Maximum Rock N Roll Artgasm

this week i was asked to co-lead a zine making workshop at a benefit for the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp - the Bay Area's permutation of the Girls Rock Camp that originated in Portland. this past summer was their first year of camp and they're doing awesome - this week they are moving into a real live office space, and paying themselves! it gives me hope that personally and politically sustainable grassroots programs are alive and kicking. the icing on the cake is that the benefit was at a sweet non-profit, all ages music venue in Berkeley called the Gilman. will definitely be making my way over there in the near future.



the zine making workshop was a fabulous mayhem-magical amalgam of puff paint, cut & paste, markers, and of course creative genius. we rolled in with our own zine, the Ultamini Guide to Zines, for people to take home and stay inspired. and we were asked to lead the workshop at next year's rock camp!




Now to the Artgasm portion of the evening...

when: Saturday night
where: Benefit for Girls Rock Camp, the Gilman in Berkeley
who: Purple Rhinestone Eagle
what: a trio of hard-driving, incredibly talented, invariably Loud women rockers from portland. the combination of the almost-falsetto lead vocals, a healthy dose of rage, and the intense heart thumping beats reminded me of one of my favorite female rock bands of all time, sleater-kinney. it made me want to dance, scream, rock, and be back in college again. good times.

bad day, good mood

let's just call this a personal interjection, since things like these will appear only so often, and since it is not specifically design/ craft/ textile/ art related.

some days i feel like i'm being sucked into the vortex of my life and all i can expect myself to do is swim around in it, finding rest in the form of an occasional buoy. if i can avoid the emotional undertow, all the better (usually i can't). but sometimes i manage to wake up in this mood. and i revel in those days.

Artgasm

my last few days have been rife with sensory-titillating artworks.
consider this an e-dossier of this week's artgasm-worthy work.

when: Sunday morning
where: Ashby fleamarket, Berkeley
who: Goldiloks
what: a collection of wearable and visual art based on collage. goldilocks dresses old windows, shadowboxes, and woodblocks in stimulating color palates. conceptually, she incorporates elements of pop culture and the idea of lost memories (dare i say both reflective of the broader concept of inherited cultural histories) into her work. she also decorates baked goods! talk about mixed media. you can read a little article about her at ill-literacy dot com, or you can look at her flickr account to see all of her amazing work. she is most definitely working it.




when: Sunday afternoon
where: Gallery Route One, Point Reyes CA
who: Pam Bolton and Cindy Cleary
what: an amazing collaborative installation piece which focuses on our interactions with and connections to trees. in addition to trees, stumps, and rocks carefully placed throughout the space there were paintings which incorporated some element of trees - leaves, natural bark dyes, whathaveyou - and which were an equally stunning addition to the space. i wish i had taken some pictures. but this brief and inadequate video will have to serve as your glimpse into a show that can really only be taken in using all five senses. i know, it's not fair to you.



when: Tuesday evening
where: Yoshi's Restaurant and Jazz Cafe, Oakland
who: José González
what: "José González from Sweden" is how this classical guitar virtuoso (as jazmine describes him) introduced himself to us at the beginning of his set. he then proceeded to lull my mind into a melodic, lyrical trance while simultaneously managing to galvanize my body through his percussive inclinations. some of the songs would work well as lullabies, while others were torrential in their vibrant angst. and yet throughout, his fingers and hands worked with ease; only the curve of his neck, the crooked focus of his face on the fretboard, gave any indication of how consumed he was by the instrument. also, one of the percussionists played a mouth piano! (also called a melodica.) i just can't get enough.

Charmed, I'm Sure

i found some old shrinky dink stuff that i made during a fit of creative boredom one afternoon in the suburbs at a friends house, long long ago. (okay, not that long. last year.) most of it was entirely useless for anything remotely interesting, with the exception of two little keys i made...
i figured i'd make them into dangling earrings for my friend ladi since she rocks the plastic earring look, and wears it well.

of course, once one little key was at the bottom of the earring, it looked sort of sad. alone. graceless. "let's give it friends!" was the general consensus, and ladi, being the ever-prepared crafter/thrifter/finder of random junk that she is, pointed me straight to a jar full of little plastic charms. a dream was born, and so were these earrings.

accessorize my fist!

