Throughout the holiday season, we’ll gather with family and friends in kitchens, around dining room tables, and in neighborhood dive bars. We’ll reconnect with warm feelings of community and thus the natural desire to share the stories of our lives and the fruits of our labor. In these hallowed spaces, we’ll reminisce, laugh and, emboldened by holiday cheer, talk big of our year past as well as our plans to come.
As we wake and sober up, we’ll ponder our words from the night before. We’ll question if our year’s harvest is actually as we had proclaimed over the din of the night’s festivities. And then, because it’s easy, we’ll go back to bed, content to dream of what may be.
For this issue of Dark Rye, we gathered peopled who woke up and stayed up. And now, owing to creativity and dedication, their harvest isn’t all talk.
Our gathering was a dinner in Flatbush, Brooklyn. The food, the drink, the music and the stories conspired to create revelry and ignite creative camaraderie. We learned something: You simply can’t spend time with folks like this and not want to start making things: a painting, a business, a fire, a pickle, whatever. These are the types of people who make and share work that help create a beautiful world. Each had a unique approach and style, and being with them, you were prompted to find your version and do the same.
If you get a moment amidst the holiday shuffle, cozy up with these stories and let them be a reminder; if you go back to bed, all you get is sleep…which, if we’re honest, can be pretty amazing.
May inspiring holidays lead to bountiful harvests.
Happy Gatherings!!
–Dark Rye