Back to Basics

HAVE YOU ANY WOOL? Microbiologist Melissa Duhaime shares a special moment with one of her ewes on her farm in Webster Township, Michigan. Photography by Leisa Thompson/Michigan Photography

In the spring of 2020, I was mired in my own home. Like millions of others, I watched the seconds tick by while my work—which depended on travel to global archives—foundered and atrophied. I wondered how to find purpose and meaning in this new world.

I found myself returning to a more primal version of me, someone who reveled in the visual and the tactile. As a lifelong fiber artist, I sought comfort from the whir of a spinning wheel, the pungent smell of an indigo dyebath, and the double thump of a beater on cloth.

Other folks I knew turned away from blinking cursors and infinite scrolling on their screens in favor of quilting, cooking, and gardening—and sharing all about our newfound hobbies. The act of creating, it seemed, built a real community, no matter how alone we all felt.

While craftspeople have existed and worked since time immemorial, artisans—including Professor Melissa Duhaime, pictured above—came alive during the COVID-19 pandemic—and continued even as the pandemic waned. Many did so by integrating the skills and knowledge they gained through their academic pursuits. Some discovered material interests as a result of more idle time; others, like me, reawakened old instincts to make sense of the world. Yes, the world was new. And we made it so.

To understand this new world, let’s go back in time. In 2015, chemistry major Shobhana Panuganti (B.S. ’18) walked into Professor Bart Bartlett’s classroom in the Chemistry Building. Panuganti had spent high school cultivating interests in fine arts, science, and environmentalism, and discovered at LSA’s Residential College that she could combine many of her interests and seek answers to big, existential questions: How do chemistry and the Earth play together? How do I make the planet a better place through chemistry?

At Ekaloka, art and chemistry synthesize into a compound greater than the sum of its parts. Panuganti designs and relief-prints her own labels. Photography by Glenn Carpenter

What Bartlett taught her resynthesized her life’s ambitions. His solar-focused research inspired her to attend Northwestern University to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry, where she concentrated on the ways light and electrons interact. But there was a latent itch that just needed to be scratched: an academic career would have led her to more computer screens and fewer face-to-face interactions, but she wanted to work with her hands. She wanted to bring science, art, and nature together.

So she bought some hops and began to brew.

DAILY BREAD: In their home kitchen, Margot Witte shows off their expertise by forming a sourdough loaf, and then scoring it with a blade called a lame. Photography by Doug Coombe

In the early 2010s, microbiologist Melissa Duhaime was hard at work. Her lab’s research centered on microbes that had the ability to digest discarded plastics in the world’s waterways. As a scientist, Duhaime loved solving ecological puzzles, and this one was particularly critical: How could redesigning human systems help to reverse greenhouse gas imbalances in our atmosphere?

Despite the efforts of scientists like Duhaime—associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology—the planet continued getting sicker. Soon enough, she began to feel deeply dissatisfied with the time scale of her research impacts. She made a commitment to doing research that would find more direct alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, especially textiles. “There’s a bathtub overflowing,” Duhaime says, “and are you going to spend your time mopping up the water on the floor or shutting off the tap?”

So she turned to the land. As a natural dyer, fiber artist, spinner, shepherdess, and sheep shearer, she had always felt a “tactile draw” to the material world and its plenitude. She became involved with Michigan Fibershed, an offshoot of the organization Fibershed.org, which aims to develop regional, self-sustaining natural fiber and textile systems that enable a natural fiber “soil-to-soil” cycle. In the state of Michigan, Duhaime sought to engage with and support the full process: growing one’s own fiber, finishing a garment, and finally composting it at the end of its wearability so that it can regenerate nutrients and grow the next batch of fiber. “By learning through my hands,” she says, “that’s how I innovate. That’s how I become creative.”

Duhaime’s fiber practice is all-inclusive: Here, she winds handspun linen yarn on an umbrella swift and displays a fleece of one of her sheep, which she shears annually. Photography by Leisa Thompson/Michigan Photography

Michigan Fibershed’s work now continues with the support of natural fiber farmers, millers, designers, and makers across the state, including those eager to innovate with materials like flax that are less common in Michigan today. Duhaime is eager to collaborate with, and support through her research and teaching, the craftspeople who fundamentally know the language of the land and its resources through their bodies. “What I do know as an ecologist is the power of studying systems and interconnected webs,” she says.

BREW MASTER: The spark for Ekaloka Fermentory, run by alum Shobhana Panuganti and her partner, Ben Oxley, came to life as a result of her passion for chemistry, nature, and community. Photography by Glenn Carpenter

Public education has become a fundamental part of Ekaloka’s mission. As academics, Panuganti and Oxley found very few opportunities to practice rigorous scientific research while upholding sustainable, eco-friendly practices. So they have brought their teachers’ minds to the brewhouse, basing the fermentory’s menu on the periodic table. “Chemists get a sense of the personality of an element,” Panuganti explains. “I wanted to capture the essence of that personality in a fermented product.”

For the element of helium, for example, they crafted a nonalcoholic brew called Rose-Colored Gases. “Helium is such a friendly element to work with,” Panuganti says. “It’s inert and nonreactive. And most importantly, when helium is an ionized gas, it’s this beautiful rose color. So, the personality of the drink—the way it looks and makes you feel—are all reminiscent of the traits of the element helium.”

Craft brewing, especially in the 21st century, has been dominated by white male brewers from the United States and Western Europe. Panuganti sees a different future. “From my research, I know that, historically, women were the primary brewers in their communities,” she says. “They still are in a lot of places, where the women do so much fermentation and brewing in order to support the health of their community.” She wants to run children’s classes and community fermentation sessions. She envisions open mic science nights, where scientists can share their knowledge with a public, local audience.

Like Panuganti, microbiologist-natural fiber champion Duhaime takes issue with the distance between academic research and what it means to live on planet Earth. “A lot of the problems getting solved are pretty disconnected from the real experiences of humans, and that’s not satisfying for me,” she says. “I definitely need to be solving problems and working with material that is relevant on a human timescale.” Showing, rather than telling, remains a hallmark of Duhaime’s personal and professional work.

Humans and many other species are feeling the turbulence of global supply chains, and Duhaime urges her students and others to think of what is to come. She believes that current economic structures will not survive indefinitely, and that “preserving heritage skills now” across all cultures is essential. These days, Duhaime brings her children along on her shearing jobs to introduce them to working with their hands and to teach them the ethos of sustainability. “I want to be a link to our future needs for survival,” she says.

Duhaime demonstrates the loft of linen fibers, which resemble fine strands of hair. Photography by Leisa Thompson/Michigan Photography. Panuganti pours a glass of Rose-Colored Gasses kombucha. Photography by Glenn Carpenter. Fresh out of the oven, Witte’s sourdough loaf could win a baking contest: the crust crackles, the crumb opens, and the smell can best be described as heavenly. Photography by Doug Coombe

For philosopher-baker Witte, baking bread is a simple way to create their own self-sustaining system. “There’s an incredibly rich looping effect,” Witte says. Their baking practice harmonizes with the process of writing their dissertation, forming a kind of fulfilling synergy that makers know well.

Panuganti faces the future while practicing what she preaches. Part of what she has done for Ekaloka is research the history of communal fermentation practices to find out how our global ancestors used fermentation to create a sense of unity.

Being in touch with nature and the beings on this Earth, she argues, is the best thing for a person’s mental, physical, and emotional health. “Community isn’t a commodity,” she says. “Community is a right.”