Artisan Workmanship as an alternate to Child Labor and Unethical Corporate Operations

I have a vision. It includes fabricating all of our own clothing. Why? It's simple. Somewhere, someone is working for pennies a day to provide me a means of obtaining clothing at a very cheap price. That same article of textile, may also be by the brow sweat of a child, only then to be shipped around the world and in the process unnecessarily using fossil fuels to gratify my personal needs. We rarely shop new in our home. For that very reason, someone making a good profit at the expense of a less fortunate people. A people who, if they were offered true opportunities for growth and advancement, may find themselves in rewarding trades and caring for the needs of their own families in a way that is much more economical than what they have been forced into as their only option for survival. Here, in my small corner of Carleton County, I strive to provide for our own needs economically. Often times it includes a lot of second hand deals, yard sales and hand me downs. I often find myself in a place where finding suitable clothing that both reflects my values and emits an essence of who I am, can be hard. Skirts, in particular are hard to find. I prefer long skirts, and being rather tall, I have a hard time to find a good length that is practical for me. I have made many of my own skits. I have big plans for this winter to create a pattern for pants that my Husband and Children can wear. Seems the male gender is extremely hard on jeans (at least in this home), and my gent's often require odd sizes. I often find myself sifting through my children's clothing and weeding out inappropriate options. For example, we don't allow skulls and cross bones on the kids clothing, or rebellious slogans..but they are often gifted to us, or passed on and land here. I also find myself sorting through my tops. After having been enlightened to the complex and often controversial topic of modesty, I have found more and more that the slim fit and v-neck style of women's fashion tops is both not for me and hard to avoid. And so, I have come to a place where using my practical sewing skills, has shown a benefit to my family. Each year I learn more about how clothing is designed, and how to piece it together. Each year, I add a few pieces to my own closet, and now I am ready to offer those options to the other members of the home, with their willingness.

As part of broadening my audience for the hand sewn, died, and artisan graphics I create, I am also offering a selection of items for locals to enjoy in. My wish is for them to value quality artisan work, that has come by way of ethical and sustainable means where the workers get paid an honest pay. The only true way to voice the concerns about child labor and reject the caste systems in India is through a boycott. When we refrain from enabling the big corporations with our hard earned cash, they want to know why. They have men in suits hired for a large salary to research consumer behavior. If we, as the mass of consumers (North America?) would put our money where our mouth is, then we can be change. When they see the money going to ethical and sustainable providers (instead of their own, inhumane operations), they can and will respond to that by adopting those same values, or go broke). I am but one person, but my desire is to offer an alternative to mass factory, and low wages. 

-Bohemian Hand Bag-

"TRIBAL INK"

I have spent some time working with fabrics these past few weeks. Today I finished a very special piece. I name it "Tribal Ink". With patience, I watched as my hands worked the bare muslin into its form. Then I used the ink from wild forage shaggy mane mushrooms to base dye the textile, and then pattern dye with a mixture of  hand picked local blueberries and home grown spinach. Rinsing the final debris away, to reveal the colors is always such an exciting moment. Ahh..perfect color. Up-cycling some remnant fabrics, I add character and interest to the structure. And finally, the long awaited hand printed graphics are created. This is the second of my -Bohemian Hand Bag- collection. The first has been kept as my personal favorite. I temptingly gazed at the collage, and longed for it for my own personal use...but hey, how many hand bags are *really* practical? Ahem..One. 

Artist ambitions, and sleeplessness.

Up at 3 am, thinking about the self digesting mushrooms that are sitting on my back porch, maturing into a raw silky ink. I was dreaming of dying some fabric in this medium, when all of a sudden, images of mushrooms spawning from a hand bag came to mind. Oh the woe's of an artist. Scratch using raw ink, I'm not into mobile gardens. I'll cook it before I start painting. Am I the only one laughing? 

Yes..perhaps I am. But it is a rolling, hysterical laugh. I love it. 

