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."

Showing posts with label Beverly Naidus. Show all posts

Sunday, December 2, 2012

WaterRIP to Carry On

Swamp vixen, wetland wicche, the sorceress of the toxic cleanse

wetlands are to water as the liver is to the human body

This blog is the public face of fashionRIP Project and as WaterRIP is entering the set up phase, i am noticing a pattern.

3 times is probably not sufficient evidence of a pattern, but it feels like one. As that is what this experiment plays with, i am sharing.

The last openings were dramatic and both turned out to be gifts in disguise. So yesterday when driving down to the Wallingford Center (WC) to meet up with my guest star artist, Beverly Naidus and wonderful, ladder climbing hero of a brother, Robert, at the Wallingford Center i was amped. (My brother said yes to the help request that very morning so i thought my big hurdle had been jumped.)

Then i turned on the radio and the first song out was"Carry On" by Fun. This made me grin. I flashed through the tumultuous birthing process of "Species on the Verge" -shooting the video and prepping the installation and then quickly said no, this time was the third, the charm.

But when i pulled into the WC, hoisted a box from the trunk and went to the door. it was locked. i jumbled up inside, then walked around to the main door and tried it, also locked. The hours posted on the door read "Open 10-8 Saturday."

That stone in my gut sank. I called Beverly and my brother, trying to head them off. I was able to reach my brother but not Beverly. What to do?

"Carry On," right, the serendipitous alliance stood out like grace or irony. It is hard at times to know the feeling, perhaps its a lack of words for such as this. So i picked up milk for my Dad, getting a chore out of the way helped a bit.

Beverly tried to call me and my cell was accidentally set to a soft ring, so she left a few messages then hiked around the building and found a door that opened. She also found a baker who told her they were closed but when she stated her mission, they said to come on in. She did, she carried on!

When i realized my cell issue and called her back, she told me as much, i called Robert and the day ended up fruitful, the mission accomplished. Beverly's work "And Now Behind Curtain #2 " is hanging in the Kerf International Gallery - the centerpiece. We did it! I love you all!

"Cause we are
We are shining stars
We are invincible...

If you're lost and alone
Or you're sinking like a stone
Carry on
May your past be the sound
Of your feet upon the ground
Carry on

Carry on, carry on"

by Fun

magick

Sunday, November 18, 2012

WaterRIP, The Flow

WaterRIP studio shots

I was thinking this morning, how amazing it was to have 2 articles show up on 2 consecutive days that effortlessly tied the next Kerf International Gallery show together.

My work with WaterRIP started with fresh water issues and since our bodies are 50-70% water, depending on age and hydration levels, what messes with water, messes with us. I then started recognizing patterns of biology repeating in ecology which helped me understand how dis-ease enters sytems and imbalances provide it residence.
This is also how each chapter of fashionRIP influences the next. This is the organic process.

WaterRIP is a story and a "painting" with fabric. I am culling from fashion, as image, as sensory appeal and the changes new contexts provide. All the while, i am playing with how myth orchestrates reality, as beliefs show up in systems. Get it?

Yeah, my mind has a tendency to weave like crazy. I untangle old stories and rework the material until something fresh has a chance to emerge. I incorporate new materials as needed. This is true in my art work and in the behind the scenes research. My life becomes a catalyst for the work and the whole process is ever more a flow. Borders are illusions that no longer seem relevant. The new story is coming to life.

WaterRIP is chapter 2 of fashionRIP Project. The installation is a pause and a celebration. It is made all the better because joining me this time, is Beverly Naidus. She is a new friend, who is currently teaching at the University of Washington, Tacoma, where she has created and facilitates a unique interdisciplinary studio curriculum in art for social change and healing. Is this spot on or what?

Beverly's installation, And Now Behind Curtain #2, challenges us with questions about the trance created by the mainstream media and the perils and rewards of activism. This is an interactive piece, so bring friends or make some new ones while playing the game. The work debuted in a museum show in Germany and headlined a Northwest Ropom art space during last spring's Folklife.

" The experience of sharing this work was one of the most profound interactions I have ever had with an audience. Visitors have asked me to produce the game board as a real game that can be bought and used at parties and at home. They have also asked me to turn the stories into a published book. There was such a hunger for discussing what was shared in this piece. " Beverly Naidus

photos of And Now...

I see connections all over the place, they appear like holograms, so putting words to it can be time cosuming and ..well it is an entirely other thing. These articles arrived like angels, gifts from the authors, Yes Magazine and the universe. The experiment continues as resources show up and help to smooth the path.

Your Body is a Body of Water, by Jourdan Keith and Why Your Health is Bigger Than Your Body by Claudia Rowe, really help explain the December show at the Wallingford Center, Seattle in a most wonderful way. Social justice, health, water, fair play, happiness and ecology are all on the same page. To experience the collusion please come by and see/ test for yourself.

And please let us know what you think, what you are seeking and why and how we can make 2013 the leap year of another kind. It takes a village, more, but so what? We have all had challenges and we can rock when need be. The time is now!

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.