each with roughly four ferrets and tags with their names. There is also a white sink and toys for ferrets to play with. And the person who has been managing the Lane Area Ferret Shelter and Rescue is longtime ferret lover, Melanee Ellis. She lets three ferrets loose – Pickle, Cucumber and Bear. They jump around, chase each other, climb on the cages and explore the plastic tubes made for small animals to run through. The ferrets’ energy, running and jumping non-stop makes Ellis laugh a genuine but slightly sad laugh.
She lets three ferrets loose – Pickle, Cucumber and Bear. . . The ferrets’ energy, running and jumping nonstop makes Ellis laugh a genuine but slightly sad laugh.
The ferret shelter is inside Ellis’ home, in a well-lit and spacious room suited for them to play. Right outside, there is a large blue plastic tub with ferret food, which Ellis picks carefully. Ferrets are sensitive animals, and the food they eat must have specific and balanced ingredients. The 42 ferrets are either homeless or are at the shelter temporarily. The homeless ferrets are adoptable. Ellis takes care of the temporary ferrets for their owners until they can be reunited. She says one of the ferrets there belongs to a woman who was the victim of an abusive relationship, and had recently moved to Boston to start a new life. She was waiting to get her landlord’s approval to have the pet before coming back to get her ferret, Ellis says. Ellis has been maintaining the shelter since 1995. But with time, she developed multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia, and it has been getting harder to take care of her favorite animals. Ellis was 15 years old when she first fell in love with ferrets. She found them exciting, happy and silly, like there would be no bad times with them around. She wanted to have one, but her mother would not let her. Ellis’ mother would tell her that they were stinky animals – a common argument against ferrets, Ellis says. But she loved them anyways. She also loved her mother deeply. They were best friends and talked every day, even when Ellis was in college. Ellis says her mom was strong, funny and never showed signs of weakness or sadness, even when she was dying from colon cancer that metastasized to her liver. “She went from this vital woman and within a year, she had lost a bunch of weight. The chemo was really tough on her, and so within a year she was gone,” Ellis says. Her mother passed away in October of 1993, and Ellis’ world fell apart. The grief was soul-shredding. Ellis had just lost her best friend and there seemed to be no end in sight to the pain she was feeling. Within a month of her mother’s passing, Ellis says
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Ellis clips the nails of one of her ferrets while a shelter volunteer holds its rump. Ferrets are energetic animals and getting one to hold still can require an extra set of hands. Photo by Payton Bruni
she attempted suicide. (She had also experienced trauma before her mother’s passing. Ellis was severely bullied throughout her school life, and it only ended when she transferred university as a sophomore.) “It was a half-assed attempt,” Ellis says. “I knew my husband wouldn’t survive if I also died.” Her counselor at the time told her to get a pet so she could deal with the grief. So within six months of her mother’s passing, Ellis got her first ferret; a champagne-colored ferret named Bosley. A week later, she got her second, a silver ferret named Boo Boo. They helped her through her darkest moments, Ellis says. “If it wasn’t for ferrets, I probably wouldn’t be here today,” she says. “They are never sad unless they’re ill. They are happy and bouncy and playful and crazy and have this joy de vivre that just makes me very happy. You cannot be depressed around ferrets.” Her one and only shelter volunteer, Seth Smith, has also had the therapeutic help of ferrets when going through a breakup. He says that Mochi, his pet ferret who’s been with Smith for two weeks, has become his support animal. “You’re so good with her,” Ellis tells Smith while he holds Mochi. Ellis has two personal ferrets. They stay in tall cages in her living room, across from the television set and behind the couch. The other 42 stay in the shelter room. In the corridor that connects her living room to the shelter, there are mounted empty cages and the big blue barrel full of ferret food. On the wall of the shelter is a thank-you note from someone who had their ferrets in the shelter temporarily. 16 | ETHOS | Winter 2020
But the shelter didn’t start as a shelter. It started as a group of people in Eugene who wanted to get together so their ferrets could play with each other. In February of 1994, a month after moving to Eugene from Juneau, Alaska, Ellis advertised a ferret party in the Register-Guard. She says she wanted to meet more ferret people. “I had 28 people and 35 ferrets, something like that, and it was a really fun party, met a lot of good people. A month later, a number of us got together to start a club,” she says. This club is now called Lane Area Ferret Lovers. The Eugenenians who were a part of the Lane Area Ferret Lovers eventually made their way to volunteer for cleaning day at the Oregon Ferret Shelter, which, at the time, was located in Oregon City, near Portland. It is now in Prineville, closer to Bend. Ellis says that the shelter coordinator there acknowledged her skills with the ferrets. Then the idea came: a ferret shelter in Eugene, so that people would not have to drive up to Oregon City to drop off or adopt a homeless ferret. Ellis says she was already taking care of three ferrets. By 2003, after a 5-year gap living in Alaska for her husband’s job, she was back at managing the Lane Area Ferret Shelter and Rescue. On an average day, Ellis wakes up every day and spends two to three hours taking care of the shelter. She cleans the cages and gives food and water to the ferrets. But if a ferret is sick, she focuses her attention on them by taking them to the veterinarian, force-feeding if necessary and giving them medicine. Ellis has been managing the Lane Area Ferret Shelter and Rescue for 18 years. She has created connections with other Oregon-based ferret shelters, like the one in Coos Bay, managed by Dan Stadleman. He adopted one of her ferrets in 2004,
Ellis holds one of her ferrets for a portrait. Ellis loves and cares for her ferrets but her connection with them goes beyond their cute appearance. Ellis says the pet ferrets she had as a teenager acted as emotional support after her mom passed away. “If it wasn’t for ferrets, I probably wouldn’t be here today,” Ellis says. Photo by Payton Bruni
and their relationship started from there. He says that Ellis’ shelter provides resources for his, especially when he started. “She’s been a great resource for me,” Stadleman says, not just of information about how to manage his Coos Bay shelter but also medical information, connecting him to veterinarians and teaching him which medicines to use. Ferrets get easily sick, and the illness can be deadly. They scream when they are experiencing seizures, for example. Ellis knows how to deal with them when that happens, pulling ferrets out of seizures if it’s at an early stage or who to call. But she says that these skills are not common among ferret owners. Since adopting from Lane Area Ferret Shelter and managing his own shelter, Stadleman has participated in the annual Ferret Agility Trials, Olympic-style competitions for ferrets, along with other shelter managers in Oregon. Ellis’ volunteer Smith says the Lane Area Ferret Shelter and Rescue is better than most because it is humane. It is a no-kill shelter, which means that Ellis takes care of ferrets until they die. This also means that she has to pay, from her very limited budget, when ferrets get sick. But money is scarce for the shelter. Once a year, Ellis holds a Ferret Agility Trials event. (It was previously called the Ferret Olympics until the International Olympics Committee asked that the “Olympics” name be removed.) At the event, community members get to participate in carnival-style activities and interact with the shelter ferrets by “renting” them for competitions. This year, Ellis says she raised $1,200 from the fundraiser. But most of it has already been spent in medical bills for sick ferrets. She also does some of the fundraising on her Facebook page. In November 2019, Ellis started a fundraiser with the goal of $3,000 to cover a medical bill for a sick ferret named Oliver. She was able to raise $280. The fundraising for Oliver was very individual, Ellis says. Most of the donors were also shelter managers. Other fundraising opportunities for Ellis is sending mailed letters asking for donations in November, around Thanksgiving, to people who attend the Ferret Agility Trials and people who participate in raffles. Ellis is strategic about when to send and to whom. But her work at the shelter is approaching a due date. Ellis says that she hasn’t been able to tend to ferrets as well as she did. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2008 and fibromyalgia in 2016. She has also been suffering from chronic depression since her mother died. Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 17
