A Life We Imagined
Summary
TLDRThis video script documents the journey of women who have come together to form a community on a farm, striving for self-sufficiency and empowerment. It details their experiences in building a supportive environment for women writers and artists, emphasizing the importance of collective effort, personal growth, and the creation of a nurturing space. The narrative captures the essence of the women's movement, illustrating the transformation of social structures through the establishment of a feminist utopia that values community, creativity, and the celebration of life.
Takeaways
- 🌟 The women's movement is a centuries-old push for historical change in women's societal position, affecting education, health, politics, and the economy.
- 🏡 The narrative revolves around a farm that becomes a community, highlighting the journey from a simple farm to a thriving women's colony.
- 🤝 The community is built on the idea of women working together, supporting each other, and creating a space for women to live as they imagine.
- 👩🎨 The farm is envisioned as a colony for women writers and artists, providing a space for creativity and self-sufficiency.
- 🏗️ The work on the farm is diverse, including carpentry, farming, and community building, with a focus on learning and overcoming challenges.
- 💰 The farm's sustainability is discussed, with members contributing through food contributions and the sale of art to cover costs and improvements.
- 🌱 There's an emphasis on the transformative power of the community, with individuals finding personal growth, strength, and fulfillment through their work and interactions.
- 🌈 The community is depicted as a haven for diverse individuals, including straight women, lesbians, and others, fostering a sense of belonging and mutual respect.
- 🎨 The script touches on the broader themes of art and creativity as essential aspects of the community, with members engaging in various artistic endeavors.
- 🌍 The farm is presented as a model for a new way of living, one that is self-sufficient, community-oriented, and in line with the ideals of the women's movement.
Q & A
What is the significance of the women's movement mentioned in the script?
-The women's movement is described as a centuries-old effort leading to an enormous historical change in the position of women in society, indicating a profound and ongoing transformation that affects various aspects of life including education, health, politics, and the economy.
What was the initial impression of the person who joined the farm in 1974?
-The person who joined the farm in 1974 was initially skeptical, questioning the feasibility of creating a community in a remote location and wondering why they were there to help the woman who had the vision for the farm.
What was the main reason for coming to the farm according to the script?
-The main reasons for coming to the farm included the desire to be part of a women's community, to contribute to a space for women writers and artists, and to find a place where they could live a life they imagined but couldn't in the rest of the world.
How does the script describe the experience of living and working on the farm?
-The script portrays the experience as challenging yet rewarding, involving hard physical labor, a sense of community, and a deep sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. It also highlights the importance of patience, humility, and learning new skills.
What role does Kate play in the narrative?
-Kate is depicted as a visionary and leader who inspires the community, provides guidance, and pushes individuals to find solutions and complete tasks despite the lack of ideal resources.
How does the farm support itself financially according to the script?
-The farm supports itself through a combination of selling pictures, silk screens, and food contributions from the people who come to the farm. It also rents itself out in the winter to generate income.
What is the significance of the Obon celebration mentioned in the script?
-Obon is described as a feast of all souls and a time for remembering those who have passed, symbolizing the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. It represents survival, community, and the celebration of life, aligning with the farm's values of togetherness and continuity.
What is the ultimate goal of the farm as described in the script?
-The ultimate goal of the farm is to create a self-sufficient, supportive community for women where they can live, work, and create art, providing a model for a different way of living that is empowering and fulfilling.
How does the script characterize the group dynamics at the farm?
-The group dynamics are characterized by a strong sense of community, mutual support, and enjoyment. People are described as working together effectively, sharing meals, and contributing to the creation of a nurturing environment.
What challenges are mentioned in the script regarding living and working on the farm?
-Challenges mentioned include physical hardships such as dealing with poison, heat, and manual labor, as well as the psychological challenges of patience, humility, and learning new skills in a community setting.
What does the script suggest about the future of the farm and its community?
-The script suggests a sense of optimism and growth, with plans to continue improving the farm's facilities and celebrating its progress. It implies that the community will continue to thrive and serve as a model for a different way of living.
