fashionRIP

fashionRIP is a multidiscipline, transmedia installation of chapters, an exploration of perceptions and beliefs. It’s a platform that explores ecosystems health, generative economics, social justice, cultural and creative diversity. Starting with recycouture garments, the story became the Project. It is now an evolving experiment, designed to explore meaningful relationship based constructs that put human potential and whole systems health over the abstract ideas of faux "the real world."

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Food Not Bombs

I made this bag for an Agit Prop class assignment. Good and functional propagation means of free speech memes are in the best interest of the commons. Why American Dream Inc?

As an Agitation/Propaganda class project, I was part of a video team that went to a house near the University of Puget Sound to interview people involved in the Food Not Bombs organization.

Andy and Delaney both gave me and the Evergreen team some great insights during their 'views. I even learned a new word, freegan, which is counter consumirism, I think (I will check with Delaney as she wants to know more about eco fashion! And thus connections grow)

The finished 2 minute piece will be part of an exhibition at the Tacoma Art museum that will focus on Tacoma and community.

The human psyche is evolving, I love the reminders that show up when I make it a point to be aware.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Fashion Grt

thread drawing on silk, part of a larger piece. This was the back but I like it best!!

It is hard to get excited by current design. I have not bought a fashion magazine in months and rarely see anything fresh in design. I was a former fashion magazine junkie, so yes, the greener me is at work but the designer me is plain bored.The 80s rip is fine but the innovation extra appears to be lost in the shuffle for the $. That and the over extreme, try too hard to be noticed, pushy look in shoes is almost pathetic.

Maybe it's just me, but there is a pall of style, as if in the overwhelming barrage of choices and excess nothing is special, nothing stands out.

Sad.

However going to the Sustainable Seattle NE Hands On Fair this morning to see if local talent can spark it up.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Propaganda, Inc.

Propaganda Inc. Selling Americas Culture to the World by Nancy Snow (2010) is a must read for everyone. Really, if we don't understand the game we can't change it.

Fast fashion and the wastemaking darma of the American Dream is awakening to be the Nightmare we didn't see coming. Now, as a culture locked by laws and regulations into a dis-eased economic system based on the industrialist vision, we are a socially, environmentally, culturally and economically unsound nation that appears to still be bragging. That is embarrassing!!!

However, many visionaries are working hard to build the new infrastructure with positive actions based on a healthy mental shift that utilizes todays science ( more than green ). We do not have to be part of the problem to be a 'success,' (?) we can be instrumental in building the healthier future.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Heeding the Call

The riding habit was a good look back in the day (late 1800 to early 1900) beating the original sidesaddle costume....how did women handle that get up! (Amazon listed)

Image is of the first edition of Black Beauty as posted on the Wikipedia entry. I am taking a class now that actually allows Wikipedia as a source...progress to the people!!!!!

When I was a kid I read books that told stories from animal points of view. Black Beauty (Anna Sewell 1877) Call of the Wild (Jack London 1903) Misty ofChincoteague (Marguerite Henry) 1947) The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1893) and The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908) all led me to believe that animals and i have much in common. It is interesting how we are learning from science that which art had already visited. Sweet!

Looking back I wonder if the stories were posed theraputically as metaphoric tales of juvenile experience or just from a traditional mythos of human animal lore? I have heard this claim used to validate animation. I suspect it is all true depending on the path.

It appears a natural thing to empathize and become a character while immersed in a good story. Escapism can be a healthy way to empower one's possibilty. In stories the 'shared experiences' are surely like that whole which is more than the sum of the parts.

A good story can be a beacon as i believe we intuitively understand much while formally uneducated. I believe we need to tread delicately in the balance of what is taught as logic appears inable to handle the competition and in fact disavows anything that is not replicable and observable. This is good in many things but ignores a quantum reality in many ways of seeing that are available but not necessarily observable on command.

Planning the stories for the new mythos "We are the Heroes" (working title, WT) i want to play with the balance and end up with a surprising whole. Setting the stage for magick in real time is heady.

Why it Matters

What's the matter with more and more fashion choices?

It sounds good; we love to be able to pick the perfect outfit. You wear it once or twice and then ....what was the real cost here?

Your time to shop and the money spent, not so much ....go a little deeper and consider the fiber source, the dyes and chemicals used, the health toll on the workers, the energy to run the machines, the transporting carbons...and now it just takes up closet space. But so what? It's been going on for-almost-ever and you didn't make the rules.

In fact we are told this is what a "healthy" economy looks like.

You will recycle it after all, give it to charity or your sister. This is more transportation and more release of those greenhouse gases. We are using a lot of our personal energy and the resources of this planet to make, use and dump "trash" Some rags, remnants and tawdry bits will molder for eons in landfills, as nature's microbial actions are hampered by our normalized, everyday toxic lifestyles.

This goes beyond dumps as the breakdown cycle that nourishes the life of this planet has been sorely challenged by GMO crops, fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials..RIGHT!!. All the "living better through chemistry" propaganda after WWI and II- AKA how to sell your "garbage," is our legacy. Well no more, not on my (our) watch, we are seeing things quite differently.

As we now carry 298 toxins in our bods that weren't there in the 1930s the toxic residues of normal are haunting us more and more. Ironic, no? Advanced is merely a word.

Go to the So Whats the Point blog in February for the numbers.

fashionRIP posts are copr at time of posting thank you

Extinctions ...So What?

Life evolves, some species survive some don't. We like to allude to Darwin's "natural selection" or Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest" because we are so good at reproducing and taking over this planet and justifying that side of our natures. The fact that we are wiping out the food chain by destroying habitat, fouling air and water and generally behaving like arrogant, tinkering idiots, is called business as usual. .....Well I and others are no longer buying that "sell."

We are wising up to the idea that we too, are dependent on these resources. We too, are physically an organic species and we really don't know what little extinction will be the start of the chain reaction that collapses the structure that we too, are dependent on.

Is this the price we are willing to pay for a pair of plastic shoes?

I say no, that despite the focus on the physical, we are more. We are heart and soul, mind, body, spirit. We are born of stars and we can and will leap over this world view based in old, untrue beliefs led by a science of isolation and religions of patriarchal, hierarchical constructs (your basic dominating Dad- with self reflective rights to rule). It is time to come together and heal. To transition into our fuller expectations and open the new possibilities. We are born with genius...let us help each other get to where we all can shine.