WEARING YOUR CONVICTIONS

My first “visible mended” jeans.

These jeans were purchased for $5 at our local charity shop, ARC, here in Colorado Springs.

Maria giving her butter soft but worn to the point of fragility jeans some love before handing them over to me for repair.

Last year I was inspired by a podcast about the artist Celia Pym who discussed her practice of offering to mend others' beloved articles of clothing, at no charge, just because. Here is the link, if you'd like to listen for yourself.

Shortly afterward, Nard and I were in Camas, Washington, delivering some new art to Attic Gallery. I was wearing my newly stitched visible mended jeans (pictured above) that I had made as an example for my upcoming Green Box Arts Festival workshop, “Visible Mending.”

When gallerist Maria Gonsor exclaimed that I could easily sell the jeans in a local boutique, and that she had some beloved jeans that had been at her seamstress' shop across the street for over six months because the woman was nervous that they would fall apart if she added anymore machine stitching to them, I saw my opportunity to try my hand at Celia's form of generosity.

With the agreement that I would have no time limit on the repair process, as well as complete artistic freedom, Maria collected the jeans and handed them over with trust and faith. Those jeans have since traveled with me from Washington state to Alaska, through Canada, down through North and South Dakota back to Colorado, where they are nearing completion, hopefully in time to mail back to Maria before Christmas.

Maria’s jeans, mending in progress.

But the true inspiration for why I'm telling you about these jeans came from the book “How to be a Craftivist; The art of gentle protest” by Sarah Corbett, which I began reading in 2020 while I was working toward defining the concepts for my art-activist installation “The Clothes We Wear,” calling out the ills of Fast Fashion in a manner I hoped would be informative rather than aggressive. You can re-visit the exhibition here.

In my Oct 19, 2021 blog, “Mending a Sock” I spoke about the shame my generation and earlier ones felt about being seen in public wearing clothes that were second-hand or mended. The increasing acceptance, even pride, current generations exhibit with their endeavors to shop resale and to mend contribute to decreasing landfills, air pollution, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Wearing visibly mended clothing with pride promotes normalcy surrounding the idea of re-using and re-imagining one's wardrobe. The clothing invites discussion that can lead to a gentle inspiration to others who may not have considered or been aware of the impact that the fashion industry has on the environment and on third world vulnerable laborers.

More and more, mending our existing clothes and/or those of friends is a trend that is making a positive impact on the fight against the over consumption of cheaply made Fast Fashion clothing.

I’d love to hear from you if you are doing any mending or upcycling. Also, Fyi, I’ve been invited back to teach “Visible Mending” at the 2023 Green Box Arts Festival June 30 - July 15. Subscribe to my e-newsletter to be the first to know when registration opens; last year’s workshop was sold out immediately.

I've been enjoying working slowly but steadily on repairing Maria’s jeans since last March.

FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENTS (People Move)

INNOCENT #1 This installation of seven suspended sculptures conceptualizes the impact of climate change on women and children forced to flee from homelands impacted by drought and flood.
Reclaimed vintage baby dress sourced from Who Gives A Scrap, encaustic, hand waxed threads, hand stitched embroidery, wire,18 x14 x 13 (+22” descending threads). Available December 2021 from Kreuser Gallery.

An apropos quote I discovered while reviewing my personal 1991 journal written by Ralph Ellison, pg 85, “The Second Black Renaissance:”
“Flight is an inherently ambiguous term, connecting freedom and desertion alike.”

People Move. They move for many reasons. They always have.

In the USA, we're lucky. We have big space, big options, to move for any reason...jobs, family, personal preferences regarding city vs. country, ocean vs desert vs mountains vs prairies.

In the last two years, how many people do you know who have moved? I have friends who have moved from Alaska to here (Colorado Springs), from here to Phoenix, from here to Washington state, from NYC to here.

In other parts of the world, people must cross borders to move the distances we Americans take for granted as possibilities. Ken Burn's film “The Dust Bowl” documents the man-made ecological disaster that precipitated the mass migrations of the 1930's. For instance, Colorado farmers from the San Luis Valley moved north to the mountains become miners. And for generations in America, families have moved “up,” seeking safer neighborhoods to raise their children.

In most of the world, people are born into families that reside in small geographic countries in which climate change has impacted their ability to raise the traditional crops that sustained their ancestors. As Mother Nature demonstrates that climate change is here to stay, the impacts on a population's ability to survive a location with flooding or famine will continue to create climate refugees.

Bottom line: People don't just naturally want to pick up and abandon the place they've lived for generations without good reason. The artificial borders we define as countries are barriers that kill.

Women and children, the innocents, are fleeing countries not because they want to live in another country, but because they must, for survival. It's a problem without an answer.

Solutions can only begin once we understand that these climate refugees are acting out of desperation rather than criminality.

Raising awareness of the global refugee crisis through Art. The full installation provided a visual way to process the enormity of 25 million – the approximate number of refugees estimated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees when this project commenced.My contribution to the international collaborative art project, “25 Million Stitches.”