Outlines
🌱 Women's Movement and Farm Community
The paragraph discusses the historical significance of the women's movement and its impact on societal structures. It recounts the speaker's early experiences at a farm in 1974, which later evolved into a community. The narrative highlights the challenges and aspirations of building a women's artists' community, the initial skepticism, and eventual realization of a shared vision. It also touches on the diversity within the community, including straight women, and the collective effort to create a supportive environment for women.
🏡 Building a Women's Artist Colony
This paragraph delves into the establishment of a colony for women writers and artists, emphasizing the rarity of such spaces primarily for women. It outlines the colony's goal to provide a creative space for women, often with limited financial means. The speaker expresses a deep emotional connection to the project, viewing it as a labor of love and a way to give back to other women. The paragraph also describes the physical challenges and the communal spirit of hard work and perseverance in building and maintaining the colony.
🛠️ Self-Sufficiency and Community Dynamics
The speaker in this paragraph shares her personal journey towards self-sufficiency and the importance of physical labor in the farm community. She discusses the practical aspects of maintaining the farm, including financial contributions and the collective effort to cover food expenses. The paragraph also explores the group dynamics, the joy of living and working closely with other women, and the sense of fulfillment derived from creating a supportive and empowering environment. The speaker reflects on the农场's progress towards self-sufficiency and the satisfaction of seeing it thrive.
🎨 Art, Community, and Personal Growth
This paragraph focuses on the transformative power of art and community in fostering personal growth. The speaker describes the farm as an artistic endeavor and a reflection of reality, aiming to create a harmonious way of living. The narrative includes the speaker's personal journey of humility, the encouragement received for writing, and the profound impact of the community on her life's work. The paragraph concludes with a reflection on the idea of creating a utopian space where everything is of the community's making, symbolizing a life beyond the current social and political structures.
🌠 Celebrating Life and Legacy
The final paragraph captures the essence of a celebration known as Obon, a harvest feast and a time to honor the souls of the departed. It describes the ritual of writing down wishes, memories, and dreams on paper, which are then burned on a boat as a symbol of release and remembrance. The paragraph conveys a sense of community, continuity, and the cyclical nature of life and revolution. The speaker expresses a desire to create a lasting legacy and to live fully in the present, encapsulating the spirit of making a new way of life that endures beyond one's time.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Women's Movement
💡Community
💡Self-sufficiency
💡Colony for Women
💡Lesbian Connection
💡Feminist
💡Anarchist
💡Carpentry Work
💡Humility
💡Obon
💡Revolution
Highlights
The women's movement is a centuries-old endeavor aiming to change the social structure entirely, including education, health, politics, and the economy.
In 1974, the farm was a place with no community, but with a vision to become a hub for people to live and work together.
The initial skepticism about the feasibility of building a community in a remote location turned into a realization of its potential.
Lesbian Connection was a key factor in attracting people to the farm, showcasing a welcoming and inclusive environment.
The farm's appeal was in its promise of women working together to build something for each other, which was a novel concept at the time.
The experience of living on the farm was transformative for straight women, who were initially awed by the community's vision and determination.
Kate, a central figure, inspired the community by pushing them to overcome obstacles and find solutions, even with limited resources.
The farm's community was built on the sweat and dedication of young, idealistic people who were committed to making it a reality.
The farm's sustainability was a goal, with efforts to make it self-sufficient through various means, including selling art and silk screens.
The community's dynamic was fascinating, with a diverse group of women coming together to create a supportive and productive environment.
The farm was not just a place to live but a model for a new way of living, where women were in charge and free to create.
The farm's success was measured by the happiness and fulfillment it brought to its members, rather than financial gain.
The farm's community was a place of learning, where patience, humility, and the willingness to learn new skills were essential.
The farm's existence was a testament to the power of community and the ability to create a world of one's own making.
The farm was a place where art and life intertwined, with the community itself being an art piece and a landscape of creativity.
The farm's community celebrated Obon, a feast of all souls, as a time to honor the past and look forward to new beginnings.
The farm's story is one of perseverance, community building, and the creation of a space where women could thrive and be themselves.
