NATURALLY

WHAT I'M READING

NO BOUNDARIES THRIFT

Another day of recovered LADYFITS, curating looks from last Spring/Summer.  This particular look was from a series of styling evolutions, taking one garment through a journey of LADYFITS (white dress shown above).  It shows a never ending process to a look.  In my mind a look is never completely finished.  It's always morphing into something from the objects + materials surrounding me.

Similar to yesterday's post, I purchased this white dress with the same reasoning: blank canvas.  This garment had no detailing, it was simple.  I was drawn to the freedom attached to this thrifted piece.  It's not a defined material or have boundaries of dress.  Someone could have easily walked passed this white dress.   On a different day, I would have.  That's the allure of thrifting: emotion playing into the way we hunt + gather.  The emotion I felt during this thrift period was hunting pieces with no boundaries, blank canvas. 

The background of this image is a pre-look into a series I'm doing on embroidery with objects.  In this example, I'm embroidering with Goodwill tags.  Those in the Cedar Rapids + Marion area know these well.  They are charming tags with a great color scheme.  Why not use them as a resource for my work?  

CURATING OBJECTS

I tend to curate objects in my collection to the ideas going on in my head from color schemes to textures to definitions.  

It's a warm-up to studio work.

CURATING A BAG OF THREADS

There's a process in the journey of an object to become a resource for explaining things in LADYFITS.  

These bundles of threads started in someone's collection.  Later, donated to Goodwill and placed in a bag.  I responded to the aged look + form of the threads, taking the objects into a new definition of use_as form_as adornment_as material resource for LADYFITS.  I used these objects as a way to explain ARMOR + pattern of dress.       

CURATING A BAG

BAG OF OBJECTS

I have a fascination with objects in bags_collection of things that others compile into a space.  It's similar to curating my own space_collection of objects form around definitions + themes I give them to explain.    

COLOR SCHEME

I responded to these bags for its color scheme_my color scheme love affair often happens in the randomness of objects in a bag that someone else compiles together with no defined reasoning.

new colors_new arrangements_new thoughts.

MATERIAL RESOURCE

Thrift store_provides the material resource similar to you going to the grocery store for a bag of chips or ingredients to a recipe.  For me.....it's a bag of trim.  My recipe of folk dress begins in notions before structure is designed + applied.  Yum.

Curatorial Goodbye to Winter_Sweaters_MATERIAL USE

Sweaters become a skirt become a scarf become a skirt again.  This single object has changed its use definition since April 2010 (part of Sustainable fashion programming in the Cedar Rapids area_Eco Fest + Solid Waste Agency of Linn County).  I composed this skirt from a pile of sweaters that I was aesthetically drawn to.  I plan to change it again for Spring.

Curatorial Goodbye to Winter

Over the next few weeks, I'm curating LADYFITS as an homage/Goodbye to Winter.  This first composition begins to sum up the themes behind this winter season, definition through dress_ARMOR_LAYERS_PATTERN OF DRESS_MATERIAL USE.

The bottom half of the garment was once a sweater dress that became a skirt (pictured above).  It becomes a composed dress again through the layering of the top half.  I've mentioned before, this fascination with dress becomes something becomes something again_dress becomes body becomes dress.

I did manage to wear this out over the Iowa Winter season_boots + pinned up the hemline as I walked through the snow.  I wore around 5 layers with this: 2 skirts, 3 tops (layered tops not shown).