Baubles and bills

Oh, this November 15th cover has lots of pretty details to work with! Thank goodness for Hollywood with all its glitz and glamour.

I found the article on the Swiss video artist, Pipilotti Rist, most interesting, all the color, pattern and otherworldliness of it. Besides, she puts tiny video cameras on the ends of broomsticks to film inside little places and projects her films between floorboards, into purses and onto seashells. As a miniaturist, how could I not be intrigued?

Here’s something wonderful that’s been floating around the web. If anyone knows who made these similarly detailed and beautifully folded money people with their lovely money hats please let me know. Imagine the paper dolls you could make with these!!

“Designer, you have a wealth of riches to work with today. I know it will be hard for you to edit because everything is just so beautiful and you won’t want to leave anything out, but do try to blend things into a cohesive statement. You don’t want it to get too costumey and you want it to be wearable.”

“I know Tim, I’ll try, but you’re right, it would be such a shame to not use all of it.”

“Ok, well, get to work… and have fun with it!”

“Ok, thanks Tim, I will!”

“Nice work Designer.”

“Thanks Nina!”

Honorable judge

“Designers, I have a VERY BIG surprise for you. Today we have a Project Runway first, an unprecedented event. You will be designing for one of America’s leading style icons, America’s leading lady of fashion! Designers, I  am honored to introduce you to…… MICHELLE OBAMA!!”

“Hello Designers.”

“Um, hello Mrs. Obama….”

“You can call me Michelle.”

“You ok?”

“Yes, thank you. This is just… such a surprise!”

“Well, you know how I enjoy fashion and that I am pleased to showcase the work of new and talented (and sometimes little-known) designers. I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to give all of you the chance to have your designs seen around the world.”

(collective gasps and sighs)

“I hope you will have fun with this challenge. On the one hand, it’s important that your pieces be crisp and fresh and form-fitting with strong clean colors and bright clear prints (though I am open to other creative ideas!) but on the other, there are so many different events and situations I need to dress for, the types of garments you design for me are totally up to you.”

“As you know, I enjoy cardigans and trim dresses for day, casual sportswear for vacations, and beautiful ballgowns for special occasions. You’ve got three covers to work with this time, so the sky’s the limit!”

“This is SO EXCITING!”

“So, I wish you luck, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with for me.”

“Thank you Designers. I’ll see you on the runway.”

“Thank YOU Michelle! Bye.”

“Bye.”

When I think back on all the beautiful outfits Mrs. Obama has worn, I remember especially her yellow Isabel Toledo suit, other yellow outfits by Michael Kors, and her chartreuse skirt from J. Crew. I’m thinking I want to make a little spin on a yellow cardigan/jacket for her, something bright and current, yet formal in a Jackie Kennedy kind of way. I want it to be sleeveless and I want it to have buttons. I love her Jason Wu dresses and her fantastic silk sheaths by Thakoon. Maybe I’ll do something completely fitted, or maybe I’ll go for a fuller gathered skirt like some of the dresses she’s worn by Diane von Furstenberg and others…. I’ll have to see what my challenge fabrics have in store for me.

“Ok, Designers, since this is a double post, you will have a $12.00 budget to shop at Food for the Seattle editions of The New York Times Magazine for October 29th & November 8th, and then it’s time to make it work! Remember, it all starts and ends right there at Food in my opinion, so shop wisely. Good luck everyone. Go, go, go.”

“Thank you Tim.”

Now, tell me honestly, do you see a big difference between these two covers??

That’s ok, there are enough details to push them in different directions, you’ll see….

This Design and Living New York Times Style Magazine cover is great fun. I can definitely see making a ball gown from this.

“Ok, designers. That’s it, time’s up. It’s time for the runway!”

“Oh, this is just great. You’ve definitely tapped into my style. I love those kitten heels!”

“Now these bottletop heels are interesting. I’ve never seen any like them before and I do think it’s important to recycle. The skirt is absolutely perfect but the jewelry is a bit much for me. I’d like to wear this outfit but maybe with one of my quieter pins.”

“Ok, Designer, now you’ve gone way over the top. I think this outfit is more about your style than mine. As much as I love children and wish to encourage literacy, one thing you’re never going to catch me in is a Dr. Seuss hat! May I see this outfit without the accessories please?”

“Well, this is better but I still don’t think it’s quite me. I do like the colors and the hand painting but the 20’s shape is a little looser than I’d like. I’ll tell you what, I’ll enjoy trying it on, but I can’t promise to wear it to one of our functions.”

“I know. I got kind of carried away with a Raoul Dufy theme here.”

“We’ll just have to try it and see. I’m enjoying your exuberance!”

“Thank you so much Designers, I applaud all of your efforts! It’s been great fun being here with you for this show. You know how appreciative I am of fresh contemporary design and I will thoroughly enjoy wearing many of your creations.”