Transcripts
[Music]
for
many thousands of years women have lived
as a subject people
and uh the women's movement is not just
something new or today it's several
centuries old and it's a
enormous historical change in the
position of women in society
you cannot change the position of such a
large population as women without
changing the social structure entirely
without changing education health
and politics certainly the economy
[Music]
when i was first at the farm
which was in 1974
and
at that time there was
it was just a farm there was no
community
she had these ideas about uh you know
having a lot of people there and i
thought she's you know this is really
crazy out in the middle of nowhere how
is she gonna get all these people here
you start thinking to yourself what the
[ __ ] am i doing here you know what why
am i here helping this woman i think
he's trying to develop in our artists
community i hoped and i prayed and i
really did a whole lot of hoping that
i'd get in
and i got in i heard they had steak a
lot
i wanted to
see if we could find some little corner
of the world to live in where we could
well live a life we imagined
but couldn't live in the rest of the
world
what we call laughingly hair to deal
with
we heard about the farm
through lesbian connection
it was the first
time i'd ever seen anything like an
advertisement type of thing like that
like this is what we do and who we are
and you're welcome to come this is my
initial reason
for coming here was just the i was so
thrilled when i saw the aunt
that
the women were going to work together
to build
something for each other and other women
and that to me was just
it was just like a spark when i read
that ad because i've been
as long as i can remember that's what i
thought would be
just wonderful if women would do
something together to help each other
and i thought this is it and it is i was
really excited about being part of the
women's community
women's colony
um
i'm straight and i'm one of the few
straight women here when i came i was
awed by the whole thing i mean she has a
dream here this isn't all for nothing
yeah and and when when kate says okay
what are you going to work on today and
i want you to do this and you come back
and say well there aren't any tools
there aren't the right tools to do this
and she'll say do it it's got to be done
today do it and you go off and you find
some
crappy screwdriver or something and you
figure out how to do it and you make it
work and then you're just amazing
i have always been excited about this
place even before i got here and i can't
even tell you where that comes from
except i really felt
that if her books were that powerful
being here was going to be just potent
it was just going to be so wonderful
and that's been true why can't not
you know this gets into these sort of
funny questions about destiny the
mainstream knows her as a feminist uh
lesbian subculture knows there's a
profound thinker
and i'm recorder of lesbian experience
she writes literature it's not just all
politics and
[Music]
she
makes
prints which i didn't know that she did
silk screens
she's involved with the issues of
torture
i mean i guess intellectually you know
kate is kate is an anarchist
it's a big change every year coming from
the bowery
up to the farm
because the farm is very beautiful and
the wow is very terrible
but
living on the bowery all those years
was a very good preparation for taking
on this farm
because if you can survive on the bowery
you can maybe even
make it if you're going to take a go
down farm and put it back together again
uh and we needed that toughness what i
think kate does is she inspires caring
she tells the story of the farm from her
standpoint to have her
vision of this place when she bought it
her 10 years of heartbreaking
backbreaking work
the
the soul of the place becomes known and
in my case i really just wanted to join
it my initial
reason for coming is i really
have a commitment to a colony for women
writers and artists
there are a lot of colonies for writers
and artists
but i don't think there are many
primarily for women
and the goal of the colony is to give
women that space
and women who've been here
and volunteer can then come back
and a lot of women writers and artists
don't have much money and to have a
place like that to come to
is something that i was willing to
contribute my time and money to
well it's kind of like being in love you
know with a project or an idea
a notion
and
like most of that sort of thing um
you don't know it's
enjoy every moment of it um
but
i think what i get out of it is uh
i want to make something to share with
other women and
i want to give something back
[Music]
this place has been rebuilt on the backs
and and of the sweat of the browns of
people who are very young
and very idealistic and we'll do it
god everybody was so
goddamn tired
that people kept right on going and
people kept
really being okay to each other it's hot
and you wish you could be in shorts and
a t-shirt and um
uh
everyone gets poisoned i mean it's
really a drag and
you don't complain