...or any part of my body, really.

the problem with having worked with a jewelry designer for a year - being taken to trade shows and learning techniques in handcrafting high quality jewelry myself - is that i am now severely disappointed by most all 'handmade' jewelry in my price range. (ah, if ever i thought that the adage 'ignorance is bliss' wasn't true!)

my best jewelry score (and a tried and true conversation piece) are my Chee-Me-No earrings, made by Lisa Cimino. scored through a trade show. i'm sure they were expensive but i don't even remember how much they cost - it was worth the price! i'll never let these go. she even made the posts bigger to match my earlobe gauge. fabulous.

the other go-to piece of show-stopping jewelry is my jerry rigged cascading gold chain necklace, which i made by (cleverly!) stringing three gold chains together and creating multiple cascading layers.

i often fantasize about making my own accessories, about having a jewelry bench to sit at, with fire and soldering pick in hand, making all kind of adornment for myself. alas, with those expensive tools out of my reach at the moment, i will have to settle for what i can find from the meager offerings at bead stores in san francisco, dick blick, and jewelry suppliers online (without breaking the bank). hopefully what i come up will be as original and amazing as i'm convinced it will be. pictures to come.

first item on the wishlist: a hand saw! will have to pick that up tomorrow. it's great for making jump rings.

today's steal deal...and a bit of jeopardy.

recently, i've been daily and devoutly scouring my mainstay thriftstores for that perfect fall boot. while i haven't found anything in that department, today i found a beautiful, deep navy blue pair of nickels - as always, the italian made shoes hypnotize me. with a cross back, ankle strap, charming gold buckles and closed toes, these scream sexy librarian. always the feminine look i strive for. and what's better? what makes this today's steal deal? the shoes were three dollars at thriftown. three dollars.



in other news, my friend jazmine has started a blog called what's ur damage. in her first post she introduces herself by listing her 7 dream categories if her life were a game of Jeopardy.
so, in case you didn't feel you knew me, here are mine. what are yours?

1. superficial fashion and textile snobbery
2. armchair psychoanalysis
3. craigslist W4W
4. virgo astrology
5. sex education
6. the world of chocolate
7. sociological musings

upcoming: pictures of silk wallets! and my latest skirt design! information on my new website! more exclamation points!

keeping up appearances

attempting to stay up-to-date with the happenings in the spring collection. this mostly means checking out Women's Wear Daily on a regular basis and gagging or gazing at the realized visions of so many designers.

i still haven't worked my way through everything i like and don't like...
but here are a few memorable moments thus far.

first, the chic grease-monkey butch look which i love!
by amanda wakeley - london shows
next, i saw this look by Eley Kishimoto (also London shows)
and thought 'wow, that's me!'
at least, this is my fashion spirit.
edgy, strong, a little hard, with a touch of femininity for contrast.


and finally.
i love prints!
and toying with that fine line between abject and absolutely gorgeous.
nicole miller.

Short-Range Missiles

i've been sucked into the world of style blogging for the last two hours and haven't gotten around to detailing my goals for the next couple weeks, so i suppose i'll do it here.


1) silk wallets!
i scored a load of houndstooth silk - probably tie samples - from SCRAP a couple weeks ago, along with the necessary vinyl facing to make my bi-fold wallets (see past posts). this is the first time i'll be working with silk in any capacity, really. the pattern, colors, and texture lend itself to a sophisticated look, though hopefully still fun!



2) work on my damned website!
for my birthday my fabulous sister entitled me to a domain name of my choice, custom web design, an easy-to-use content management system, and back-end support for a whole year. why do i not have a website yet? ok, it's only been three weeks. but still. i don't know what the domain name is going to be yet. but today, as i tried to squeeze my feet into a half-size too small pair of calf-high onitsuka tiger sneakers (god did i want them to be my size...picture to come), i decided on the tagline for the site: "No Pain for Fashion!"


