Please vote for me in the GenArt Plastics Make It Possible Competition!

Gen Art is holding a fashion design competition sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, called Plastics Make It Possible. All designs had to be constructed of synthetic materials and had to include 2 looks. The winner will receive $10,000 to make a small collection that will be shown during fashion week in NYC for fall/winter10. Designs are uploaded to the Genart Discover website and users rate and review the works, and the design with the highest score is the winner.

I am imploring you to please take just a few minutes out of your day to visit the site, check out my design, and give me a high rating. The more votes I get, the closer I can come to winning and showing my work to the world, so please after voting, pass this along to a few friends, family, etc to increase my chances. I usually don't like to ask for help like this because I don't want to be a pain to anyone, but this time I really am relying on all of you out there to help me!

here's the link to see all the photos of my entry, as well as where you can read my full description of the garments, and rate and review my work:
http://discover.genart.org/media/view/1065/anchor=&clean_title=motions-of-the-hours


To be able to vote, you have to create a user account, which is free and they don't send you any spam as I've had an account for several months. It literally took me 60 seconds to get it, its super easy. You can always just delete it afterward if you don't want to keep it

Again, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for helping me out!!!!!


Additional thanks to the always lovely Jocelyn Farwell for modeling, and to Jullian Woods for the ever outstanding photography!

FML

so fml


my bike got stolen. as if on top of everything else, I just needed my one little bit of love and joy to be snatched away. That ride to and from work, in the wind, in the rain, in between busses and yuppies driving SUVs with a starbucks in one hand and a iphone in the other, it was my meditation for the day. Pop those headphones in, put on some beats, and I could just ride for miles and miles, that repetition that balance that fluid movement. Gone.

So I was really sick all week. Like I was almost ready to march my ass to the ER on wednesday, like I was all ready to tell people I got some Hiney (mostly just amused that someone decided to start calling it that somewhere out there on the interwebs, because what makes a pandemic seem less threatening than a cutesey name), but it really just ended up being a really nasty cold that made me miss work this week (and be late on my rent too). Before that I was sick with problems still stemming back to a bad reaction I had with some medication like 6 months ago since my hormones are going all oout of control. Oh yeah and last week I lost my keys, that was really fun and I'm not even going to go into how much fun I had. So I couldn't go rescue my baby from where I parked it up in Wickerpark over the weekend because by the time I was able to come back and ride it home, that's when I got sick and have been on bedrest till today. So when I came back to get my ride today, instead of the bike, I simply found the pole it had been locked to, bent at about a 30 degree angle across the sidewalk with no bike on it. The tears will come most likely at some point next week when I am stuck on a redline and am about to throttle someone.

seriously i need to go get like screenwriting for dummies or something and just write everything how it happens to me day by day, and i'll be swimmin in money in a few months after i sell the script to like CBS as a 30 min sitcom. I kinda want to make every sound on my cell phone be a laugh track because i feel like that, and a studio audience, are the only things keeping my life from being someone's sitcom.

so yeah.fml

there will be no more of this anytime in the near future, more like beat up paperbacks stolen from the harold washington library and rice with soy sauce for me.

in case your the dickhead who took my bike, i will castrate you with a mellonballer when i get my hands on you

so simple. and yet....

....so eternally frustrating

holy crap, awesome!

in my tumbleweed-esque rolling about the internet, i bumped into this. I think i have a new favorite website.

better words than I haven't

So in addition to my sorta kinda full time now turned holy crap more over time than i can shake a fist at job as a seamstress in lakeview, a commute that's seen me drop weight like ......i can't really think of any non-offensive euphemism at this hour, but in addition to that job, i've been working for the YingYing Yang ltd on the side. Alstaire of Veil got me into it (also go check out their stuff, it just went up in the window of Gamma Player over on Division st tonight. i grovel at the knees of the mannequins of such amazing work, plus Al is my absolute kindred spirit of design, love ya!) back when I graduated simply because I was bored out of my mind and loosing my drive for a bit. Ying is great and she's trying to get a design collective going, and its truely a challenge for me to get out of my target market mindset and get into the "seven to seven" state of mind as she calls it. Basically apparel for the professional woman who knows what she likes. Not what I typically think of as a customer, but I enjoy working around those things, keeps me from getting in a rut or anything.

We're rampin up things to get ready for spring 2010 production, so get ready to hear more and more about this whole project. But in the mean time, the website got updated with designer profiles, and I must say that of all the designer profiles and whatnot I've had to write about myself, or have been slapped together by unfamiliar ears, this has got to be the best one so far. I'm exceedingly flattered that someone could sum up my skills better than I could possibly ask for.

I'd say that's it for now, but as I'm a visual learner and text is....boring to be honest, here's a pic of me from the jettision quarterly shoot....which makes me look fat as hell compared to the giraffe i'm standing next to.....oh fixed gear biking....how you only made me more muscular and not stick skinny as i foolishly had hoped 2 years ago....

this winter is a little impatient

.....oh i hate cracking jokes about my last name, but sometimes they slip out.

I think this is my first time in a VERY LONG TIME that I've been able to kick back and relax both personally and professionally, and.....I'm bored. Of course you can't take work away from a workaholic without withdrawl any more than you can take herion away from an addict.