This makes it difficult to take care of the 44 ferrets in her home. She can’t get out of bed some days; her energy is often drained. “It’s a lot of work. And having to try to clean up after and make sure that it’s fed and have their water and make sure all the bedding’s good is exhausting,” she says. “I have some really detrimental things going on with me personally, so it takes a lot out of me.” Ellis says she gets double vision from MS, which makes cutting the fine ferret nails especially difficult. She needs to sit down, hold them in a circle, like a baby, and carefully clip their nails. But that can be difficult with double vision, with a risk of harming the animal. She has been trying to stop managing the shelter for five years. The main difficulty for that, however, has been finding a successor who is just as thoughtful, patient and good with the animals – a task that has been taking a long time to achieve. “The people that said they might be interested in taking over the shelter have not been up to my standards of care,” Ellis says. Despite the challenges with finding the right successor in a limited pool of options, Ellis says she does have hope that she’ll pass on the custody of the shelter to someone who loves ferrets just as much as she does. But if that doesn’t happen, Ellis wants to transport the homeless ferrets from Lane County to the Oregon Ferret Shelter in Prineville instead of keeping them here. “What I’m planning to do is to become a waystation. So if somebody wants to surrender their ferret, they can give the ferret to me. I will hold it and wait until someone can take it to Prineville, or I’ll take it to Prineville, do a weekend trip,” she says. Ellis gets food from the blue bucket with ferret food and puts a little bit inside each food container by the black cages. She then takes a ferret out of its cage and puts Ferret Toner, a liquid that’ll keep the ferret steady, on its belly. The ferret licks it viciously at first, then slowing down its pace. While it lays on her lap, licking the Ferret Toner out of its belly, Ellis takes out a nail clipper and cuts each fine nail of the animal, careful not to cut too close to the skin. Despite the challenges of running a ferret shelter by herself for years while suffering from MS, fibromyalgia and chronic depression, Ellis says her mom would be proud of her. “I’m helping not only my community but I’m also helping other people getting companion animals that will also help them be with their depression,” she says. “I think Mom would be proud of me for doing something like this.”
Editor’s Editor's Note Note
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideation, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org or please contact the Oregon Youthline at 877-968-8491.
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Ellis scruffs one of her ill ferrets to administer its medicine. Not all of the ferrets that Ellis rescues come in perfect health. Several of the ferrets have unique, costly-to-treat illnesses that Ellis tends to every day. Scruffing a ferret, similarly to cats and dogs, is neither harmful nor painful for the animal. Photo by Payton Bruni
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Melanee Ellis reaches to open the cage of one of her many ferrets. Ellis runs a ferret shelter out of her home in Eugene, Oregon, and cares for over 40 ferrets that are rescues or being temporarily housed for their owners. Photo by Payton Bruni
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How to stay out of
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People in Lane County are working to provide ex-prisoners the services they need to successfully transition into society
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A
Written by Jade Yamazaki Stewart Illustrations by Christina Staprāns
forest green prison transport van stopped at the Lane County Community Corrections Center on a sunny January day in 2014. A correctional officer opened the door. Jordan Rahier stepped into the crisp winter air, a maroon prison uniform covering his large frame. His handcuffs were taken off, and he walked into the square brick building. This was Rahier’s fourth time in prison, but the last 31 months had been especially hard. His family was tired of him getting locked up. Rahier’s mom said that she wouldn’t talk to him if he went to prison again. And this time he was in, his mom didn’t send him birthday cards. Rahier called her every Friday for two and a half years. She never picked up. This time, Rahier really didn’t want to go back. Then 36 years old, he’d never held a real job. Rahier had a wife and five kids but they didn’t see him often. He was too busy selling cocaine and methamphetamine, running with gangs and getting in high speed chases with the police. From the time he was 20, Rahier had never stayed out of prison for more than a couple of years. Many people in the United States are familiar with Rahier’s struggle to stay out of prison. Out of the 650,000 people released from U.S. prisons in a year, 70% are arrested again within three years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. People coming out of prison need social support and housing to help them successfully transition. These services are rare, but some people in Lane County are providing help to ex-prisoners and reducing recidivism rates. People coming out of prison have a hard time transitioning because many have responsibilities that other people don’t, says Paul Solomon, the executive director of Sponsors Inc., a Eugene organization that provides housing and support to ex-
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prisoners. These responsibilities include meetings with parole officers, drug and alcohol treatments and job search. Sponsors is one of the only one-stop transitional service organizations in the country, mainly funded by contracts with Lane County and the state of Oregon. The organization prioritizes people who are at a high risk of reoffending. Its guiding philosophy is “that people can and do change, and that interventions at the appropriate times can serve as a catalyst to lasting change,” according to the website. Over half of the people who work at the organization have been incarcerated, including himself and other managerial staff, Solomon says. And many once went through the Sponsors program. It’s an organization run by felons for felons. This makes the relationships in the program feel more equal, Solomon says. Participants don’t feel judged because everybody’s been in the same place. Rahier, having been to prison multiple times, had a high risk of reoffending and was the perfect fit for Sponsors. Solomon called Rahier and other people with high risks of recidivism while they were in prison and offered Rahier a spot in Re-entry Lane, a Sponsors program that allows prisoners to leave prison 60 days early. He accepted. “Until I got that phone call, I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he says. “I was prepared for it to go either way when I got out.” This time out of prison, he’d have drug and alcohol rehabilitation, help finding a job that wasn’t selling drugs and a peer mentor, all part of the Sponsors program, all things that Solomon says are helpful to successfully transitioning from prison.
Housing The plan was for Rahier to complete the 60-day Reentry Lane program, working at Sponsors during the day and spending nights in the Lane County Community Correction Center. Then he would live at the Sponsors men’s campus for another 60 days, in one of the organization’s 200 transitional housing units that serve around 1,000 people coming out of Oregon prisons every year. The homes at the men’s campus are newly built, brightly painted maroon, cream and light brown. Each building contains five double rooms, a spacious shared kitchen and a living room with couches and a television. “This facility is the nicest building anywhere in the neighborhood. It’s beautifully landscaped. The rooms are nice,” Solomon says. “It’s a contradiction to what people experience in prison.” The goal by the end of the program, Solomon says, was for Rahier to move into a place of his own that he could pay for, have a stable source of income and be drug and alcohol free. But he had a long journey ahead.
43.3 percent of prisoners released in 2004 returned in less than three years Pewtrust.org
$31,286 average per-inmate cost of incarceration
Social Support
Vera Institute of Justice
Kimberly Howard, a 61-year-old Springfield native, was also a Sponsors participant. Howard struggled with depression and a meth addiction from her thirties until she was imprisoned in her late 50s for stealing. Howard was released from Coffee Creek Prison in Wilsonville, Oregon, on an overcast March day in 2016. Her daughter picked her up. They went to IHOP for her first meal. She ordered chicken strips — her first meal that wasn’t prison food in two and a half years. But Howard couldn’t eat. She was too anxious about what could happen to her now that she was free. Howard was nearly 60 years old then, and she was scared nobody would hire her at that age. She also had creeping fears that she’d go back to taking meth.
