Unisex sweatshirt
This bald eagle hoodie keeps John warm, a bald eagle with a white head, a yellow hooked beak and a black leather jacket, from my Animal Kinhood series. A warm garment made for the cold and for a hands-on trade.
Foto: Joshua J. Cotten / UnsplashHaliaeetus leucocephalus
I don't shout, I tune. I give half the city a voice and keep my own on the workbench, in a guitar I've spent years not finishing. Someday I'll play it for Carol.
Coasts, estuaries, large lakes, rivers and reservoirs across North America, from Alaska and Canada down to northern Mexico, always near open water rich in fish and with tall trees to nest in
John's workshop is in Lincoln Park, with windows facing Duluth harbor. For a good part of the year, the cold off Lake Superior slips under the door and doesn't fully leave until well into spring. Inside he works for hours, quiet, while outside the water is frozen or close to it. In a place like that, a hoodie is welcome: it's the garment you keep on all day long, the one that holds off the harbor's damp chill while you work.
What makes John good is his eye. He takes a board, holds it up to the light and sees where the grain runs, where the knot is that would split it and where, inside the wood, there's a guitar waiting. It's a hunter's eye set to hunt in maple and ash. That trade calls for hours held still in a cold workshop, looking and measuring before cutting. That's why a hoodie fits him like a glove: it keeps you warm without getting in the way, you forget you're wearing it, and it lets your attention go to the wood and not to the chill.
