This episode of the podcast features a conversation with Alyssa Sacora of the Patchwork Underground, who lives near Asheville, North Carolina.

This episode of the podcast features a conversation with Alyssa Sacora of The Patchwork Underground, who lives near Asheville, North Carolina. Alyssa came out to northern Idaho to take Jim Croft's 'Old Ways of Making Books' class held every other year on the homestead of Jim Croft and Melody Eckroft, where I taught the leather, parchment and brain-tan buckskin portion of the class.
Alyssa makes books and paper, weaves baskets, works with natural dyes and homesteads on her small property.
We met back in 2012 when we both attended the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine's in-person summer immersion program which at the time was held out of Leicester, NC. It was sweet to catch up with Alyssa, an old friend. We decided to do something different for this episode, where we chat informally and candidly about life, my project, our motivations for things and generally processing our shared experiences being at the class together in Santa, Idaho. This episode gets extra vulnerable for me, and you hear a lot more about my process and experience doing my work on the road. We have some guest mosquitoes buzz by the mic!

In this conversation with Alyssa, we talk about:

some of my own personal stories around trauma, travel

what is love?

Alyssa reflecting on her experience at the 'Old Ways of Making Books' class

exploring what it means to make things for your life

linear vs. non-linear ways of teaching and learning

the nature of acceptance and letting go, leaning into vulnerability and discomfort

how we can plant seeds of inspiration for one another

trusting in the mystery of the process

Links:

Alyssa Sacora's website: https://www.thepatchworkunderground.com/

Alyssa Sacora on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepatchworkunderground/

Jim Croft's 'Old Ways of Making Books' class in Santa, Idaho where I taught hide tanning and visited during the month of July 2019. This is where I mention I edited and recorded the intro/outro for this and the next few episodes of the podcast: https://cargocollective.com/oldway