7 out of 10 male prisoners are reincarcerated
“It was overwhelming to be free,” Howard says in her soft, worn voice. But knowing that transitioning would be hard, she’d applied to the Sponsors’ women’s program while she was in prison and secured a spot before she got out. When she arrived at the organization’s women’s campus, she says she felt safe. Howard would be starting three months in a supported environment where she could work through her problems. It took her a few months to readjust to life outside of prison. Howard says being in crowds felt uncomfortable after spending years behind bars. She’d sometimes have to get off public busses and walk when too many people got on. And it took her months to build up the courage to shop at a grocery store. But she slowly regained her confidence through the program. Howard says talking to her case manager about her struggles helped.
The Urban Institute
74.6 70.2
2.5 1.2 larcenists
robbers
rapists
homicide
percent of reincarceration by crime United States Department of Justice
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“It’s really hard to get out of a prison mentality after 31 years in there,” Gutschenritter says. “I wish I had counselling, and somebody to talk to when things got hard.” “You need to talk about your issues, or else it’s going to build up,” she says. Howard is now seven years clean from meth, and she’s three classes short of getting a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor certificate from Lane Community College. The program worked for her. Howard wanted to share it with others; she’s been working at Sponsors as support staff since May 2018. “I knew that I wanted to help people when I was in the program because it’s a struggle when you’re in recovery,” Howard says. “You need a lot of positive feedback and somebody to talk to.” She says she’s good at helping people in Sponsors, because she understands their struggles with staying clean and adjusting to life on the outside. Chip Keiger has been a mentor at Sponsors for eight years. He says equal relationships, like the ones Howard has with program participants, are helpful for ex-prisoners because they help them find self worth and take ownership of their decisions. “Most of their previous lives have been a succession of different sorts of relationships based on inequality,” Keiger says, talking about his mentees. He says they were used to being told what to do their whole lives, by parents, teachers, police and correctional officers. “A lot of the guys I’ve worked with are used to being in relationships with people where they feel like they’re on the bottom rung,” Keiger says. He says he wants equal relationships with his mentees by trying to avoid judgment whenever possible. Keiger lets his mentees have equal say in deciding what they do together. He also drives them to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, job interviews and to meet their parole officers—the many duties of ex-prisoners that can be overwhelming without help. None of his mentees have had cars upon release. If all goes well, he tells them to use him as a reference for job and housing applications, which can be hard to pass for felons. Out of the seven people who Keiger has mentored, he’s still friends with five. One of them is disabled and unable to work, but the other four are employed. Only one was reincarcerated, 60 days for a misdemeanor, after the program.
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Parole The Lane County Parole and Probation office collaborates with Sponsors to fight recidivism. When people come out of prison, Sponsors staff and parole officers assess them to figure out what services they need to succeed. “We’re identifying gaps in motivation, substance abuse and chemical dependency and we’re able to provide those services,” manager of Lane County Probation and Parole Donovan Dumire says. Services offered at Sponsors include classes that help participants stay out of prison by addressing criminal habits, drug and alcohol classes, mental health counselling and parenting classes. There’s a parole office at the Sponsors men’s campus. This makes meeting with parole officers easy for participants who might otherwise struggle to get to meetings. Dumire says his office takes an active role in rehabilitating people by working with Sponsors to give ex-prisoners social services — a new approach to parole and probation. These re-entry services save the criminal justice system money. Oregon had nearly 15,000 adults in jail or prison in 2018. People in jail or prison each cost the system around $108 every day — $40,000 every year — from 2015 to 2017, according to Oregon Department of Corrections data. The criminal justice system saved around $14 for every $1 it invested in re-entry programs including Sponsors in Lane, Multnomah and Klamath Counties in 2010, according to one Oregon Criminal Justice Commission report. People in the programs had a 31% lower rate of new criminal charges, and didn’t wind up in expensive jails and prisons as much as those without support. Dumire says when he started his career as a parole officer in Marion County in 1997, his job was to enforce conditions of parole and to punish people. He says Lane County now focuses on building relationships with clients, because the old system didn’t help people stay out of prison and didn’t save the criminal justice system money. Dumire says a good parole officer should be a counselor and role model, somebody who motivates parolees to change their ways. He says his office is more lenient now, and focuses more on rehabilitation than enforcement. For example, if a Sponsors participants fails a drug test, they don’t automatically get kicked out of the program or put
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in jail. Sponsors and Dumire’s office work together in these instances to intervene and try to get them back on track. “Jail does not do much for rehabilitation,” Dumire says. “We absolutely believe in second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh chances.”
Transitioning without support
“The thirty years wasn’t a waste. It was fucked up. I did fucked-up shit. I spent most of my life away from my family. But, without that, I wouldn’t be able to help these guys”
But he says this level of support is rare in Oregon. When Dumire worked in Marion County, there were halfway houses for ex-prisoners, but no social services. Without supported housing, people would wind up committing crimes with their fellow exprisoners, and Dumire says he would have to constantly police them. Sponsors participant Rahier has personal experience with unsupported housing. He recalls being in a transitional housing program in Multnomah County in the late 1990s. There was no staff on site, and residents used drugs in the building. Located a few blocks from the downtown Portland Greyhound station, Rahier says it was the perfect place to score dope — and the worst place to transition from prison. He says this lack of services is still the norm in Oregon. In one instance, Rahier says somebody he was in prison with was put into a hotel in Marion County by the Department of Corrections after getting out of prison. The man bought heroin from somebody staying in the hotel the second night he was there. “The place where DOC sent him when he got out was also the place where he bought the heroin that he OD’d and died on,” Rahier says. Rahier says hotels are a common but ineffective type of transitional housing used by the Department of Corrections. Lack of support is typical in the United States, Solomon says. He receives around 50 letters a week from people who want to enroll in Sponsors. A third of them don’t even live in Lane County but write to Sponsors because there’s nothing available where they live. Solomon says he regularly travels to consult people about transitional housing across the country. A few hundred miles down the West coast, in Oakland, California, Randall Gutschenritter didn’t have the support he needed when he got out of prison. Gutschenritter was incarcerated for most of his life. He was imprisoned for an armed kidnap and ransom when he was 24 years old in 1985, and was kept there until he got out in November, 2016, at 56 years old. Having spent so much time in prison, transitioning was difficult for him. Like Rahier, he had a high risk of reoffending. Gutschenritter was the type of person that Sponsors would have prioritized if he lived in Lane County. He was put in a transitional housing complex in Oakland, California, as a condition of his release. But Gutschenritter says the halfway house was cramped and didn’t offer much social support. He says it felt like a continuation of his prison sentence. “There were 18 dudes in one room, packed in there like
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fucking sardines,” he said this summer while breaking parole, sitting at a table outside a coffee shop in downtown Oakland, rolling and chain-smoking Bugler cigarettes. “There was no air conditioning, no lights. It was ridiculous.” Gutschenritter says people couldn’t leave the house without asking permission, and a barbed wire fence kept participants from escaping. He says it felt just like prison. There was also very little supervision, Gutschenritter says. His roommates often shot up heroin and smoked crack cocaine and meth in the room. Afraid that he would wind up using drugs or getting into a fight, Gutschenritter broke parole by leaving the house and became homeless. “It’s really hard to get out of a prison mentality after 31 years in there,” Gutschenritter says. “I wish I had counselling, and somebody to talk to when things got hard.” Being homeless was painful for him and he says he struggled to stay sober. Gutschenritter started using methamphetamine again and became suicidal, tired of being beat down by a system that he felt was setting him up to fail and wind up back in prison. “I damn near killed myself twice,” Gutschenritter says. “I’d had enough.” During his time in prison, Gutschenritter had worked hard to prepare himself for release. He got auto mechanic and plumbing licenses. He took computer and business classes. When Gutschenritter spoke with Ethos in August, he said he felt like all his work in prison was a waste of time because it wasn’t helping him succeed in the free world.