I started making a handbag yesterday, amiss the catastrophic state of my home. I should have been doing something more productive, but eating away at me was the drive to create a masterwork of art. With the sewing part done, I resumed my more "time sensitive" duties, and left the hand bag to wait until more time came to finish it. As I slept, I was awakened by the silent sound of inky caps disintegrating on my back porch. No, there really was no sound, just in my imagination. Restless (I have a tenancy to not sleep well on full ambitions) and not able to return to sleep, I motioned towards the place where the mushrooms, ink and all, were awaiting me. They are still there. I contemplate whether to bring the black murky fluid into my house just yet. The cooking process (which stops the decomposition, and kills spores..aka, no mobile garden) is one, in which, brings out the foulness of odor from the ink. Although it will quickly dissipate, I cannot help but wonder if my slumbering husband and children will be wakened by my 3 am madness. Sigh. There is not a lot a person can do on a sleepless night in a home where echoes of the furnace vent from the basement can be heard in the still, quiet air of a fall night. I best just blog for now. 

I am both surprised and amazed at my new found creative re-awakening. A few years back, I had a complete stall. Artist block if you might call it that. The birth of my last child put a u-turn in my personal aspirations. And before that, it had been a year or so since I had spontaneously produced anything truly creative. I feel that, as an artist, one needs to have the urge to create. Mandated genius does not come in a natural form. Self propelled, inspired desire does. I have never been much of a conformist. I have never been able to produce any good art on demand. Consignment is not my thing. My art comes without plans, or an agenda. I cannot even knit because of the confinements of a pattern one must follow. When I sit to work, I simply have a vague idea of how my piece will "feel", and without a clue as to how I will get there, without a draft, I just jump in. As I start, something starts to form. At times it is genius, others end as a meaningless flop. That is the bargain I play. Some spend tedious hours creating pre-sketches, only to replicate the same thing again in the main course. Why? Perhaps I missed something in the art class that I did not attend. But for me, once the sketch is done, so is the fun? I am certainly and in no way mocking those who dedicate such time and focus to their work, I am just a different grain of salt. I cannot fathom following such formalities when it comes to genuinely expelling inspired art.  

I will share with you with a beautiful and inspiring landscape created with none other; the ink-cap.

Beautiful. I find Peter Ward's work fascinating. He is, to say the least, a very skilled artist.

This is one of the very few, and perhaps the best modern ink-cap art that I have come across in my research.

Although the current project I am working on will use the ink-cap as a dye, I am contemplating using it as a paint in the same way Peter did here on this piece. 

 ink-cap landscape (shaggy-ink-cap-ink; pward 1995)

Shaggy Mane...and how I got there

Yesterday I was out and about town running errands. As we were driving the short stretch of highway from one end of town to the other, I naturally scanned the scenery. Lawns, trees, forest floor. It's second nature for me now. And I always travel prepared to harvest something. As we slowed for our exit, I saw the shaggy manes from the corner of my eye. At the top of a rock wall, on the lawn of a local hotel. Instantly I turned into the parking lot and gathered the best of them. 

As I sorted through them at home and cleaned off the superficial debris, I was reminded of the first time I had ever gathered these delectable shrooms. In my novice, I had gathered ALL the mushrooms. Inky and all! I was regretfully unaware of the common knowledge to pick only the freshest and whitest shaggies. In my fury to stock up on them, I unwittingly had placed in my basket specimens that turned to ink instantly..thus making for a horrible MESS. My baskets are still stained, the black ink forever will remind me. As I look back at the "flops" of the harvest, I recount how much I have learned this mushroom season. I had started foraging mushrooms with much uncertainty, roaming the woods searching, with no clue that those fungi that I found and left in the forest could have been such a treat in the kitchen. But for fear, I had left them. The more I learn about mushrooms, keys, genera, identification jargon, spores, distribution, key traits, the vocabulary to define those traits, and Latin words, the more secure I am in eating, and sharing, and conquering new and foreign places. I believe I have overcome the mountain of amateur uncertainties, and now in the abundant valleys of experience..full of edible and medicinal fungi! It feels good.