but i didn't mind the poison i that much
i got a pretty bad case but
somehow
they just
don't think
any pla you know i mean every place has
to have its
its nasty
aspect and
for me you know nature has its poisonous
copperheads and you gotta watch out for
it and it's
horse flies and
and mosquitoes and tits there's a
challenge here
to survive in a community of people and
to survive in a real good way
and that's part of the learning process
there too
this is true education this is the idea
of what is school
should be absolutely school should be a
place where people gather to offer
their
best
into
to be challenged it takes a certain
amount of patience a great deal of
patience
it takes being
level-headed
uh
it takes
a lot of humility you know you can be
whoever you are you know you can be
straight a student but you're faced with
uh mitering a corner and carpentry and
you just don't know what you're doing
and it's a humility to say i don't know
what i'm doing teach me
another thing that i actually wanted to
do for a long time
was
farm work and construction work i really
wanted to do those two things um
and i
had like considered
taking a carpentry class in new york and
of course
always too busy to do it and
you know take a summer at a farm and
learn something about farm work but
again you know the time just didn't come
so it's been great to do some of that
and i've really enjoyed it it's been fun
and um
uh
i really like construction work
i have to pay the taxes and the
insurance
we have enough money to
make some minor repairs like broken
pipes and stuff and then in the summer
we even have
a little money left that we can improve
things with
like we painted the whole farmhouse we
rebuilt the porch
we put on a new roof on the front
courageous work
um
and maybe next year we'll we'll get all
those beautiful decks on the lavender
house we were gonna build
and fix it up
so
we can
in this time whole waiting for the crop
make everything here all fixed and ready
the studios are all built the bonds are
converted
now
this is sort of
final improvements kind of
and uh
that's we we managed somehow to keep
this place going on nothing
um
and then
what it doesn't earn through
renting itself out in the winter um
is me
i mean i bought the farm i bought all
the land
uh
i've
you know paid for everything that had to
be paid for
um but we've been trying all along to
get the farm to be self-sufficient which
it almost is now i love the work in the
field
it's a very direct kind of physical
action and you do it and it's over and i
actually um
in a lot better shape than i thought it
was
i loved working in the field
the carpentry work
for women who haven't done like farm
work or carpentry work at first it's
kind of overwhelming
to think about you know putting on a
roof or whatever people do here putting
up a door or
doing all these things but
if you get into it there's a real sense
when you finish that you've challenged
yourself what makes it work is just
sweat
work
i mean you gotta get out there and do it
oh some of the common questions are um
what do you mean you don't get paid
yeah
uh
[Music]
what do you mean you have to pay
which you know trying to explain the
food contribution is a trip and a half
it still costs a lot to farm
one of the ways that we support the farm
is by making pictures
like we buy our equipment with pictures
we bought our little red tractor which
is just the best tractor in the world
and we could never clear without it and
we couldn't maintain our fields without
it and
it took us two and a half years of
saving picture mummy
and last year when i went to the women's
film festival or music festival rather
in
santa barbara and california we sold a
lot of pictures silk screens that we
made over the summer
and uh
we
we paid off all our debts and
the farm was 2 000 in debt at that
moment at the end of the season
and
in one sweep with pictures we paid for
it all but usually we don't get very
good big sweeps but we just piddle along
that's how it runs itself
and everything i can get hold of i put
into it and
[Music]
then the people who come in the summer
they all chip in for food
so that
all of us i do too we all
collectively contribute
to our
eating expenses
and the rest of it
somehow or another we manage
uh what i find to be most important is
am i happy
is this fulfilling me is this furthering
who and what i am
and i'd have to say i've got ample proof
that it is and that's what i finally say
to people who
bother with a sort of petty [ __ ] of the
food contribution and not getting paid
[Music]
the group dynamics here are fascinating
i feel just you know so happy to know
all these women all of them every one of
them i'm surprised you know i don't
usually
go places where i like 100 of the people
i think it's the most fun people who are
sort of outlaws and get here for the
summer
i think we're making a kind of heaven on
earth yeah and i adore it and i love
living with other women these months in
the summer i love living in a community
uh i love how much we get done
i love our big dinners i love
our laughter i love going swimming