Finding worth After Rahier walked into the Lane County Community Center and entered Sponsors’ Re-entry Lane program, he worked to unravel deep seated insecurities. “I’m covered in tattoos from head to bottom. I felt like
everybody always saw me as a dirtbag,” Rahier says. “When you walk into Sponsors for the first time, you’re not going to feel like that.” After finishing Re-entry Lane, he got a job dishwashing evenings at a restaurant and did the Sponsors program, taking group therapy, drug and alcohol and parenting classes. When he finished the program, he didn’t know what to do with his days. Rahier started volunteering at Sponsors, worried he’d go back to criminal habits left on his own. He knew he’d be safe at Sponsors. After a year of volunteering, he was hired as on-call night staff. Rahier realized he could help people despite his criminal past. He started finding worth in himself. Rahier says he “worked his ass off,” and kept getting better positions. Five years after Rahier stepped out of the prison transport vehicle and had his cuffs taken off, he works full time as the director of Sponsors men’s program. He has around 15 employees and 100 ex-prisoners in his care. “This place worked for me,” Rahier says. “We teach you how to love yourself. And most everybody, myself included, who comes through here don’t care about themselves.” He says he never wakes up dreading work at Sponsors. Rahier says around half of the participants are people he knew from the prison or from the street, and he loves giving them a new chance. “The thirty years wasn’t a waste. It was fucked up. I did fucked-up shit. I spent most of my life away from my family,” Rahier says. “But without that, I wouldn’t be able to help these guys. I found out that I like to help people. For the first time in my life I felt like I had something to offer somebody other than a bag of dope.”
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Life of a
Cannabis Farmer Staying afloat in an unstable market
O
Written by Molly Schwartz Photography by Eric Woodall
n a frigid October day in Corvallis, Oregon, Karen Osovsky tiptoes around the hundreds of pots in the greenhouse of her cannabis farm. Dirt collects under her fingernails as she places seedlings in each pot. Osovsky’s two employees, Kiki Love and Lia Marble, spend a few seconds watering each of the hundreds of plants. Osovsky says she wants to have all of them ready to go by the end of the week so she can have cannabis to harvest in January. Normally, Osovsky would have already harvested crop by October, which is considered “croptober” by farmers – the month of harvest for cannabis. Now, she is kicking herself over the decision not to plant cannabis over the summer. Because of news of oversaturation in the industry, Osovsky feared she would be growing crops she would not be able to sell – a concern that extended to other farmers in Oregon. The news of oversaturation came from the Recreational Marijuana Supply and Demand Legislative Report, released by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission
(OLCC) in January of 2019. The study said there is “6.5 years’ worth of theoretical supply” in the recreational market. Since she hasn’t planted and has barely sold all year, Ovosky has not been able to pay herself in three months. She says she has received calls from businesses looking to buy the cannabis she has not grown – money that could have helped her settle her finances. She juggled a bartending job with running her own farm to stay afloat. At her worst point financially, she says she rented out her home and slept in her office to pay her employees’ wages. Other farmers who, like her, have not harvested in October, have been selling product that they don’t yet have. “Literally the fact that people are pre-selling their weed is crazy, without even harvesting it,” Osovsky says. Pre-selling harvest is almost unheard of in her seven years in the industry. To avoid losing money and products in an oversaturated industry, much of the fresh cannabis
Karen Osovsky, the owner of Next Generation Nurseries, laughs while posing for a portrait surrounded by marijuana plants. Osovsky has been growing marijuana for seven years. Photo by Eric Woodall
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Next Generation Nurseries, an OLCC-licensed cannabis clone provider, is surrounded by mountains and trees in Philomath, Oregon. Zachary Krick, the facilities manager of Next Generation Nurseries, built the first greenhouse on the farm in 2015 while waiting for recreational legalization of marijuana. Photo by Eric Woodall
that farmers had during the surplus was frozen and put into concentrate. This then left more wholesalers or dispensaries looking for fresh flower because the demand for fresh flower is always high. (Flower is industry jargon for the plant that consumers smoke.) But the lack of planting, cannabis freezing and bad weather decreased the amount of cannabis in Oregon to a point where there is cannabis shortage.
Cannabis freezing
Lack of planting
Wholesalers used the frozen cannabis to create rosin for dabs. Rosin is cannabis extract that is created without adding chemicals by using heat and pressure. Dabbing is how the concentrate is smoked. This is smoked with a weed vaporizer or a rig. It delivers a more potent and immediate high. Chadowitz says many farms sold their frozen cannabis to wholesalers who used it for processing to make rosin because of high demand.
For farmers like Osovsky the cannabis industry is difficult to profit from. The fluctuation in supply and demand in the state is so frequent that farmers do not know whether their business decisions will ultimately ensure their survival. The undersupply not only affects farmers, it also affects consumers. The undersupply of cannabis means higher prices for consumers. During the oversupply, consumers could buy an ounce of cannabis for as low as $30, Osovsky says. But now that there is an undersupply, consumers are paying more than $60 per ounce. Sometimes, prices go as high as $80 to $100 per ounce.
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After the OLCC report, many farmers froze their cannabis and sold it to wholesalers to stay in business. The benefit of frozen cannabis is that it does not lose its potency like aged cannabis can, the chief financial officer and vice president of cannabis farm Cannassentials Myron Chadowitz says.
“This fresh squeezed, fresh pressed live rosin, that’s a new thing this year,” Chadowitz says. Chadowitz did it because it was a way to make money. The surplus heavily affected his business at first. He was unable to pay himself and his bills. He says he worked on “scraps and pennies” to run Cannassentials. Every week, Chadowitz and his business partner considered cutting their losses, but they were always somehow able to make a sale. Ultimately, they ended up
Lia Marble places a cutting from a mother plant into a peat pellet after dipping it in rooting hormone. After roots emerge from the peat pellet they transplant the cutting into a small pot. Photo by Eric Woodall
freezing the flower they were unable to sell to go into extract. Cannabis extracts are used for dabs and weed pens, devices that heat up extract and produce vapor. Besides being able to make a profit out of the frozen cannabis, Chadowitz says that most farms do not want to sell old cannabis with their name on it. The extracts are partially what may have solved the industry oversaturation, OLCC’s recreational marijuana spokesperson Mark Pettinger says. Much of the produce has been put into extracts, which dramatically decreases supply, he says. Toby Gamberoni, a grower from one of Eugene’s cannabis farms Gaia’s Garden, says dispensaries are always looking for something new which helped farms stay in business during the oversupply of cannabis. There has been demand for extracts recently. In August 2019, almost 700,000 units of concentrate or extract were sold, according to the Metric Cannabis Tracking System, which tracks cannabis inventory in Oregon. This demand came in the form of almost 1 million sold units of extract.
