New Haircut, New Tunic

New haircut!

It was my fourth (fifth?) appointment with Justin at Floyd's 99 in Mar Vista.
AWESOME results!

On to the tunic, which is unfinished in this photo:

It's one big rectangle with a horizontal neck slit at this point. Maybe it'll get sleeves, maybe not.
This is a piece of fabric I've had since 1987. It was sample yardage we ordered when I worked with Rosemary Brantley. My fabric stash is, um, vintage and extensive. I no longer allow myself into fabric stores.

Sewing process:
First of all, I gave myself a present, The Geometry of Hand-Sewing by Natalie Chanin

Sew inspiring! (haha) 

Second, I cleared off the very large pile of mail from the "dining room" table and set up a nice little niche for hand sewing and journal writing. [We won't discuss what I did with the mail]. The sewing clutter is now gone from the coffee table in the living room. Yay.

Let's hand sew!

I'm using black embroidery floss. For starters, tried a blanket stitch and didn't like it.
Rip it out and start over.

"Maybe I'll do the side seams like a huipil?"

Wrong. Look at the stitching, Anne.
Rip it out and start over.

Yes!
Now, to finish. That's the hardest part (if I'm not confined to a bus).

Once it's done, I'll wear it beyond the back patio. The evidence will appear on Instagram!

View this post on Instagram

Maiden voyage of my #memade tunic and new to me @Fluevog Moxie Magoo Magnums, captured on eBay. Woohoo! #vog_magnum #slowsewing #outfitjournal #outfitdiary #iwillwearwhatilike

A post shared by anne m bray (@annembray) on Aug 13, 2019 at 1:09pm PDT

Linking up with
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Catherine's #ShareAllLinkup
Shelbee's On the Edge of the Week

Tunic in Transit

Look what I made!

I hand sewed it during my voyage to my brother's wedding.

I got the pieces cut right before leaving for the airport and started sewing about one hour before landing. [no photos]

A few hours later, I continued working on it on the bus en route from Port Authority in NYC to Springfield, MA.

We are at 10th Ave x 52nd St. 10:43

I-87 x Cromwell Ave, the Bronx. 11:27

Finished in Katonah at 12:13.
That went super fast. I will be sewing more!

Linking up with
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Saying Goodbye To Miyoshi

We all miss you very much.

Miyoshi in 2014 at her opening reception at Luis de Jesus, "Feel Better"

Her memorial was on 7/11, and we were asked to bring a succulent or cactus.
Here is my choice, nestled amidst other contributions:

I thought the shapes of the plant resembled her piece Rainbow of Tears:

[source: http://www.miyoshibarosh.com/projects_tapestries.html]

I added the border treatment to the container, which I finger-drew in Procreate:

I wore my golden clogs and the scarf that she gave me in 2010, when I started chemo treatments:

And I've begun a small collection of succulents for myself:

[Miyoshi's is in the upper left]

Linking up with
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Catherine's #ShareAllLinkup

Repair and Design Futures at the RISD Museum

Repair and Design Futures at the RISD Museum [ended 6/30/19] was a great show about mending.

A quilt display in Cafe Pearl

Repair is the creative destruction of brokenness.
—Elizabeth V. Spelman, Repair: The Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World

Repair, a humble act born of necessity, expresses resistance to the unmaking of our world and the environment. This exhibition and programming series, Repair and Design Futures, investigates mending as material intervention, metaphor, and call to action. Spanning the globe and more than three centuries, these objects reveal darns, patches, and stabilized areas that act as springboards to considering socially engaged design thinking today. Repair invites renewed forms of social exchange and offers alternative, holistic ways of facing environmental and social breakdown.

On display in this multiuse gallery space are costume and textile objects from the collections of the RISD Museum and Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. In Café Pearl (at the Benefit Street entrance) and the Donghia Costume and Textile Gallery and Study Center (sixth floor), related exhibitions investigate additional approaches to repair. Through this informal, expansive format, we hope to encourage engagement across a broad spectrum of perspectives.

Kate Irvin
Curator, Costume and Textiles Department
RISD Museum
[all text in brown from RISD Museum website or exhibition checklist]

The exhibition was divided into several sections. There were also displays of relevant books, some of which I've listed at the bottom.

