During a dark time, Sacramento turns to analog hobbies like knitting, film photography

When I think back to last spring, I remember feeling – outside of the omnipresent terror – heartened by all the creativity. I cringe to use the now-stale word, “pivot,” but that’s what we did. Individuals, institutions and brands all found some way to keep things interesting and stay afloat. Families built forts and threw Zoom birthday parties. Museum docents hosted adorable virtual tours on YouTube. Clothing brands threw virtual dance parties. Where absence formed, novelty crept in.

Then summer and fall happened, so packed with societal reckonings that I won’t try to sum them up here. And now here we are, in a literal and figurative winter, and the cultural constraints ain’t so cute or novel. Limited worldly experiences and unlimited digital indulgences have created a void for meaningful connection.

Amid this dark period, though, some light has emerged. And it’s not, for once, the blue light of our phones. People are finding meaning by going back to basics with analog hobbies. Timeless, hands-on activities like film photography, knitting and reading have reconnected us to ourselves.

As a lifestyle influencer, I’m accustomed to the impulsive drive toward self expression. But outward-facing, digitally-rendered mediums don’t always beget fulfillment. Slowing it down during a recent trip to Big Sur – taking film photos I actually had to get developed – was the closest I’ve come in a while to gratifying artistic expression. I’ve also developed a vintage shopping hobby, making a full-on project of curating my home with objects from yesteryear.

Shopping could be easily categorized as part of the capitalistic sinkhole, but I find the conscious, sustainable aspects behind decorating with vintage objects make the process decidedly more meaningful. Jamie Eisler, co-owner of Modern Nostalgic vintage shop in midtown, notes many of her customers gravitate to her retail space at The Ice Blocks for this reason.

“A lot of people come in and are like, ‘Oh, this reminds me of when I would go visit my grandma,’ or ‘This is exactly like the lamp that my uncle had in his house in the 70s.’ ….People like hearing the stories (behind each object),” she said. Eisler added that spending so much time at home has driven people to focus on their home decor and “love every aspect of their house.” Shops like Modern Nostalgic inspire us to treat the home not as a confinement, but as a blank canvas.

Plus, touring the decades – marveling at the funky-shaped shelving units or a chunky sofa from the ’60s – takes on a transportative quality. Whether walking physically through the impeccably-styled showroom or perusing its shoppable Instagram feed, it offers a palpable sense of escape, a bit of simulated time travel. Although planning for actual travel has been put on hold, a close second for the decor-minded is funneling all that forward-thinking energy into interior design.

A case for the classics

Likewise, owners of Amatoria Fine Art Books, Miranda Culp and Laurelin Gilmore, have noticed their customers delight in the element of discovery when shopping the historic bookstore’s thoughtfully curated inventory.

“The experience of shopping for stuff to feed your soul is a pretty dead one, online,” Culp says. “It’s an algorithm that’s going, ‘you might like...’ There’s just no replacing the experience of wandering the shelves and pulling out something random and being amazed.”

Gilmore jokes that they should make a gallery of their patrons’ expressions of amazement when they discover a rare or beautiful book among the shelves of their shop, a hidden gem within midtown’s residential Boulevard Park neighborhood.

With wonder and surprise in short supply, it follows that Sacramentans are seeking it out in the small doses available to us. Why not, for instance, see about developing those old reels of film lying around the house? Photographer and Mike’s Camera associate, Kayla Keys, says that people are finding old film to process as a result of organizing their homes in their spare time.

Film photography, like vinyl, has undergone a resurgence in recent years, interests that were on the rise even before the pandemic.

“I think younger generations are finding their parents’ film cameras,” Keys says, “or finding them at thrift stores, and taking an interest in that film aesthetic.”

Living in such a historically potent time, perhaps many of us are feeling the creative impulse to document it.

Hobbies soothe the soul

Hobbying, making and crafting aren’t just a means for creative expression, but a real benefit to our mental health. Productivity and optimization – concepts we, of course, still wrestle with during the pandemic – fall by the wayside while in the flow of crafting.

Katherine May’s bestselling 2020 memoir, “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times,” offers timely insights around the power of restful activities during a crisis. She cites a 2007 study by Harvard Medical School in which knitting was proven to lower blood pressure; a 2018 study by Knit for Peace (a nonprofit delivering knitted items around the world) found crafting reduces loneliness and isolation.

“(The study) went on to argue that craft should be available on prescription,” May wrote.

Tallie Ben-Daniel, a nonprofit director and podcast host living in Tahoe Park, is no stranger to the idea of knitting needles as medicine. She considers herself an “extroverted homebody” with many crafty hobbies. She knits to alleviate anxiety and help offset her many hours of Zoom calls.

The baby clothes she makes also serve as a bond to the friends she’s not able to visit.

“Especially since my partner is a healthcare worker, I feel a strong responsibility to limit my exposure to others,” she said. “So crafting has really helped me feel (connected) and like I’m doing something fun and creative.”

Some Sacramentans have gone so far as to turn their home hobbies into careers. Childcare provider-turned-jam-maker Erin Burrise describes jam-making as an intimate act in which she’s able to pour her love.

“Jam-making has tuned me into a side of myself that I never knew before,” she says. “But I like her, very much.”

Burrise’s business, Berry & Thyme, is “completely a result of lockdown.” A self-described “Tinder for jams,” she enjoys matching fruit with corresponding florals, herbs and spices. Flavors like peach-and-cardamom and pineapple-and-habanero promise to spice up lockdown lunches.

Conscious consumption

Burrise says that, although last year was hard on many financially, her business is benefiting from the public’s move toward conscious consumption.

“(Last year) felt like, for those folks who were still financially stable, that they made a realization that they could single-handedly make an impact on an individual’s life by purchasing goods or services from their small business,” she said.

Eisler, too, said many of her customers are making a conscious effort to support local by visiting her shop.

“Now that (the pandemic) is going on a lot longer, people are interested in slowing down and not being so stimulated,” Eisler said. “I even have people that come in and say they’re just going on a long walk around midtown and they want to come in and support local shops.”

Still, some of us long for hobbies not of the handmade, homebound variety, but the passive kind that washes over you out in the world. The pandemic sometimes feels like one, long exercise in finding facsimiles to normal-times leisure experiences.

The basic, life-giving joy of hobbies like gallery-viewing may be unavailable to us, but seeing versions of these experiences represented by our community continues to be a heartening, life-giving force. It’s a reminder that creating and expressing ourselves is in our weary, wintery bones. Even if they feel like they’ve frozen over, there’s never been a better time to start using those creative muscles again.

This story was originally published March 1, 2021 at 10:43 AM.