“Thank you Michelle, bye. It’s been an honor!”

Miniaturia

Hello everyone. Thanks for visiting my blog! I have a fun post planned for this week but I’m off to Philadelphia Miniaturia and so will do a double post next week. If you’re on the east coast, come visit me (Hestia House) at this wonderful miniature show: http://www.philadelphiaminiaturia.com. Thanks and bye for now, Ilisha

Twinkle

I had a lovely dream, not a big Jungian dream, but a tiny dream about a pretty blue cover I could make a flouncy little dress out of. I was imagining a delicate dress, something I could make with gossamer fabric, so light a fairy might wear it.

What I got instead for October 25th was Precious, Lee Daniel’s new movie about race, poverty, illiteracy, obesity, unspeakable sexual abuse by both parents, rape, incest, and most remarkably… hope.

Ok, I’ll bite. Sounds like an important film.

There was also another story of hope and renewal, the rebuilding of a neighborhood in San Diego after a wildfire swept through in 2007. Still vulnerable yet full of optimism and defiance, the owners have made their new houses bigger and more lavish than the ones that were destroyed.

I think, about that feathery dress, maybe where fresh starts are concerned, a little stardust could only help.

A fragile peace

Musings on homonyms, fractals, clones and other similarities

Hmmmm, should we get further entrenched in a war we shouldn’t be in that we won’t be able to get out of…. I’m feeling a distinct sense of deja vu about this, and I know I’m not alone…..

“Designer, talk to me.”

“Well Tim, I found this picture inside The New York Times Magazine and it inspired me to make a fabric, something lacy but with strong fibers that can hold together disperate elements.”

“That seems like a lot of work. Are you sure there’s time?”

“This is the time right now, Tim.”

“All right Designer. Carry on.”

The cover of the new Style magazine for Oct. 18th is such a smashing look I thought I’d make it into my weekly design, just like that, no interpretation, no creative thought.

Then inside I find an artist doing much the same thing with cows, though she is thinking quite pointedly and creatively. Julia Lohmann uses cow parts to make cow sculptures. It’s disturbing and maybe a little wasteful in that she’s using hides, though mostly she’s focusing on parts that would normally be discarded, and in doing so is getting viewers to think about the amount of waste in meat production.

I’m interested in the self similarity aspect of her work, about the scrambling of something to make it again, or some semblance of it, much the way I’m scrambling today’s cover before piecing it back together to reconstruct the image in a new form.

What is it that we’re doing anyway? Our creations are not  quite fractals (the most interesting self-similar things of all) where a small part of the whole has the same structure as the mass of such parts (I’m thinking of  clouds, cauliflower, broccoli… and I think also their fascinating hybrid, romanescue….),

and they’re not clones we’re making, but something inspired by an object or being and reconstructed from it’s parts to make something related yet original.

“Designer, one of your outfits is so strong and the other is so delicate today.”

“Yes, Heidi. One was handed to me and the other took a lot of effort, especially since I was trying to change the values in the image.”

“I can see that.  It’s beautiful but also a fragile piece.”

“I think it’s worth the effort.”

“Designer, I agree. You’re IN. You can leave the runway.”

Back to the future

I have eaten beef twice in the last 40 years. When I was twelve I read Diet for a Small Planet and found the various arguments for choosing a vegetarian diet made sense to me. I thought it would be healthier, a better use of resources, and also there was that less rational thought that on some level, animals were, well, “human” too. My mother told me that as long as I was careful to balance my amino acids (all but one anyway, which apparently you couldn’t get without meat) and added in cheese for good measure (rennet-free if possible), she would let me cook for myself. I made tasty casseroles which I planned to freeze for other days, but found my family enjoyed them as much as I did, which delighted me. I went on this way for the next eleven years (eggs yes, fertilized eggs no) and only thought of expanding my options a bit, surprisingly, after staring at a tall stack of folded laundry and realizing that all my clothes were pretty much all the same color, sea blue green. (This does happen to still be a favorite color of mine to wear (the outfit I put on most often, and in fact am wearing today, has six shades of it topped off with a blue green lampwork necklace) but now I’ve also added some pinks and a few soft browns and two dashing magenta coats! My Boden raincoat has huge white buttons and an eliptical spring green polka dot lining (such fun) and my winter coat, a truly fabulous fifties find, is such a vibrant shade of rose that you can actually see the blue and yellow highlights stand out from it on a sunny day. Now my wardrobe is not only more exciting, but laundry days are more fun too. In fact, being a textile person, I consider watching different fabrics tumble in a front loading dryer, a favorite sport!) So, what does all this talk of clothes and color have to do with eating meat? Well, simply put, I thought I’d imposed too many restrictions on my life and that by expanding the ring of possibilities just a little, I’d still be eating a little lower on the food chain than I had in my first twelve years, and yet could enjoy more options in life.