Bad weather Along with extract, Chadowitz says that bad growing conditions over the summer have affected the current supply of cannabis in Oregon. Many farms lost their October crop to frost damage or mold. “Many farms were unable to sell quality cannabis,” Chadowitz says. “People harvested late and it’s dried out. People lost their crops. People lost their jobs, lost tons of loans. Instead of having this massive influx of decent weed, there was this very slow, incremental still going on, influx of some good, some bad.” Around 80% of the cannabis planted in October was lost to to mold or frost damage, Osovsky says. The summer of 2019 was colder and more rainy than usual, which makes cannabis more susceptible to mold. Most farms in Oregon are outdoor which makes protecting plants from mold more difficult.
Market fluctuation Despite what farmers say, there may not be an undersupply anymore. OLCC’s Pettinger says that the slump of supply is now gone and the industry is back at oversaturation. In the most recent record from the OLCC, the amount of cannabis has a wet weight of almost 2.9 million pounds of cannabis. (Wet weight is the weight of cannabis before it is dried out.) This is record weight since Oregon legalized recreational cannabis. Pettinger says the OLCC cannot verify if the 2.9 million pounds include waste or bad quality cannabis. Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 31
Karen Osovsky and Kiki Love inspect a marijuana seedling in a greenhouse at Next Generation Nurseries. Next Generation Nurseries specializes in the production of cannabis clones and flower.
Photo by Eric Woodall
And the wet weight of harvested crops does not represent cannabis that can actually be sold, Osovsky says. This is an example of the uncertainty in the cannabis industry. It is a constantly fluctuating market, Osovsky says. The jumps between undersupply and oversupply are normal. This makes the cannabis industry difficult to profit from. At the end of the day, Gamberoni says, farmers just want to be able to pay their wages and support themselves. They continue farming because they are passionate, says Chadowitz. “It’s much more of a passion than money play. I think that’s why we continued,” Chadowitz says. Most of Osovsky’s success has been based on making the right business decisions in an unstable market. “Sometimes you fail and fall on your face, but it’s just a learning process,” Osovsky says. But she also says her business has gotten better, and all of her time is dedicated to her farm. She says she is hopeful for her next harvest, which will be ready to harvest in January. Osovsky often considers leaving her business. But she says she is not ready to give up. “I have times when I just want to leave. I want to be done. But I’ve invested so much of my life here that I don’t,” she says. “I’m not really ready to do that. And I see the potential for it. We just have to make the right decisions to get to that.” Osovsky, Love and Marble frantically water each plant for the next harvest. They do not stay at one pot for too long. Sweat drips from their faces and dirt clings to their hands, all to ensure they will be done planting by the end of the week. Whether Osovky’s hard work will pay off and the harvest will be profitable is unknown. The cannabis industry may be in an undersupply now but that may change in a few months as more farmers like her plant more to make up for this year’s losses. In an uncertain industry, every move is a risky bet.
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Returning for the First Time Confronting white privilege in an African slave castle
F
Written by Donny Morrison Illustrations by Eleanor Klock
rom the stuffy window seat of our bus, I noticed it peeking through the trees: a large white fortress, atop a giant hill, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I wondered if that was it — Elmina Castle, the slave castle we’d been heading towards for five hours. Originally built as the first trading post on the coast of Guinea, Elmina Castle is the oldest European building south of the Sahara. Construction began in 1482 and continued through 1486. By the seventeenth century, Elmina castle would become a pivotal stop along the route of the transatlantic slave trade, where upwards of 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic over a span of 400 years. Today, Elmina Castle is one of more than 25 stone structures acting as testaments to the slave trade that
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stretched across the Gulf of Guinea to the Americas from the 1500s to the late 1800s. Perhaps no other coastline in West Africa carries more scars of history. Countless Africans from the diaspora have traced their ancestry to one of these castles. The Ghanaian government even created a marketing campaign called “The Year of the Return” in 2019 to acknowledge the 400-year anniversary of when the transatlantic slave trade began, encouraging the diaspora to retrace their roots and return to the continent for the first time. We’d arrived in Ghana a week prior to the visit as part Media in Ghana, a study abroad program through the University of Oregon. The Year of the Return campaign had been a coincidence. As a white man, I wasn’t returning; I was visiting for the first time. I understood the atrocities of
the African slave trade in an abstract way. Western education hadn’t taught me much about Africa. I didn’t feel connected to anything or anyone around me. I couldn’t truly empathize, but I thought I could; that same way we all think we can when sitting royally on an air conditioned bus. Mercedes Wright, the only black woman on our study abroad trip, was having a markedly different experience. We’d woken up at 5 a.m. for the six-hour bus ride. It had been long and exhausting, and Wright slept for part of the way. As we drove closer, Wright’s heart began to sink. She hadn't expected it — but it felt like she was trespassing. “I didn’t know what it was going to feel like,” Wright says. “But I think when we started traveling up the hill, and I could see the castle, it all kind of hit me.”
Wright grew up in Seattle and had always wanted to visit Africa. She viewed this trip as a symbolic voyage — the missing piece to a puzzle she’s never solved. Wright often dreamt of visiting the land her ancestors used to occupy. No matter how uncomfortable she felt, Wright was lucky to be visiting Elmina; and she knew that. Tons of Africans wished they were in her shoes. She could go back to America at any time. It’s strange how before, Africans were forced to leave, yet now they can’t seem to escape. The castle appeared ancient. It looked as if it came first, with the sea having been built around it. I watched the stone foundation being pummeled by waves as we drove up. That day, the streets of Elmina were lined with merchants, beggars, young men and women sitting and playing. I would come to find out that regardless of their proximity to the historic Elmina Castle, many Ghanaians never fully learn about the brutality that happened only a stone's throw away from where they live. It’s a monument — but they’re not sure to what. There isn’t really time to ask, either. To dwell on the past is a privilege in and of itself. For the Ghanaians struggling to survive, being present is a necessity. The castle, looming large to my left, was like the gray clouds of a midday monsoon. The sun reflecting off the white paint blinded my eyes. I bowed my head and squinted at the ground. A boy approached me and asked for my name. I had been advised to avoid giving my name to anyone, as the beggars would take it and make me a personalized gift, which I’d be expected to pay for. I remembered this as he spoke to me, and told him my name anyways. He said his name was Boston, and that he’d eventually make it to the U.S. I thought about how, as African Americans were encouraged to return to Elmina, he couldn’t wait to leave; and deep down I knew he probably never would. I took my personalized seashell and walked away. He began to look familiar. It’s hard to describe the smell of the dungeons, where hundreds of Africans were packed tighter than London cigarettes, forced to piss, shit and bleed on the stone floor, the metal chains dragging their bodies toward the cold ground. Many died of disease and remained chained to the living.
“The past Is but the cinders Of the present; The future The smoke That escaped Into the cloud-bound sky.” - Kwesi Brew, Ghanaian poet
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We were led to a steep wooden staircase where contemporary tourists sometimes slip and fall, and where enslaved women were forced upstairs into the enslaver’s quarters, raped and brought back down to the dungeons. Today, you can still touch the metal bars that kept the enslaved people imprisoned, rusted with age and filth. It’s hot year-round in Ghana, but the metal bars stay cold to the touch, as if they’d soaked up the sorrow of those imprisoned “It feels really invasive in a lot of ways,” Wright says. “This is such a sacred place and I'm just here, you know, stepping all over it, these relics, these ancient histories of my ancestors.” We ended at “the door of no return” where the enslaved boarded ships, with even worse conditions than the prison behind them. As I peered through the thin walkway toward the sea, I could see a number of small children playing in the ocean. I was overwhelmed by my selfishness and inability to comprehend the mass amounts of pain surrounding me. A barrage of trivial thoughts concerning my girlfriend back home, my classes and my cat occupied my mind. For me, the privilege existed in my inability to remain present. I wasn’t able to view Elmina through the eyes of slaves. I could only think in big-picture terms, because to imagine a sea of faces perishing at the hands of colonizers is easier than imagining just one. Because if there’s only one, there’s a chance I might recognize it and need to confront it.
