The Mask Makers: Episode 2 - Community and Collaboration
This episode is the second in a three-part mini-series about people who made masks during the early days of the pandemic in Vermont.
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Meet Vermont’s Mask Makers
“Everyone ran out of elastic, like, overnight.
”
In spring of 2020, face masks were one of the few tools we had against covid-19, and you couldn’t buy one. Anywhere.
When hospitals started calling for homemade fabric masks amid a worldwide shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), people with sewing skills in Vermont and around the world began to respond. In early April when the CDC changed its guidance and encouraged all Americans to wear a mask in public, sewers quickly expanded to sew for family, friends, and neighbors. At a time when anyone who could was asked to stay home, this work was one of the few active ways for individuals to help keep others safe.
In this three-part mini-series we’ll explore the pandemic experience through the voices of some of Vermont’s mask makers. You’ll hear how and why they joined the sewing effort, learn about the Great Elastic Shortage of 2020, and explore how they expressed themselves creatively through the masks they made (what, you didn’t have a mask with spikes on it!?).
The Mask Makers is co-produced and co-hosted by material culturalist and mask maker Eliza West.
Erin Aguayo’s mask kits - made with love
Erin Aguayo’s porch mask drop off/pick up station
“I would sit up until 10 pm in my sewing room and I would call my friends and say, I’m going to leave 50 pre-cut masks in a bag in my driveway.
”
Adaptation and collaboration
You remember the toilet paper shortage, but did you know about the great elastic shortage of 2020? For home sewers, the global state of emergency elicited by the pandemic felt a lot like a war effort. On the “home front” (most often literally inside their homes) mask makers combated shortages of PPE to help those on the front lines of the pandemic as well as their family and friends.
Like other global crises, the pandemic caused shortages of goods and disrupted supply chains, but makers found countless creative ways around those problems. In this episode, we hear from mask makers who shared resources and solutions when elastic or fabric were hard to find and offered mutual support amid the isolation of the early pandemic.
Bonus Bits - Episode 2
Mary Margaret Groberg has a helper while making mask deliveries
Montpelier-based mask maker Mary Margaret Groberg owns Notion Fabric & Craft in Montpelier, VT
Eli Coughlin Galbraith of Brattleboro, also featured in this episode, is the co-owner of the custom binder and sports bra company Shapeshifters
The Vermont Teddy Bear Company coordinated a massive volunteer force to support their mask making effort, including Roz Wittaker-Heck featured in this episode.
In the news: Seven Days article, Vermont Teddy Bear Wants to Make 125,000 Free Masks
Erin Aguayo of Montpelier transitioned in her role as central Vermont coordinator of Days for Girls (DFG), a volunteer group which sews reusable menstrual products, to support the central Vermont mask making effort, part of DFG’s #Masks4Millions campaign:
Mask makers were called into action in response to a global shortage of manufactured face masks. That supply chain breakdown is explained in this article: Face Mask Global Value Chain in the COVID-19 Outbreak: Evidence and policy lessons
Why Mask Makers?
Through our Listening in Place project, the VFC started documenting people’s experiences during the early months of the covid 19 pandemic. Part of this effort included collecting photos of people wearing their homemade masks. As we saw it, making and distributing masks to address the shortage of commercial personal protective equipment (PPE) in spring of 2020 was one of the ways that Vermonters were staying connected and taking care of each other.
A year later, as the pandemic seemed to be easing here in Vermont, our staff started seeking ways to process and reflect on the collective pandemic experience to date. Realizing homemade masks were now a ubiquitous part of pandemic life, we chose to talk with some of the people who had been making those masks.
In the summer of 2021 VT Untapped host Mary Wesley and co-producer Eliza West interviewed 13 mask makers across the state. We talked with a range of people: a variety of ages and backgrounds, as well as people with a variety of connections to the mask making effort. Everything from the person who got their sewing machine out of their closet to make a few masks for friends and family, to the owner of a small, local craft store that supplied the materials for almost 10,000 masks.
For a full list of interviewees click here. See below for a list of the people featured in Episode 2.
Interviews from this episode (in order of appearance):
Vickie Lampron was interviewed by Mary Wesley via Zoom on June 11, 2021
Tammy McNamera was interviewed by Eliza West via Zoom on May 31, 2021
Nancy Bell was interviewed by Eliza West via Zoom on June 7, 2021
Serenity Smith Forchion was interviewed by Eliza West via Zoom on June 23, 2021
Erin Aguayo was interviewed by Mary Wesley via Zoom on May 27, 2021
Eli Coughlin-Galbraith was interviewed by Mary Wesley via Zoom on June 11, 2021
Roz Wittaker-Heck was interviewed by Mary Wesley via Zoom on June 10, 2021
Mary Kay Shernock was interviewed by Mary Wesley in Northfield, VT on June 20, 2021
Mary Margaret Groberg was interviewed by Mary Wesley and Eliza West via Zoom on May 17, 2021
Jennifer Matthews was interviewed by Mary Wesley via Zoom on June 18, 2021
To access the full recordings please contact the VFC Archivist.
Music in this episode:
Cello music by Dave Haughey
Guitar track: “Goodshake” from the album Ya Know, Ya Never Know by Pete’s Posse
The Mask Makers: Episode 1 - Sewing in a Crisis
The Mask Makers: Episode 3 - Masks and Identity
Other VT Untapped Episodes
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The views and opinions expressed by interviewees are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vermont Folklife Center.
This episode of VT Untapped has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
