small conference, my ass!

Wow, my mind was completely blown yesterday.  I sat enthralled, listening to speaker after speaker talk about the fashion industry, sustainability, growing fibres and producing them and the dyestuffs locally, and then how we as producers need to knock off the Wall St commodity brokers from the fashion food chain and set our own prices that reflect a living wage for everyone involved.  Only then will we get people to change their consumption behaviours.

So exciting!

There are people growing flax here in the maritimes, want more of us to grow it.  There are people growing woad and indego and want more of us to grow those plants too.

There were people from California, Michigan, Indiana, Toronto, Newfoundland, the Maritimes, England and Germany there yesterday...there could have been more in the audience, I don't know.  The general consensus was that we can bring back the clothing industry to North America if we want to.   The tide is rising against Walmart's Low, Low prices.  It may not happen in my career, but I can see it happening in my lifetime, and I will do my best to help it along.

Stoked~!

Conference on Linen tomorrow

Things have been busy at the Textile/Fashion department this week at NSCAD.  Tomorrow there will be a small conference on Linen Production in Nova Scotia called Sow to SEW.  Saturday there will be a working Group meeting to discuss how this idea can be pushed further.  I am so excited about this as it may lead to us being able to buy good quality textiles that are made here...which means that we may also be able to get good historical textiles into production again...

One can hope.

I plan on being there for the whole day tomorrow.  Yes, I am bringing my shirt.  It's not the beautiful textile that Robin Muller produced for the project, but I'm going to bring it anyway.  It was a learning project, and I think it has value as that.

In thesis world, I am working on my proposal at the moment.  I wrote a good intoduction this morning, just out in long hand.  It needs some editing, but it's a tight start to a nebulous and discursive year I've had.  I am finally feeling like I am on the path.

Feeling overwhelmed and excited

I am slowly getting into the swing of things, school wise.  I have to keep reminding myself that all this reading that I am doing will make sense, and try not to get hung up on the minutae.  Just keep plugging along according to schedule.

Not sure if I mentioned it here, but I will be designing and creating a fashion collection along with writing the thesis.  This makes me extremely happy, because my creative brain will have an outlet that will have a purpose long term.  This academic MA will have a Fine Art component.

My own teaching is going along well.  We are covering a lot of material, but I hope to be able to send my students off on a good footing so that Intermediate and Advanced Fashion will allow them to really shine creatively.  This week we'll also be doing a bit of review, so hopefully I will catch and straglers.

The 18thC reenacting season is over now and I have begun teaching the winter workshops, which reminds me, I have to book the October workshop.  We'd like to be going to SCA events, but with Pierre's work schedule, this may prove a little difficult.  Playing it by ear this Fall.  Oh well.

In thesis world, I need to get a grip on my proposal and get that taken care of before I can begin writing the paper.  That along with the proposal for Modernist/Postmodernist Debates are due next week.  Brain work!  UGH!

Anyway, that's it from me, and that's all from him, as the Two Ronnies used to sign off...have a great day.

Switching gears

I hope you'll all bear with me over the next few months as I work through my MA thesis.  I will be writing about Vivienne Westwood and Punk and have been given the go-ahead to also work on a collection as part of that thesis.

It seems that I am able to put an art spin on this degree after all, and not just writing about it, but making it too.

My pinterest page exploded this morning as I looked and pinned inspiration.  It's also inspired me to dress up for the class I am teaching.  Last week, I wore my brown linen 60's dress with brown and orange argyle tights.  Tomorrow it will be my jean skirt with the pink top stitching, pink T and sweater, red shoes, grey tights and pink jacket...I need to make a hat out of that hot pink felt hood I have...

I am getting my inspiration back.

Skool, it's where learning happens, but not the only place.

Well, I'm sorry that I haven't been posting, but school started last week, and I've had to hit the ground running.  Not much time to goof off and write blog posts ;-)

I am starting my thesis this term, met with Dr Randi monday and have homework to do this weekend.  I have been working on it already, but my butt needs to be in this chair and not knitting in the living room this weekend.  I have to compile a bibliography, write an abstract and make a map of the paper, including sub-topics that I want to discuss and number of pages and a timeline. 

Tomorrow I am also running a workshop for the 18thC group.

Wednesdays I teach fashion construction in the morning, which I have to get really geared up for, pulling handouts and such together.
Wednesday afternoons I am taking Modernist and Postmodernist Debates.  Some good shit to read there, and hopefully some good discussions in class.  I already have a pile of books beside me to read for my research paper that will hopefully be rolled into the thesis.  The situationist International, an art and philosophical movement that inspired McLaren and Westwood.  We watched  The Society of the Spectacle last night, yup, I am barking up the right tree!  A question that popped into my mind concerning today's fixation on gender, is are we now comodifying gender, looking for the perfect woman, perfect man to the exclusion of all the genders in between?

Yeah, my brain sometimes goes there...I have a notebook...last week I was thinking about how Freud has really screwed with our ideas of gender, and how women really need to be very young and child-like, lest they appear too matronly in Freud's eyes, because what man really wants to be labled as having a mother complex...like I said, my brain...sorry

Anyway, I am sitting here, so I best do some work.  Make it a good day all, even if it's pouring tropical depressions out there.

The day before my show opens

I finished the shirt last night at 830pm, went downstairs and put it and the apron I finished over the weekend into the wash on delicate.  And then came upstairs to wait...

After an hour, I went down again to see if I still had a shirt and apron, or just a pile of string in the bottom of the wash.  I kinda think I know how a potter feels now, when they put a pot in the kiln.  Will it come out in one piece, as planned, or will I end up with something different?

I am happy to say that both the shirt and apron came out beautifully.  They tightened up a bit, but not so much that they are too small.  They turned out perfectly.

Now, I have to go and refinish a chair, dig out a dish pan and my tea towels and cloths and this afternoon install my piece of the group show.  I am a nervous wreck.

The encampment last weekend went well, with very few hiccups.  Our standards officer gave us a 98% for the weekend, picking up on the very same things that I want to fix, so there's the challenge...getting those two items fixed.  The first is making a canvas cover for the big blue water jug and the second is better garbage collection.  Though the latter of was not an issue for the officer, just for me.
I am happy with our progress.

Well, back to work for me.  I will post pictures.