Atlantic Ocean
Global Slave Routes 36 | ETHOS | Winter 2020
1650-1860
I can tell you about all of this, the words tasting flat and diluted on my tongue. I can tell you how uncomfortable I am writing this now. How the idea of me using this experience as a tool for personal growth feels both empowering and utterly defeating at the same time. I can tell you about the moment I recognized the faces. We were sitting in a small conference room at our beachside hotel later that evening to unpack our trip to Elmina Castle. Walking there from my airconditioned room, I still hadn’t grasped the gravity of where I’d found myself. I hadn’t attempted to see my surroundings through the eyes of others. The discussion began slowly. It seemed as if nobody felt comfortable diving in, so we first dipped our toes,
“I've always been that girl. That black girl in classes who has to change the way she feels to make white people more comfortable."
before wading, waist deep. I was struck by the casual nature of the conversation and despised the awkward silence that followed each voice. I wished it would end. When it seemed as if it finally would, I heard the beginnings of a shaky voice to my left. Wright was preparing to speak. She sighed and said she couldn’t find the words to say how she felt. She couldn’t find them. As if they were there, only hidden or lost. I had spoken only moments before. I had strung together a sentence of words I hadn’t searched for. It was the bare minimum. Wright spoke again.
into a sacred space. One that I neither deserved nor added to. Through tearful eyes, I lifted my head and glanced around the room. It scared me to look at the other students. It scared me to know they were looking at me. Suddenly, my fear turned to an overwhelming sense of love for those in the room. Fear and love live side by side; you can’t have one without the other. I still can’t decide which is more painful.
When I heard those words, I became speechless for the first time that day. I felt the air leave the room.
“I've always been that girl. That black girl in classes who has to change the way she feels to make white people more comfortable,” Wright says. ”I wasn't going to say anything, but then I thought back to what I felt inside Elmina, and I thought of my ancestors and how they didn't have a voice and they didn't have a say. How now all these centuries later I was able to visit the place where they were silenced and now I have a voice and it's important for me to use it. So it wasn't so much for me — it was for them.”
I could suddenly imagine the faces and personalities of those who perished. I could feel the pain, to the best of my ability, of those around me. I cried for them, and for the helpless nature of my predicament. I felt like I’d been allowed
I felt bonded to my classmates in ways I didn’t know were possible on a six week trip. The Elmina Castle had become a tool of empowerment for myself and the other white students. I felt lucky to have witnessed something so powerful — but
“That could have been my aunt, or my mother. If I was born at a different time, that could have been me.”
I wondered at what cost. I wasn’t able to hide behind my vocabulary the same way I had been this whole trip. But Wright felt much different after she talked. There was no closure for her. She wasn’t relieved she had spoken — and she felt more isolated than ever. “I didn't feel brave like people were calling me. I didn't get a sense of freedom. I still felt really alone,” Wright says. “I didn't really have anyone that understood what I was going through. I felt further from the group than ever.” We finished our talk and began to leave the room. Dinner was being prepared buffet-style at our hotel that night. I walked over to the sand and sat down. Removed from the lights of our rooms, I could finally see how dark it was near the water. I remembered the tour guide at Elmina telling us about the enslaved people who chose to jump from the ships as they left the castle in order to avoid whatever lay ahead after the ship docked on the other side of the Atlantic. I imagined the drowned bodies washing up on the shore, where I sat. For a moment I thought I could recognize the faces, but in the end, I couldn’t see a thing. Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 37
One Man’s Trash Thrift shopping slides into mainstream
F
Written by Julia Page Illustrations by Eleanor Klock
or Oregon State University student and longtime thrifter Natalie Shaw, the mission was simple: find a pair of denim jeans wide enough to wear with the cowboy boots she had borrowed from her mother. The only thing that stood between her and her future pair of jeans was her college student budget and the automatic sliding doors of her local Goodwill in Corvallis. Sifting through the tightly packed racks of denim pants, Shaw patiently looked over each pair of jeans with care. With each gentle push to the left, Shaw’s eyes wandered from old, worn Levi’s to low-rise, acid-washed jeans accented by heavily bedazzled back pockets as she searched for her perfect pair. Growing up in Tigard, Oregon, Shaw and her family had always donated clothes to their local Goodwill. “All the stuff that I got rid of was all the stuff I didn’t want,” she says. “I never really thought about what else there was and that what other people were getting rid of might be something that I really like.” It wasn’t until high school, when she started getting her own allowance, that Shaw got the idea to start thrifting. Her first shopping trip was to Goodwill, where she found winter sweaters and realized that fashionable and trendy clothes could be found at secondhand shops for an affordable price. Since then, Shaw has been thrifting for all of her clothing necessities.
Slow fashion The rise of resale has become much more prevalent as consumers are beginning to grasp the industry’s potential. Thrifters like Shaw see secondhand stores like Goodwill as the perfect place to find inexpensive alternatives for everyday needs. Secondhand clothes, or “slow fashion,” are either donated or sold to thrift or consignment stores to be resold to the public for further use. These older and sometimes slightly worn items are often made with higher quality material that’s made to last. For Shaw, this Goodwill is her best shot for finding the items needed for her college lifestyle, such as clothing and footwear, as well as household essentials like plates and containers. Within these long aisles of shoes and silverware, among metal racks 38 | ETHOS | Winter 2020
packed with denims and dresses, lies insurmountable treasure. The color-coded price tags ranged from $5.99 to $19.99 as Shaw was hunting for her jeans. “Twenty dollars for a pair of jeans doesn’t sound like that much [to me] because, when I think about it, in the past I’ve spent $100 on jeans,” Shaw says. “But every time I take a friend here they’re like, ‘This is used; why am I spending $20 on it?’” The original tags that still remained on each pair of pants helped show how much she would save. Extra weekly discounts were identified by the color-coded stickers found on each individual tag. Combined with the already low prices, this meant that Shaw was sure to find a bargain. Living in an ever-changing fashion world, the option to buy second-hand goods has become more popular, according to a 2019 Resale Report by ThredUP, the world's largest online thrift store. “Resale has grown 21 times faster than the retail apparel market over the past three years,” the report read. In other words, the once booming industry of fast fashion is not as popular with consumers as it used to be.