While August was jammed full of artistic endeavors, September was chocked full of social engagements. In addition to the Jettison Quarterly release, at the same time my cousin from the UK and her boyfriend came and stayed with me for a good part of a week (which considering my full time job and the fact that I live in what amounts to a total hole in the wall starving artist's crash pad, had me runnin around like a chicken with its head cut off), then the following week I pretty much didn't sleep for 3 nights to throw together a dress to wear to my cousin's wedding, which we drove up to Minneapolis the morning of the wedding....

There's me on the left there. Made it from a Nancy Reagan esque beaded skirt and then cut a bunch of bias strips of the gabardine left over from Fred's suit jacket for the top part. oh and most of it was handsewn on the car ride there....

And then the following weekend was my birthday. So let me preface with the fact that until my previous birthday, all years before had been atrocious, generally meeting with some horrible emotional trauma or utter disappointment. Last year was peaceful and joyous, yet nothing exciting. I've never been one to be like, Wooo its my birthday lets partay all week, but seeing as it was actually on a Monday, I had a few days of celebration, a goodbye sotospeak of my year I got my act together, and a welcoming of the first year of official adult mode.
So the best way to get people to not bother you on the cta is to open up your purse and start pulling feathers out everywhere and then start pinning a bunch of needles and other sharp impliments to your clothes. no fat woman is gonna try to share that bench with you any time soon. Hard to tell in the photo because I was leaning forward on a particularly uncomfortable ottoman, but I've lost so much weight that this dress that once barely fit at all, had to be taken in 2 inches on both sides, hemmed 4 inches because it was hanging down past my knees, and now i can actually button those cuffs around my upper arm, and I had a whole other button undone at the bust and I wasn't spilling out of the dress. Kinda makes me wish I could go back in time to all the times I had such a terrible self image and no self esteem and just show myself what's possible.

So since i've lost so much weight (i've sort of settled at about a 6/7ish, having been at my worst in college a 12, but at my last birthday I'd say i was like a 9/10, and at 13 I was my worst at a 16 to 18. If i stopped the starbucks drinkin and dropped a bit more of the junk food binges I am occasionally guilty of [whole box of poptarts in a day is my worst, but then again I make up for it by biking a lot the next day] I could probably make it down to a solid 6, I'd like to get to a 4 though and maybe squeeze my tush into some of the leather stuff i made for my thesis once upon a time) none of my fall clothes fit. And it seemed about the right time for a total image change, since last year I was trying to ride through the winter for the first time and was all about gigantic oversized cosby sweaters, unflattering mom jeans, and scuffed up and muddy knee high boots. When I was pulling out my fall clothes I packed away in a box when I moved down to pilsen, I tried on everything and felt like a kid trying to wear adult clothes. A pair of high waisted size 6 jeans that I bought like a year ago at a thrift store as a joke, that couldn't get up over my thighs back in March, zipped right up, with room to spare in the seat. So I scrambled through the wardrobe, gave away a good large trash bag sized pile of clothes, and started sewin away some new stuff.

At the same time I got some new glasses. I've been a four eyes for over a decade now and I always hated wearing my glasses. Frankly for the past 2 years I wore my contacts just about all the time. I had heard about some websites that sell super cheap glasses so I checked them out and bought these puppies from bestpriceglasses.com, prescription lenses, antiscratch coating, and shipping for only $65. I got another pair that are black and more square but equally large and nerdy from zennioptical.com for only $40. Last fall and winter I'd sum up my color pallet as purple, medium grey, black, and cerulean blue. This year its rust, steel blue, navy, cream, charcoal, and a light cool grey. As you can see from that first photo, I'm definitely goin for a total nerdy look, I'm callin my whole look for this winter (biking and all) Buddy Holly Goes Deer Hunting.

I'm going to refuse to buy anything new (asides essentials like socks n that shtuff) for my whole 23rd year on this earth, so either thrifted clothes, garments I've sewn from scratch, or chimera garments from used and new materials. Its definitely something I've toyed with doing for a while, but this week alone i've slapped out quite a few garments for only a few bucks a pop (thank you remnants table at Vogue fabrics) and its giving me the flat patternmaking kick in the ass I needed. I actually came across this blog where a chick is making absolutely everything she's wearing for the next year, underwear, shoes and all. Its a super inspiration, and I'm going to figure out how to set up my camera to take some good polariod style shots of what I make for myself.


well, now what to do for the very rapidly approaching winter? I'm sort of perched on this fence right now, one side is grad school applications, the other is starting my own line and really goin all out to the point where I don't need a day job to pay the rent. Both roads are hard and harsh, and both involve gettin my butt in line and making a full rounded portfolio. That would be it then, charging ahead with both routes and getting everything together. Needless to say, I'm excited about it all. Five years ago, at my worst hour, I never once thought I'd ever be here, and I'm proud of myself for all the pitfalls it took to get here. My birthday wishes this year were not for love or happiness or material things as they have been in the past, it was for absolute success.

Jettison Quarterly Release

This Thursday, be there for the first chances to see the third issue, with my holy crap amazing shoot! If you can't make it down to my new favorite place to spend money, check out the new issue when it comes out on friday, online for free.
www.jettisonquarterly.com

aaaaaand here's a taste of what craziness you might see then haha.