Dispatches from a previous crisis: During the 2008 financial crisis the 150-year-old Nichols & Stone furniture factory permanently closed its doors in Gardner, Mass. In 2009 Community Artist and former “summer floater” at Nichols & Stone interviewed a dozen Nichols & Stone workers about their experience working in furniture and dealing with loss of not just their job but their identity as furniture workers. Working with other community members she is in the process of creating the Chair City Oral History Book Series from these interviews. In the midst of the current corona virus crisis these reflections from 2009 these powerful stories offer a perspective that feels so relevant today. I have pulled quotes from the Chair City Oral History Book Series as Dispatches from a previous crisis and reflected upon them in the context of our current crisis.
Pull Up A Chair Presents: In 2016 I worked with Paul Gingras, Turning Tide Productions, TDO Video Productions, and Future Focus Media Co-op to record the story of the Ralph Curcio Company, it’s last President Leonard Curcio, and third generation seat weaver Karen Curcio. Paul and Turning Tide continue to work on creating a feature length documentary from this footage. Over the past couple years I’ve been editing the footage into short 15 minute videos for Fitchburg Access Television. You can view three of those episodes on line at FATV. I hope to continue to create content for Pull Up A Chair Presents: Stories of Work and Life in North Central Massachusetts, with stories beyond the scope of the Ralph Curcio Company documentary.
Land/Territory Acknowledgement
The image at the top of the page is a map from the website/app Native Land. This application will show you information about the traditional territory, languages, and treaties of indigenous people for any location in the world. The developers of this app encourage all of us to acknowledge the people whose traditional territory we currently occupy. They also offer this disclaimer “This map does not represent or intend to represent official or legal boundaries of any Indigenous nations. To learn about definitive boundaries, contact the nations in question. Also, this map is not perfect — it is a work in progress with tons of contributions from the community. Please send us fixes if you find errors. The above image shows that Gardner occupies the land of the Pennacook and the Wabanaki Confederacy. Pull Up A Chair comes to you from occupied Pennacook, Wabanaki Confederacy, and Nipmuck (Fitchburg) land.