Fast fashion Fast fashion is a term used by fashion retailers to describe clothing that is made quickly, worn quickly and thrown away even quicker. This type of clothing is strongly dependent on what the latest fashion trend is each week. For big retail companies such as Forever 21, this type of cookie-cutter fashion is their only focus – getting rid of what is considered old and bringing in the new. This is part of what led retail giant Forever 21 to file for bankruptcy in September of 2019. Reliance on the popularity of fast fashion, as well as a decline of in-person shopping, resulted in the closing of over 300 stores throughout the world, Wendy Liebmann, an expert in retail marketing and CEO of Westfield Service League, a global retail strategy consultant, says. “Younger shoppers have increasingly turned to consigned goods and brands that claim sustainability as a value," Liebmann writes in a New York Times article. "[Forever 21] placed their bets
on this notion that fast fashion was going to continue the same way it had for the last decade or so.” Just like other forms of discounted consumerism, there has long been a class stigma towards thrifting. The idea of wearing and using another person’s clothes or belongings has been associated with being poor or lower class. However, this stigma appeared to decrease in 2008 during the Great Recession leading to more of an acceptance and desire to buy from resale stores. According to Planet Aid, a nonprofit organization that supports sustainable development, “During this time period, many people were forced to adopt measures of frugality, which may have helped frame thrift shopping as sensible measures of frugality.”
With her prize in her grasp, Shaw headed for the check-out; her hunt for the day was complete, but there Growth in popularity is no end in sight for her Resale businesses are experiencing an increase in popularity, the Executive Assistant and spokesperson at Goodwill thrifting days. Industries of Lane and South Coast Counties, Libby SteffenSchafermeyer, says. She also says that Goodwill has seen an increase in shoppers over the past few years. “I think that one of the reasons for that is that the stigma once associated with thrift shopping has faded,” SteffenSchafermeyer says. At Goodwill, over 90% of the items sold at every store are donated by the local communities, Steffen-Schafermeyer says. Each of these items help to reduce the carbon footprint and saves hundreds of gallons of water that used to create textiles. A single cotton t-shirt, for example, takes over 700 gallons of water to create. These donated items help to save the environment and pass on a lot of very unique finds for those looking for them, she says. “Thrift shopping for the treasure hunting is kind of a cool thing to do now, especially with the drive toward sustainability and lack of single use items,” Steffen-Schafermeyer says. “We stock our stores with thousands of ‘fresh’ items every day and it keeps the treasure hunters coming back for more.” Steffen-Schafermeyer was already an advocate for resale shopping before joining Goodwill seven years ago. She says she started thrifting at the age of 12. For her, second-hand shopping began as a way to find fun items. “It was one of those things where I hoped to find a diamond in the rough,” Steffen-Schafermeyer says. However, these treasure hunts later turned into an environmentally conscious decision. After learning more about how much the fashion industry contributed to the pollution of this world, Steffen-Schafermeyer says her love of thrifting turned into a fight towards sustainability in both her own personal shopping as well as her within her job at Goodwill. “You want to make sure that what you’re getting is quality and you’re not throwing something in the landfill,” SteffenSchafermeyer says. “The sustainability move[ment] is a really big part of [the increase in thrifting].”
Fashion and the environment Today, people are becoming more aware of the environmental impact of the fashion industry, and companies are beginning to take steps to meet the consumer demand, according to NARTS, the world’s largest trade association representing the resale industry. The rise in popularity, according to NARTS, is in part due Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 39
to “consumers recogniz[ing] the inherent sustainability factor of shopping resale.” This statement also rings true statistically. According to ThredUP’s 2019 Resale Report, 72% of consumers prefer to buy from environmentally friendly brands. One step was the creation of textiles that used eco-friendly materials. Eco-friendly brands, such as the UK-based brand Thought, create clothing that is made with natural, organic and recycled fabrics like bamboo or hemp. This way, brands reduce the amount of water wasted to produce the textiles or use natural dyes instead of synthetic. However, these textiles are often more expensive than most clothing. In turn, thrifting is a much cheaper alternative. According to the Green Story Environmental Study, if a consumer buys one used item, it would reduce its carbon footprint by 82%. Just as it was for Steffen-Schafermeyer, sustainability isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind when people start thrifting. Chesley Lindsey, a senior at the University of Oregon, started resale shopping because of her college budget. “It was honestly mostly an economic decision for myself. I care about fashion and I like to stay up to date on trends,” Lindsey says. “So if I could do that on a budget, that’s kind of how I went about it. It was kind of a fun game of like ‘okay, I know that [this person] spent that much on a pair of shoes, but I just found them for so much less.’” Lindsey became very aware of the effect of the fashion industry on the environment from her environmental policy classes. In one of her first projects she looked into the fashion industry, including the popular retail store Forever 21, and discovered how unsustainable mass producing retail shops are. In 2015 alone, the United States Environmental Protection Agency reported that landfills received around 10.5 million tons of discarded textiles. “That’s when I realized how bad [fast fashion] is for the environment and how much it stacks up,” Lindsey says. “That’s when [thrifting] turned more into a sustainability conscious kind of decision.”
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Early-on-thrifting Some shoppers may make their way to thrifting later on in life while others can stumble upon it early on in their childhood. That was the case for Katie Quines, a junior at the University of Oregon. For her, thrifting was always present in her life. “When I was little, [my family] thrifted a lot because my mom liked to get home decor from Goodwill. It was always a good deal for winter coats and things,” Quines says. “But nowadays I just go on my own. It’s where I get a lot of my stuff because it’s well priced and I’m on a college budget.” Most of the items throughout these stores could be categorized as ‘vintage’ – their original purchase dates dating back at least 20 years or more. These vintage items are a unique find and fun to hunt for, and it’s finds like these that keep pulling secondhand consumers back for more. “It’s just kind of like flying by the seat of your pants, which I think is fun,” Shaw says. Some of Shaw’s unique finds include a bamboo steamer, a wine decanter and a Le Creuset tea kettle. For Quines’ thrifting adventures, her favorite things to find are used books and quirky mugs to add to her collection. After 15 minutes of searching, Shaw found a pair of jeans that might fit the bill. She left the bright, hanging lights that loomed over the aisles for a changing room. The faint background music echoed through the store as she tried on her secondhand discovery. The result: a $15 pair of durable boot-cut jeans. With her prize in her grasp, Shaw headed for the check-out; her hunt for the day was complete, but there is no end in sight for her thrifting days. “I’ve just had such good luck, and it’s so fun,” Shaw says. In the end, she was able to achieve multiple goals; she found a pair of boot-sized jeans, kept her budget and reduced her carbon footprint. All in all, another successful secondhand hunt
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one of their songs live underneath the From left to right, Laundry members Cal Fenner and Riley Somers play the band’s first performances held in from stems Laundry name The Interstate Highway 105 bridge in Eugene. a college dorm laundry room.
Photo by Josh Murray
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Kiki Parrosien, the lead guitarist with Laundry, wears her signature on-stage accessory: an alien patch attached to her guitar strap. Playing music is Parrosien’s favorite pastime. Photo by Meg Matsuzaki
Written by Lisa Deluc Photography by Josh Murray and Meg Matsuzaki
O
n a Thursday night in the middle of October, a crowd of people are gathered in a skatepark under the arch of a busy highway in Eugene, Oregon. The graffiti of local artists sprawls across the skatepark. Out from below the shelter, the rain drenches all who dare brave the habitual autumn showers. But as the city streets flood, more people flock toward the park’s makeshift stage. Minutes before the show starts, the crowd continues to grow by the dozen. Out here, something special is happening. Local music has found its way into the heart of Eugene’s college culture, and the music scene has become a fundamental part of the college experience. In Eugene, students can enjoy a Saturday night watching their classmates perform and grow as musicians. One student band has grown particularly popular within the last few years: Laundry. The band’s charm comes from their talent, their affable stage presence and their passion for art.
