У меня была подруга, по профессии историк, она вышивальщицей работала и не считала это дауншифтингом - она работала на епархию, делала вышивки на облачениях. Её взяли на эту работу и как просто человека с руками и художественным вкусом, знающего технику вышивки, и как знающую и любящую историю (в том числе историю всяческого рукоделия - и гончарного дела, и кузнечного, и ткацкого... список очень велик), и как человека глубоко православного, понимающего суть ритуала, для которого она всё это делала. Для нее это был не "дауншифтинг", а практическое погружение в любимую профессию - в историю страны, культуры, религии.
Это была мастерская, это было производство. Кто-то там делал "ширпотреб". А кто-то - вещи уникальные, "музейного" уровня (это как бы два полюса, а между ними - ещё несколько градаций).

Ms. Meyer got the idea for “The Chemist” in 2010, during a freezing, rainy overnight shoot for “Breaking Dawn,” the fourth “Twilight” film, in Squamish, British Columbia. Shivering in front of the movie monitors, Ms. Meyer thought of a female agent — part Jason Bourne, part Bill Nye the Science Guy — who has a peculiar talent for torturing people. She described the plot in detail to Meghan Hibbett, her partner at Fickle Fish, a film-production company.

At first, she envisioned the story as a movie that their company could produce, but the plot became too elaborate to stuff into a screenplay. She set the idea aside and became consumed by her work as a film producer.

A few years later, Ms. Meyer returned to the idea and decided to write it as a novel. She keeps vampire-like work hours — a residual habit from when she began writing “Twilight” while she and her husband were raising their three sons — and worked on “The Chemist” from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m. The plot flowed quickly, but she struggled at times to devise unusual ways to kill, maim and torture people, so she consulted several experts in biochemistry and molecular biology, including Kirstin Hendrickson, a senior lecturer at the School of Molecular Sciences at Arizona State University.

The novel’s wily protagonist, who goes by Alex, is a brilliant, paranoid chemist, trained to torture terrorism suspects with her excruciating artisanal chemical cocktails. After her department head turns against her, she teams up with Kevin, a former C.I.A. operative who’s also on the run from his bosses. Their bold escape plan becomes more complicated when Alex falls in love with Kevin’s identical twin, Daniel. Gun battles, narrow escapes, kidnappings, disguises, torture and assassinations ensue.