The other thing that helped tip my balance away from strict vegetarianism in the ’70’s is that it became increasingly hard to uphold my ideals when I wasn’t in a position to cook for myself. Smith College (a place I still love to this day) had small kitchens and in-house dining and wasn’t prepared for a vegetarian when I entered as a Freshman in 1975. Their concession (and thankfully they did try to accommodate me), was to offer a vegetarian dinner once a week. The alternatives on other days were a little bleak, cottage cheese and iceberg lettuce (along with some terribly unfortunate homogenized peanut butter that barely merits mention). The meager supplements I could afford, some almonds and what turned out to be bug infested dried apricots (even health food stores didn’t have it together in the ’70’s) and the occasional bean taco from downtown, proved inadequate and I became weak and hungry waiting for Thursday nights. It wasn’t that they didn’t serve vegetables, because they did, but meat was such a part of the culture, that bits and pieces of it slipped into other dishes as a way of making them special. I remember some sort of English pudding at Christmas that was made with suet, and lardons now and again topping off otherwise greenish foods. They also left sticky baked goods out for snacking at night. So there it was, even back then, even there, the possibility of being overweight and malnourished at the same time. I was able to move into a coop my second year and eventually moved off campus where I became the house baker of twice risen whole grain breads, and all once again became delicious in the world.

So the two hamburgers…. They were delicious too. I worked around the clock in graduate school for weeks at a time (I studied graphic design at Yale) and the hamburgers definitely filled a deep void, but they were aberrations and made me uncomfortable on some level of my consciousness. Now, here I am reading the food issue of the New York Times Magazine, Oct. 11th, 2009, and am taking a look back and also a look forward.

As you can tell by now, I enjoy flipping through.

Ummmm, pretty type!

Pretty spread.

Pretty ad.

Oh, this is just gorgeous!

I’ve taken a great interest in the unfolding of the natural/organic/biodynamic/slow/green food movement in this country. I loved following Alice Waters’ work introducing school children to farming to instill a love of vegetables and healthier choices.

(Here is some garlic of my own, my very first crop!)

I enjoyed watching Harvard students follow Alice’s example, growing their own food, and I was especially happy to see Smith adopt centralized dining so that all vegetarian students, whether for religious reasons or otherwise, can now gather together in the vegetarian dining hall to share convictions they have in common. It is a thrill to read that the answer to our nation’s hungry seems to lie in the fresh leftovers abandoned until now in our fields, and then there is once again the question raised by Jonathan Safran Foer. Just when did we decide that some animals are for loving and others are meant to be eaten? I’ve been quite content for almost thirty years now skipping beef and pork but adding fish and chicken to my formerly strict vegetarian diet, and I do believe variety in one’s diet is important, but just when did eating animals become the norm? Just think cavemen, I guess, when we were less evolved.

I raise canaries…

have a husky…

and love playing with my brother’s cats….

It’s a question about why fish and chickens are ok to eat… something worth revisiting.

After last week’s wooden looking ensemble I’m hoping to come up with something more fluid today. I liked the paneled blouse (a bit Victorian, a bit folkloric) and am thinking a fun folkloric dress inspired in part by the beginnings of America’s natural food movement might just fit the bill. Here it is with a totally out there Peruvian hat!

Hungry for more? Two of my friends have beautiful and inspiring food blogs I’d live to share. Liza takes you home to her kitchen via her designerly photographs. She has made (among other delicious treats) a unique sourdough starter from a radicchio leaf, http://knittingalife.com/. Susan takes you with her on her travels as she shares culinary thoughts and brings recipes to treasure home to your kitchen, http://www.sweetleisure.com. Enjoy!

The comfy couch

“Designers, gather ’round. Today’s challenge involves a balance of basic design elements: form, color, structure, texture, line…. You’ve worked with pattern recently so we want you to think about some of these other ideas. You will have a budget of $6.00 to buy the Seattle edition of the Sunday New York Times and only five minutes to shop at Food. Ready? Time starts… NOW!”

“OK, Designers, time’s up! As you see, you’ll again have two covers to work with this week, October 4th. The first is almost too beautiful to cut into, so work VERY CAREFULLY.”

“I know, you just want to move right in, don’t you?”

“The second, well, rearranging it can only be an improvement….”

“All right, Designer, you don’t have much time this week. Go go go, get to work!”

“Model it’s time for your fitting, and then we’ll start the show.”

“Can you show us what’s under the coat?”

“We feel the coat is inflated and dumpy looking. On the other hand, it is difficult to wear stuffed upholstery successfully. This has turned out to be a difficult challenge this week, but we do like your architectural ideas. Perhaps a little less time goofing off on the comfy couch and a little more time at the drawing board next time, Ok?”