Students and musicians Each member comes from a different musical background, which gives the band a complex musical dynamic. Guitarist Kiki Parrosien credits Prince as a huge inspiration for her music, while guitarist Riley Somers credits Jimi Hendrix and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Drummer Nik Barber speaks of jazz musicians like the Yellowjackets and bassist Cal Fenner credits singing groups like early Beatles and the Beach Boys. Laundry started in the musician dorms of the University of Oregon. They would spend the night playing in the dorm’s laundry room. Originally they called themselves Laundry Room Lounge, but soon shortened it to Laundry. Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 43
Ever since they started, they had different academic focuses. But they always managed to perform at least once nearly every week. The balance between studies and music is delicate. They need to strategize when is the best time to study and to perform, but ultimately the band is their priority.
Barber says that the feeling of performing to this growing audience is similar to that of being on a rollercoaster.
Still, the band says that attending college did more than just burden them with homework and exams. The local music scene and the university presented new opportunities for performing and making music. This connection between academic and musical life started early for Laundry. The four met at school. “I think meeting the bandmates alone was enough of a reason for me to get here,” guitarist Somers says. Before Laundry, some of the members had been in high school bands or had musical aspirations since middle school. But Eugene brought about new connections and means that helped them achieve the platform they have today. One of the connections was Spiller, a band that formed in the dorms a few years before Laundry. Laundry band members say Spiller helped them find shows and places to perform when they started – and continue to perform and work with today. Dorm room bands and the pre-existing music scene supports and acts as a platform for Laundry's art, bassist Fenner says. Barber, Laundry's drummer, also says UO's music students and faculty have been key collaborators to Laundry's music.
Eugene’s music scene But the support went beyond campus, Fenner says. The music scene in Eugene has been a supportive environment for their art. Community members consistently come to the shows and help the band through donations and
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by purchasing merchandise and CDs. Fenner says this community has helped Laundry grow and develop through their performances. "There was already a scene here before we started doing this. It’s a good place to grow and play a lot of shows and get better as a band," he says. Like a lot of other local bands, Fenner says that collaborations between artists is how they first started playing. Other artists would let them play at their shows and it’s how they continue to play. They support and encourage other bands to return the favor and continue the cycle of bands helping bands, Parrosien, Laundry’s singer, says. The frequency of their performances has allowed them to evolve as individual musicians and as a unit, Fenner says. With the regularity of their performances, they have even developed ways to prepare themselves for shows with social and mental exercises. Fenner says he likes to shake hands and meet the people in the crowd. “I like shaking hands more because I sorta feel like a douchebag,” Fenner says. But Barber says that back in the dorms, he had showed the members a buddhist chant that is supposed to improve sonic creativity. “I don’t know if it really works but at the very least it’s a nice placebo effect,” Somers says. Barber says that they sometimes sit in the van and sing their songs together and harmonize, similar to an acapella exercise. Ultimately, Fenner says the band prepares to perform cohesively, not just with each other, but with the crowd as well. “Our audience is us,” he says.
This audience has been growing and changing overtime, Fenner says, probably due to Laundry's growing popularity in the Eugene and UO music scene. Laundry has seen their audience grow over the past few years as their performances become increasingly popular. Fenner says the band has noticed this with great surprise. But as exciting for the band as it is, Somers says, “I like to think as much as we do enjoy seeing the audience grow, if one day less people started listening to our music that we would still keep making it.” Streaming technology has also widened the public distribution of their work and allows their audience to listen to their music – and learn it before concerts. Even though it allows more people to listen to their music, Laundry gets little money from it. “Artists aren’t getting paid that much for it, but artists have never been getting paid that much for anything,” Somers says. This includes Laundry. Somers says that’s not what they perform for anyways. Instead, Somers says they perform because they want to make art for themselves and for their crowd. He praises the support of the crowd saying, “We’re getting rained out right now but that’s all secondary to the good attitude that everyone has.” “It’s a real privilege to have an audience. A lot of people make art and never find an audience and I am always grateful to have that,” Fenner says.
Performing Barber says that the feeling of performing to this growing audience is similar to that of being on a rollercoaster. Fenner says it's drug-like; as his tolerance and skills increase, his desire to do better and bigger shows grows.
Cal Fenner, the bassist of Laundry, hangs off the back of a parked van while posing for a portrait. Fenner is a Journalism student at the University of Oregon.
Photo by Meg Matsuzaki
Winter 2020 | ETHOS | 45
“I have a high tolerance, I need my fix,” Fenner says. Their relationship with performing has also been changing with their music and audience. In high school, Parrosien says she felt anxious playing the guitar. She would feel nervous on stage with the pressure of being a woman guitarist – a role often attributed to men. “My goal was to become the main shredder, to become really good at guitar because people don’t often expect that of women,” Parrosien says. “I felt a lot of pressure because I had just had these expectations for myself and wasn’t meeting them necessarily.” So she was reluctant to become a vocalist because she feared she wouldn't be "breaking the mold" as she had previously wanted to do. “But I’m over that, I think that’s silly, I should be able to do whatever I want,” Parrosien says. Since singing and playing in Laundry, she says her confidence on stage has completely transformed how she feels about performing. But what hasn't changed is the band's creative process and the way they perceive their art, Parrosien says. Their creative process starts from the very beginning. Fenner says their self-doubts are part of the creative process and how they develop their art. Somers also says that they perform a lot of their music before recording it. “My favorite part is that window of having finished something and starting something new because I always learn from the last thing I recorded,” Somers says. Despite the unchanged creative process, Fenner says Laundry’s sound has evolved a lot since the band first formed. He describes their original sound to be more funk punk style but that they now have taken a more dream pop route. Still, Somers says their music isn’t so easily defined. “If you know what our music is, tell us,” he says.
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Laundry after college In terms of pursuing music as a career beyond college, Parrosien says, “I think all of us would love to see this be a viable economic source of income but we still should feel lucky for what we got.” She also says they are also grateful to be able to continue making music at this point in their lives. The band’s music is both personal and collaborative. It is born from the members’ passions and is molded by their collective growth. Local performances are not the only opportunities to discover the band’s music. Laundry recently headed north and went on tour in the summer of 2019. They drove up in a van and performed in Seattle and Olympia in Washington and in Vancouver and Colona in Canada. Even though they loved touring in new places, Somers says not all aspects of tour life are so joyful and glamorous. “We say we go to all these places but at every place we go it’s Shell, Safeway and we torture ourselves with McDonalds,” Somers, the guitarist, says. They plan on touring again over winter break, heading south this time through California, stopping in Berkley, Los Angeles, San Diego and ending in Las Vegas. Although they are enthusiastic about their upcoming tour, Somers says, “There’s nothing like a nice Eugene house show at the end of it, to remind us of home.” From their origins to their shows, Laundry remains a talented band with passionate artists who want to keep playing and creating. Somers says their favorite place to play is “wherever the people are.'' Be that a skatepark on a Thursday night during a torrential downpour, or a house where the floor nearly breaks from the crowd’s dancing, Laundry will play for the people.
ndees t atte r e c n Co along dance y’s music. r d ple Laun 0 peo 3 r e Ov e h t t. ded atten t that nigh r sh conce by Jo Photo y a r r u M
Laundry members Kiki Parrosien, Cal Fenner, Riley Somers and Nik Barber sit and hang on the City of Eugene welcome sign for a portrait. Somer says Laundry isn’t paid much for their performances but money isn’t their motivation for playing. He says they play to make art for themselves and for their crowd. Photo by Josh Murray
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