Completed questionnaire of Jed B. What scarf are you?

1. What colors were you drawn to as a child?

My knee jerk response was green and blue, but I honestly don’t really know. There aren’t a lot of pictures of my childhood. The ones that do exist have me dressed in some combination of 80s suburbia and 70s hand me down hangover - so lots of orange, brown, and yellow with pops of red, blue, and green. There is a photo of me from when I was probably 6-7 where I am playing the harp in what looks like a blue velvet suit. So maybe when I got to choose I went with blue.

I know that once I got to high school my palate was pretty stable. Apparently my clothing was a daily mood ring. I once had a friend read me hard, saying that if I was wearing blue, it was a great day, green was good, but if I was wearing black, she would walk the other way to avoid me.

2. What colors do you wear as an adult?

Blue, without a doubt. Right now I am wearing dark blue jeans, a black shirt, a black jacket, and white converse. I’ve been simplifying my wardrobe into high quality neutrals that emphasize “quality” (which might just mean fit, texture, and depth). So lots of blues, blacks, greys, whites, taupes, browns, etc. And then pops of color (e.g., yellow pocket square, socks of some sort, and scarves).

3. How do you like to wear a scarf? Big and bulky? Wrapped many times? Loose and flowy?

My beloved scarves have all passed on, but all of them were worn:

- Looped around my neck once

- As a slip knot (?) where you pass both ends through the midpoint of the scarf to tie it close around your neck

- As a loose double loop, like the simple loop, but just without as much length on the side and not tight against your neck — so jaunty!

- Draped around my neck with no tie, but typically only when I am wearing a coat and my coat might feel lonely.

4. Please share a story from any time in your life that included a textile (Clothing, blanket, accessory)

This is not a traditional “textile”, but it is the one I have the most embodied and affective connections to. When I turned 8, my sister gave me a stuffed monkey. Instead of a box, he came in a metal cage and brought all the excitement of the zoo into my childhood. He was probably 8” tall, sat upright, and had a long tail. I quickly named him “Squeakers” and took him everywhere. Squeakers wasn’t really a comfort animal (I was probably too old for that), he was just my buddy and accompanied everywhere I went. A few years later, when my older brother were fighting outside, Squeakers ended up the victim of a tug of war. Before my brother realized what he had done, or where that ripping sound had come from, he was standing there with Squeaker’s tail in his hand. I don’t recall how I responded, but I am certain I was upset. Over the years, Squeakers didn't accompany me as often, but he never the less remained in my life. However, for some reason, Squeakers’s tail never got reattached.

I have visceral memories of how Squeakers’s skin aged over the subsequent decades — how the soft fur gave way to patches of scratchy plastic netting — and how this decay would prompt me to sit with the uneasy reality of how all things fade.

That uneasy feeling has not gone away — although Squeakers is in a box somewhere now and unable to prompt these encounters. However, uneasy realities are not limited to the present. They can haunt our pasts as well. A few years back (but at least 15 years from that jungled-childhood) during a sibling Christmas gift exchange, my brother said he had one extra gift for me. He handed me the unexpected addition, awkwardly waiting in silence. Inside was a stuffed monkey. My brother is not one for emotional declarations, but he uncomfortably explained that he felt bad about what had happened to Squeakers and simply wanted to make it up to me. What he didn't say, but I have thought about often, is how my sense of loss as a child was not mine alone. He held that loss as well, and was likely more impacted by it than I was. The new monkey doesn't have a name, but he sits on the top shelf in my home office. If I'm honest, I sometimes wonder what he would look like without a tail.

5. What is the climate like where you spend most of your time?

Colorado is a high desert. It is dry, but will get cold. We have major temperature swings (20-30 degree spans in a day is not uncommon). However, because the humidity is so low, the cold doesn’t really sink into your bones.

6. Have you ever made any textiles? (Knit, sewn, wove, etc.)

I was a little bit obsessed with crochet when I was in elementary school. However, I don’t think I got too far with it. I think I saw it as a kind of boondoggle crafting that didn’t have to be limited to Boy Scout summer camp. I never got much past creating the single strands — whether this was because I was more interested in friendship bracelets and keychains over blankets, or if this was just because the I couldn’t figure out how to go two dimensional with crochet, I don’t know.