“Designer, you’re IN. You can leave the runway.”

“Thank you, Heidi!”

Women warriors

September 27th, FINALLY I get to use the accessory wall!!

Check out this glorious boot. It’s a gift!!! And it’s perfectly sized. Now I just need to make another one, hmmmmm. The red panels (reminiscent of last week’s Red book) are begging to be pleated, Samurai style. This cover is telling me what to do, much like its predecessor, the “RIPPED!” cover, which got me started on my fashionable year. But wait, inside I see a spiked and studded Prada shoe that reminds me of an Etruscan helmet. It’s been abandoned on a stair (by a modern-day Cinderella? Or perhaps by Alice in Wonderland?) amid pointy grasses and the hugest furry caterpillar I’ve ever seen! Put the red Vietnamese wooden panels together with that shoe and I wonder what you get?

(As I work, I’m smelling the faint aroma of an Italian-speaking cheese, one I’ve climbed high up a steep misty mountain in Switzerland to find, down in the depths of a musty cellar pantry.)

A dance club for young gays run by their supportive moms… what an incredibly beautiful thing. Imagine how that kind of love and acceptance could have changed the lives of so many before them.

So it’s the internet that’s helped young gays find each other and given them their newfound confidence. Interesting articles this week.

Last night I watched a few hours of fashionable television, The House of Eliott, a banquet of twenties elegance as envisioned by two women trying to forge a business in a world of male finance, and the new episode of Project Runway, the blue challenge. Here’s a combination of the two.

Dreams and visions

“Rise and shine Designers, you have a big day ahead of you.”

Today’s challenge involves the publication of Carl Jung’s mysterious Red book, which has long been secreted away and only recently been made public by his heirs. The September 20th New York Times Magazine cover looks positively pentecostal, yet Jung’s images inside, of dreams and madness, have a magnificent mystical quality.

All my life I’ve dreamed in pattern. When I was six-years-old my parents taught me the design technique of carving shapes into erasers to use for stamping designs. I used to sit duck-legged on the floor making the house shake with my purposeful stamping. I became fascinated by the ranges of different patterns that could be generated using the same block in multiple ways (the way I still design things today, one idea building on another), and thus began my nineteen-year career as a textile designer. At twelve I got my first of five NY textile agents and in college I studied the math behind what I was doing. I’ve been papering my world in patterns ever since.

“Where did you get the idea of making a dress after Klimpt?”

“Honestly, I have no idea….. I think maybe I saw it in a dream.”

“Was it a big dream?”

“Not any bigger than usual.”

“But do you feel refreshed and renewed now that you’ve acted on it?”

“Yes, actually. I’m quite pleased with my dress.”

“Ah, I see you value your inner life.”

“Huh?…. Well, maybe I do.”

“Sleep well.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Mother love

Lucky 13th, I get two covers to play with this week!

The September 13th New York Times Magazine cover is pretty wild, a bit Keith Haring, a bit spritzer cookie dough letters, melting nicely in a blazing sunset.

I guess even though Keith was an icon of the 80’s (and even though he had a studio in our building in NY), I’ve got to go mod 60’s with this one. I’m trying to remember how old I was when I drew the paper doll who lived in my desk at school. To the best of my recollection, I was in the third grade. I was very into this go-go dancer look at the time. I wanted white go-go boots more than anything but my mom settled on teaching me how to dance. She had me stay on one spot on the border of a beautifully knotted carpet, perfecting my go-go moves until I managed to coordinate my discombobulated body to the rhythm of a very early (and totally enthralling) Beatles’ song. As you can imagine, my paper doll had go-go boots. White ones. She also had the flippy scooter skirts I’d always coveted, a trim little skort, bellbottoms, fishnet stockings and large print mini dresses with centrally placed, oversized ring-pull zippers. This doll was quite a departure from the commercial baby dolls I’d cut out from a drugstore booklet when I was five, though clearly the printed dolls provided good practice.

Did you see Rhona Janzen’s Lives conversation with her mom? That was hysterical! A client stopped in with her mother today, and it got me thinking about how much of what we are, has been shaped in a myriad of ways, by the gifts of our mothers. Thoughts of mothers seem to be everywhere, very sad recent losses for some, squiggly new puppies for others…. This week’s bonus Mens’ Style Magazine cover, a tasteful study in black white and red, is reminding me of a much earlier such study of my own.

Flipping through I’m inspired by a model sporting a dashing Armani look, and by a slender faced, gentle looking dog… who you’ll notice upon checking the amusingly sneaky footwork, turns out to have the upper hand!

“Designer, when you’re done with this fitting send your model down to hair and make-up.”

“Tim, this duo is dedicated to my the memory of my mom.”

“Ok, Designer, let’s start the show.”