3) draft skirt slopers for sister, housemate!
despite my miniscule workspace of 65 square feet, i must plug along in my patternmaking practice. i have clients! but it's just that much more work to lug all my stuff into my housemate's room, work on the floor, move back to my room, iron on the floor in my room, blah blah blah. see the mental block i create? it's a hump i have to work through. as my housemate micah once said, "if christian siriano can do it, so can you!" (you can see christian's segment in the last episode of PR Season 4 at minute five, here.) so. in order to get better, earn money, practice skills, and have fun designing, i just have to suck it up and work with the space i've got, cause it ain't gonna change any time soon.

good goals.
on another note, all this skirt-age is making me ache for a new pair of tall boots...something with a unique look that isn't too modern or trendy, timeless but rare, comfortable and fabulous. is that too much to ask?

for one reason or another, each of these caught my eye...

since my pattern making and design class curriculum starts with skirts, i had to complete two skirts of my own design to finish the first section and get on to the fabulous and exciting moulage.*




the first is an exaggerated empire waist skirt with dart releases down the front, two kick pleats in the back, and inseam pockets. sewn in a purple bull denim with a little bit of stretch. a zipper down the center back.
















the second is a mini pencil skirt with a three inch wide straight waistband, pleating in the front to create volume, inseam pockets, and pleats in the back instead of darts. made of a grey plaid fabric.















*Moulage is the foundation of the pattern drafting system taught by the Ecole Guerre-Lavigne in Paris. This is a system of measuring the figure, calculating, and drafting a pattern that will fit the torso like a second skin, incorporating any of the infinite variations of shape the human figure can take. (http://www.thesewingplace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1994)

100 Butches: welcome to crushlandia

Elisha Lim has a special place in my heart, partly for her self proclaimed experiment with "sustainable unemployment," but mostly for her comic series 100 Butches, where she details many influential lovers, friends, crushes, and admiration-worthy women from her childhood to adulthood. It's reminiscent of those crushed-out notebook scribbles from middle school, albeit a more detailed (and perhaps thoughtful) creative process is involved.

100 Butches is a perfect example of what inspires me: it's an artistic expression of the personal, handmade with lo-fi techniques (all elements of my beloved DIY movement) and thus necessarily frames the artist in a political context because inevitably, her positionality in the world is reflected in her art. (in this case, the paradigm is gender complication and women. butches - a personal favorite.)

you can read a short interview with her at the blog Art Threat.

Felt Me Up

i'm a sucker for flamboyant accessories. recently i've been exploring my love for things of a golden hue, but this felted wool jewelry caught my eye as soon as i turned the page in American Craft magazine. amazing... the artist is Hisano Takei. You can check her out at her website.

2+2=4, 2x2=4

as a friend of mine said recently about my 24th year, "2 + 2 = 4 and 2x2=4, that's kinda cool. i'm no mathematician, but i think that will never happen again." i have a weird aversion, personally, to even numbers. in my mind, 23 was the perfect number. but i haven't given up on 24! in fact my list of personal challenges for this year is going to be no small feat to accomplish. but 24 is off to an auspicious start regardless...

having been unemployed the last three months and generally questioning what next steps i should take in my life, i have been turning over and over the possibilities. these include, but are not limited to going to vocational school to learn a trade and extend my unemployment, cashing in any money i have saved away and moving to a beach city, and getting a job as a bartender and spending my days sewing.

after some consideration and talking to my closest friends for a little bit of understanding about how big life decisions are made, i think i've figured it out. i woke up one morning and like an epiphany it came to me--what i really want is to learn more in the field of design. my classes at apparel arts have been a good learning experience for me, but taking them once a week isn't really bringing me the structure and breadth of knowledge i ultimately want from an education in design. so. i'm going back to school, full time at City College of San Francisco, and availing myself of their ever-growing fashion design program. i'll be pursuing certificates in fashion design as well as image consulting. very exciting, immediately gratifying, and affordable.


to help me with this decision, the universe has given me a little nudge in the right direction. last thursday night at a gallery reception for artist susanne winterling, i wore for the first time the very first skirt i made through my patternmaking and design class. there i met del geronimo, a photographer who is helping to put on a fashion show called planet x in san francisco. after spending some time admiring my accessories and generally chit chatting, he asked me whether i'd be interested in being the stylist for the show. the stylist! if ever there was a carrot to dangle in this horses face...well. that was a friggin golden carrot. of course i said yes.

a special outfit, a golden opportunity, and a decision is made. it's my first week of being 24, and i'm no mathematician, but i think i'm off to a good start.

Zine Sympo Debrief

i always enjoy a visit to portland, but tabling at the Zine Symposium two weekends ago was pretty much the best time i've had there. tons of queers, zines taking over as the main form of paper currency, and happy customers! what more could i have asked for? let's face it: i wanted to live there.

next year's plan...a cross-country diy craft/music/zine fair roadtrip!