There were a lot of these types of crafting activities that I wanted to do as a kid, but actually wasn’t able to for some basic gendered reasons. I have three older sisters who took sewing lessons when I was young, and I wasn’t allowed to take these classes. It could have been that I was just too young — after all, we all played the harp. Later on, in junior college, I had a job as a theatre tech, and I worked really hard to become the tailor’s assistant. Not that I was any good. The professor who was the head tailor was just totally awesome, and I wanted to hang out with her as much as possible. Building sets meant cutting wood while terrorized by a Bob Marley CD they would play on repeat. In the costume shop we listened to NPR, shared stories, and had deep conversations... oh, and I would make the most basic stitches on the sewing machine (which that professor might have had to fix).

By virtue of being married to Steven, I’ve also gotten my fair share as an adult. My favorite thing ATM are probably yarn ballers. How can you not love those?

7. Are you allergic or have any sensitivity to and any materials? (Wool cotton, latex, etc.)

Nope.

8. Please describe your personal style?

Clean, tailored, with casual and sporty elements. It is probably in the “tech-designer” wheelhouse, where I’m going to wear a suit, but never a tie; where I’ll give a presentation, but in an a softer, unstructured jacket. If I get really academic about it, it is probably dressed up casual, or casualed formal. I love to have outfits that simultanesouly perform contradictory ends of the spectrum, both in function and shape — so dress pants worn casually, sneakers worn formally, sports coats that function like cardigans, etc. (However, despite that academic snobbery, I don’t think I dress in a particularly unique way — I just try to do it very very well.

9. What is your favorite article of clothing and why?

It is either the suit I got married in or the moto jacket I am wearing right now. They were both selected (and in the case of the suit, tailored) with a lot of care, and I always look good in them regardless. I can rely on them to make me look good, and as a result feel good.

10. When you are upset and seeking comfort are there any textiles that you turn to?

Not really. Textiles often serve as most of a pre-emptive infrastructure — to prepare me — rather than to help me cope.

11. What is your hair color, eye color?

Hair: Redish, but not firey. (My grandma use to tell me I had the same hair as my grandpa — she could cut out a patch and every hair would be a slightly different color.)

Eyes: Green

12. What is your astrological sign?

Leo (and a Cancer Moon).

13. If you had to describe yourself in a word what would it be?

Hybrid

14. What are you currently listening too or most recently listened too? (music, podcast, book)

Music: Seasonal pop music, interesting remixes (I am a sucker for some of that experimental electronica stuff)

Podcasts: Not many at the moment, besides daily news stuff. Although I do have one guilty/cheesy podcast I listen to: Every morning as part of my wake up routine, Alexa plays a little “management tip” from Harvard Business Review. They are sometimes really silly and cheesy, but I like listening to them while brushing my teeth and thinking of at least one way I can be a better student advisor and director of my lab.

Books: I have to read TONS for work — so at night I have been reading YA novels because they don’t keep me up. I am almost done with Harry Potter again.

15. Are you currently in love?

Yup.

16. What is your strongest value?

“Holding space.” You might be familiar with this term, but in case you're not... Um, how do I explain this... This is a concept that comes out of (as far as I know) social work, psychology, nursing, and palliative care, but is very important to me. It refers to creating and holding a space for others to express themselves, especially when they wouldn’t have had that opportunity otherwise. It is kind of like active listening, it is kind of like what Carl Rogers called “unconditional positive regard”, but it is more than that for me. It is about honoring the unique importance of an individual and their life story such that you provide the space for them to share it, and in some cases, create it in a way that they haven’t been able to otherwise.

If my research and scholarship is an expression of my strongest value, then whether I am sitting with people who are mourning, allowing them to experience their grief, or whether I am listening to queer people’s coming out stories, or whether I am working to make technology more inclusive of the vast array of human experience, creating space for those experiences to exist, realized, actualized, and shared I think is the most human and humane act possible — and one I feel a strong obligation to enable.

To participate in this project I am seeking your consent to include information from this questionnaire and an image of yourself wearing the completed scarf for use on social media, websites, and potentially in printed material. You may include your name or not. Yes X No__

Name – Jed R. Brubaker

Date - 12/4/18