fashionRIP: 2017

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Reaching Out

Letter to a cosmologist,

because my best friend said "why not write to him?"

"........

Your comment about going backwards into the simpler past to better understand the complex present, was an aha moment for me. Now I get what I have been doing by instinct.

My current work started as a short story for an arts installation. Species on the Verge (also a video) and Water-The Flow (fashionRIP) were prior gallery shows that dealt with the human connection to Nature. I was planning another when my path switched. The last piece was to have been an exploration of climate change. However, the melting metaphor resulted in another kind of story and in the process, it outgrew the mediums.

Now the script is vast and unwieldy. It is like a hologram in my mind, filled with information relationships and connections. I have unearthed enough evidence to change the story. Knowing how human beliefs constructed this “reality” in a way that limits our species greater potential is maddening, even painful. Lately i have been working through the lens of play, it helps.

“…. . change the world, change the metaphor, change the story.” These are some of Joseph Campbell’s last words to Bill Moyer. I heard them quoted after I had started this letter. Make of it what you will.

I have collected several AAs and a Bachelors in Environmental Science and Communications (2012) I continue auditing and exploring ever more fields of study. The historic accounts are simpler, in number and variety. The information is sometimes shocking, humorous and or naive in today’s light. When played forward the cumulative record gets us “here.” As in Big Bang, so too, in life.

So now what? I have been trying to find a way to get a peer review forum going, but so far it has been “good idea,” and that’s it. This is too big to do alone. I would really appreciate any tips, ideas, links to anything in kind, further inquiry, whatever.

Sincerely,

deborah j barnes

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Wedding Evolution

Hello,
I am going back into custom apparel as my love for design, the ethics of eco fashion and my love of fabric and the fiber arts is merging again with my social and political thinking. This new co creative project surpasses and yet embraces everything i have done up to now.

The many colorful threads of experiences and research are being rewoven together again and voila.... the Wedding Evolution is being born.

Now this venture started with my friend and sister-in-law, Gwen. She had been watching the TV show that helps brides find their special looks. However many of the brides wanted something in the Not White department. These brides were often left to settle or leave the wedding atrium to satisfy their visions. .

After looking into the white wedding tradition it became apparent to me, that it was based on the sentiments of the Victorians. The Victorian Era mindset is not something i wish to further and after some thought, i realized that it is time to make garb for living people and events.

So if you and your partner are inclined towards a fresh approach, want a wedding that is personally meaningful, is mindful in thought and action, then perhaps Wedding Evolution will be your cup of tea (See, that Victorian Empire invasion persists..:-)

I also believe that gender is a spectrum, Nature is more than a landscape and that the past can stop dictating to the present.

Futures full of "new" possibilities thrive when they leap the limitations of hand me down thoughts. -This is not to be confused with hand me down clothing which is perfectly reFashionable and Yes to that Dress. With a restyling, a reFashioning or just a few touch ups, the old gowns can "walk" again.

Thank you,
deborah j barnes
creative director
of
Wedding Evolution

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.