Wounds, Sutures, and Scars
We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right.
—Louise Erdrich, Four Souls
The visceral presence of flesh in objects crafted of animal hide is amplified here by the visible sutures
that suggest a tending to and eventual healing of wounds endured. This material’s spiritual resonance
prompts questions of how the wound, crack, or fissure might provide an invitation to respond not only on a personal level but also within civic and collective arenas.

Repair as Value Added
Repairs that are not only unconcealed but celebrated serve as reminders of the rich life an object has
led, adding meaning, calling attention to its stories, and enabling a new path forward. Weathered
garments with evident and various repairs encourage us to appreciate the worn and imperfect as entry
points to understanding objects as material and practice, and to identifying holes (evident in patch
repairs) as important signs of history, time, emotional investment.

Ghanaian Man’s Robe (Fugu), mid 1900s Indigo-dyed cotton plain weave, patched
Museum purchase: Museum Works of Art Fund, by exchange 2017.5.2 

Textbook Repair
Well into the 20th century, mending and sewing skills were part of women’s education. Neatness and
precision were considered key indicators of skill and a girl’s eventual management of her household.
However, despite meticulous textbook instruction and training, many historical repairs combine
systematic skill with improvisation and creativity.

Broken-World Thinking
Broken-world thinking, as conceived by scholar Steven J. Jackson, presents breakage as potentially
generative and repair as a space for creative solutions to ruptures in the fabric of society. These pieces
speak to repair as a way of making something—perhaps even a broken world—functional again. These repairs acknowledge use, abuse, accident, and error. They insist on not forgetting the thing or its history.

Assemblage
These pieces reflect the value of assemblage in communicating and sharing mutual respect and
perspectives. Notions of cultural purity and ownership have no traction here. These items instead
recognize the emotional labor of dialogue and repairing relationships by reaching across imposed and/or imagined boundaries.

Patchwork
Patchworked items manifest repair by promoting collaboration. They celebrate the dialogue of the old with the new and illustrate the ways anyone can intervene and give dysfunctional material new life. The coming together involved in the practice of patchwork quilting has traditionally provided communities with moorings of exchange, communication, and shared traditions. Repair, in this case, is a way to reconnect fabric and people and engage with cultural and material history.

Additional reading:

• PDF checklist of exhibition
• Mending Matters: Stitch, Patch, and Repair Your Favorite Denim & More by Katrina Rodabaugh
• My Life with Things: The Consumer Diaries by Elizabeth Chin
• Fray: Art and Textile Politics by Julia Bryan-Wilson
• The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine by Rozsika Parker
• The Geometry of Hand-Sewing: A Romance in Stitches and Embroidery from Alabama Chanin and The School of Making by Natalie Chanin

Linking with

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Catherine's #shareallLinkup

Summertime Goals: June Summery Summary

Daily Goals (new):
Do a Daily Drawing. 26/30

During my vacation East, I came up with a series of Clutter drawings, starring my Betsey Johnson Kitty Bag:

Adventures of the Betsey Johnson Kitty Bag -- click image to embiggen
See even larger separate images on the Sketch Blog.

Create a new Waterlogue from old road trip photos. 2/30
Post a piece of art on Saatchi Art. 2/30
These two items are done simultaneously. Did a bunch in May before vacation for digital entries to two shows. Finding it difficult to do both a daily drawing and a daily Road Trip waterlogue during the work week. Maybe it's something I do on the weekends.

Weekly Goals:
Sew and/or repair at least one garment. 1/4

Still not entirely sure about this mend.
It's my schlubby around-the-house tee, but the mend made it less soft and comfy.

List at least one item on Poshmark 10/4
In the process of uploading my remaining 4 x 6" EDGE digital watercolors.

Upload new art to Redbubble. 3/4

Redbubble link

Sew one patch onto the Crazy Quilt. 0/4

Summer Goals:
Get taxes done. not yet
DeClutter the living room (again). no
Get sewing machine repaired. (how many years has this been broken now?) no
[Green text items are carried forward from 2017.]

Do you have any sort of "To Do" list for Summer? Or maybe a "Honey Do"?
I'll report back again at the end of the July, progress or not.

Hey procrastinators -- last day to link up for June!
PSYCH!
The party continues until the end of August.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Linking up with
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