it's uh
you know it's like paradise it's like
you it's like this
tremendous helpfulness
and
the possibility that we can make all
this ourselves plummet wire lighted
and put music in
um
that we can build an entire world even a
little world but
still the whole world is ours
where
we are
completely in charge
and
completely free to create and
completely competent
and self-sufficient
it's the life beyond the revolution and
why not have a little bit of it now a
couple months here anyway
it's how we really want to live finally
so that there's a model you know
instead of just dredging along with the
picket sign
it's time for us to
to begin to make the places and faces
where
we can be ourselves move just as we want
it's like i come here
to grow
uh
and i feel like i'm rooted here i'm like
one of the trees i
i just keep
growing i come here and i get strength
to go out
i come here i i work with women
and everybody works together if you're
an artist it's always going to be art or
it should be to be a good artist to be
really precise and unfocused one of the
things that this place is it's an art
piece it's a landscape of art when i
discovered that art was a reflection of
reality it was profound
it was just profound
it's it's to create a way of being in a
way of being with other people
that is beyond
our present
not just our social structure political
structure and stuff but even how people
feel about each other the dynamic
between people
the
space around their bodies the way their
eyes connect
so that
um you could
you could experiment with the idea of a
you know a peaceable
kingdom
a world of our own
where everything here
is of our making all of the lessons i
learned this particular summer i'm i'm
learning a lot of humility i guess i
always learn humility here
i don't know what my parents or people
of my parents class would think about
the kinds of things that i'm doing here
whether they would value it you know i
look at it and i say
wouldn't it be neat if they could see
what i'm doing
all the beautiful things i've made here
that are really legitimate that's why
i'm back
is i did get an incredible amount of
encouragement from kate herself for
writing which i've written since i was
seven
but have never done for a lively hood
and
since i've been to the farm in the last
four years
what i do is at it so i'm the closest
i've ever been to doing my
life's work and i know it has to do with
being here i
there's no doubt in my mind
what we used to say in the early days of
the movement that when we had a really
good party or really good time we'd
tease and say that this was life after
the revolution
i wanted to do that on a big scale i
wanted to
see if we could find some little corner
of the world to live in
where we could
[Music]
well live a life we imagined
but couldn't live in the rest of the
world i really thought it'd be fun
i i sort of wanted life to be a party
too
and
to live in a circle of friends
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
the same way but
it's sort of amazing
i feel like it's not just in its
cruising speed
it's not a dream or a hope or an
ambition or you know a sparkle in our
eye anymore i thought gee this is kind
of special this is maybe the best no
bone there ever was and i think it is
and i think
it has all sort of taken shape now and
it is working
obon is the feast of all souls in
the eastern world
and it's the time when all those who
have died or have
preceded us come back
and uh both the world of the living
what we do is we will write
things
anything
a word a phrase the name of somebody we
love
on that piece of paper you will
write your wish
your dream the memory of someone you
loved who died
whatever
fantasy
whatever deep thought you have will get
folded up on that piece of paper and it
will be burned on a great boat
then we'll go into the little boats so
we're just sort of starting out on this
sort of
the ritualistic element of this and then
all those things will be put on the
great boat which will then be burned in
the center of the lake
because the
the ideogram for that is the same
ideogram as revolution
so
the fire in the lake remember the great
pokemon vietnam
fire in the lake is it's also the
chinese city ground for revolution so
that's the meaning of obon it's the
harvest feast
all souls but it is also the end of one
cycle in the beginning another which is
why it's our sacred feast when we
celebrate that we survived another year
it's number 13.
we will do the lanterns that are the
individual souls of each of us
they will burn for a very long time and
we'll have special music for that
and then when we watch all of the little
boats across the pond for quite a while
then the big music will start and we
hope neighbors will be understanding
and then we will like probably dance all
night
[Music]
[Music]
i really thought it'd be fun
i wanted to make a new way to live
and try it out
and uh i think i wanted to make
something that would go on after i died
[Music]
maybe it's just to live in the moment
[Music]
[Music]
uh
[Music]
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