swap-o-rama-rama

"There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness." Gandhi

i can not wait for december 16th, the swap-o-rama-rama is coming to el lay!! i discovered the sorr a few months ago when i was researching re-made clothing and came across their website which featured images of not one, but two of my very dearest girlfriends! so i knew that this was something that i needed to know about!

say hello to my dear friend maryann (aka orange) who worked with me in the environmental consulting world in sacramento when i first moved to california. she introduced me to the n street co-op that eventually became my home in davis. that's the fabulous amy in the background. this photo is from the san francisco sorr.

and my sweet kristy who went through landscape architecture school with me at penn state. she is crafty beyond comprehension and a very green lady indeed. this is her sewing up her masterpiece at the brooklyn sorr.

sorr is basically a huge clothing swap and series of do-it-yourself workshops that help participants unleash their creative genius. the following is from an email that i received recently:

It's easy to move from consumer to creator! At Swap-O-Rama-Rama you'll find talented indie designers and DIY stations where you can learn traditional crafts like embroidery, beading and appliqué. These include sewing stations with sewing machines run by knowledgeable clothing and costume designers; silk screening, and decoration stations for working with beads, buttons, and a variety of accouterments. This year we'll have a team of LA's best volunteers ready to help you find a new recycled look. But of course the core of the swap is the gigantic piles of free clothing sorted into categories: pants, shirts, skirts, sweaters etc. These piles are the collective total of each guest’s contribution of one bag of unwanted clothes. Take home as much clothing as you can carry. Remainders go to Out of The Closet Thrift Stores.

so start decluttering your closet now (i already have a bag of clothes ready) and join me at the swap-o-rama-rama el lay...

december 16th, 11am to 7pm
$5 plus any size bag of unwanted clothing
$10 without clothing
once inside all of the materials for creativity and all the clothes you can carry are free
all ages welcome!
join the list: swaporamarama-subscribe@gaiatreehouse.com

location: shrine auditorium expo center
700 w 32nd st, la 90007

art is trash

this past weekend was the brewery's fall artwalk, and the original phil and i ventured downtown to check it out on saturday. if you aren't familiar, the brewery is housed in an old industrial pabst complex converted to the largest live-work artist collective in the world. the artist's open their studios twice a year to the public. the work was very inspiring...but even more so to me, is experiencing the living spaces of the artists. i came very close to moving into the brewery last year, but was working on the west side at the time and did not want to deal with the commute from downtown. it is definitely more tempting to move there now, although the poor air quality and lack of walkable things to do leaves me less inspired...

anyways, the brewery was alot of fun indeed, i even ran into some familiar faces such as steve samo and christian of tin foil man, blacksmith and sculptor extraordinaire...always a pleasure :) i was also fabulously inspired by artists such as annie terrazzo of art is trash. annie's work is raw and beautiful, and very green (as she creates her work from other people's trash). as she says on her site bio:

"I have no inspiration, I only have reaction and my work was born out of nothing but that and sheer poverty. Back in 2003, I didnt have the money to afford real materials so I was forced to improvise. Id find used canvases at thrift stores (that always had Cousin Emilys first oil paint lesson on it) and
rummage through clearance barrels for paint and glue at the cheap markets
to get the basics. After the first layer was done, Id take it apart, destroy
something, put it back together and then find some trash on the street
(perhaps yours?) and make art out of it. Now, its been a few years since I began working this trash and I can afford better materials, but I dont bother. There is something about the sad little abused canvases I find. They have a history, a prior life and a story to tell. Each one is a piece from someones past. Each had a use or was loved and lost or tossed aside."

i love the trash to treasure theme of annie's work. the brewery itself is a great example of adaptive reuse as well, as the complex could have surely been torn down to create brand new lofts like the ones going up all over downtown... but the brewery has history, it has character, and like annie's work, it is full of stories....

the brewery art walk is offered biannually, so add it to your spring calendar yo!