[So we’re going to proceed as though I’ve not, NOT blogged for ages. And you know I get bloggers guilt, mhm.] SO this is a jacket I worked on last week. Finally, some fashion talk right?! The Eco-Activist B.Boy, Cavem Motivation came to me the other week seeking out some customization in his wears for a performance. His style sense is very unique and eclectic in general. …B.Boy, classic, Afrikan, punk rock, you name it he rocks it all. The “fashion mash-up” is no easy feat but I must say he is one person that always manages to pull it off successfully.
The best part of any project is when people are willing to give you creative license. Personally I think the results are always better when they do. Still, I never take for granted the “gift” of creative license. I know it’s not easy to pay someone and trust that what they come back with will be an accurate representation of you or simply to your liking. Don’t mistake it, I appreciate some direction: “…What do you want the piece to do? What do YOU do? Is it for anything specific? How do you want to feel? Let’s talk body type? Color?” When it gets to the point where people start trying to tell YOU how to make something, well….lets just say it can go from spiritual work to grunt work in a matter of seconds! I’m pleased to report that here I was granted full CREATIVE LICENSE.
In the past one of my favorite things to do was funk-out old blazers. Primarily by stitching the word GROW on the back in various prints and textures. It started as my modern-day wEmusTgRoW version of the letter jacket. You may have heard me reference my artistic A.D.D. before: I make something a few times, then its on to the next. Unless there is a photo of the piece sitting in front of me at all times, it’s very easy for things to get lost in the “outta sight outta mind” pile or amidst one of the many files in my brain. In other words, it had been four years since I’d played with the blazers. So when Ietef {Cavem Motivation} requested a GROW blazer, I was happy! After all it was time for me to revisit the blazer again and apparently this was a sign. Throw in some creative license which is the monotany-free guarantee and its that much sweeter!
Being that I was revisiting a past design, I didn’t want to simply do the same old simple “GROW” on the back. It COULDN’T have the same old simple “GROW” on the back. It had to be different. After four years, I’m different right? So, ya know we have to keep it fresh. So this time I recycled some leather, still used the letters, but thought I’d venture out and insert my “Fist Tree” in place of the letter “O”.
I admit, I was a little scared. I based the fist off of an image I’d found but still had to do some tweaking and freestyle the tree roots and things. One false snip, and it could have been all bad. You can’t really pin leather to wool or glue it so I just had to trust that it would stay in place, that nothing would shift under Kenny’s foot (Kenny is my machine), or pucker or bubble or anything like that. Having to pick out stitches from wool and leather would have been nothing short of a nightmare!!! BUT….the risk I took. We must grow right?! Like walking on egg shells I stitched the Tree Fist first.
[INTERNAL THOUGHTS] …Get the hardest part out of the way first right? Stitch one finger….two fingers! Don’t get the lining caught under the stiches!…three fingersss!….(dare i get excited??) FOURTH FINGER STITCHED!!! Watch the lining! Then the letters: Red thread, black thread? green thread? Red, black and green thread? Too much, too crafty, too cheesy, stay red. It represents the blooood…the lifeline. Yeah yeah, red it is. DAMNIT! The lining got caught! Somebody get the seam ripper! pick…pick…pick…sigh…pick, and we begin again. Last letter! …..and….W…done!!!! That’s it?! That was almost too easy! Amazing! …And it stayed in place? Fear conquered.
GROW =because we must and TREE FIST =because while we must grow, our roots hold a lot and are signficant to our growth process in a multitude of ways. …”Ancestrally” speaking as well as individually. Our foundation is what holds us up and is the beginning of any and everything. How we think, how we see ourselves and how we ultimately move in the world. The fist for strength. It requires strength to GROW, and certainty, and trust in the process and the outcome. If we’re talking about it being or affecting more than one then it requires a “solidarity” of sorts. Last but not least….being that he is the “Eco-Activist B.Boy”, the word is something of a double entendre as it applies to him (I love that word!). Not only wEmusTgRoW in the spiritual sense, but hEmusTgRoW in the literal sense being that much of his work is dedicated not only to music, but to growth and sustainability in the green movement. …As in literally growing things (i.e. community gardens, etc.). In addition to all of this, he recently married and had a baby…You see where I’m going with this? I think you do.
Overall, I must say the leather was very nice to me! It did what I asked of it! But I then I was calling on the assistance of the “Grow Gods” before I started. I think they came through. And THAT ladies and gentlemen is how the “wEmusTgRoW TreeFist Jacket” was born.
“…Keepin’ the fashion love alive in Studio5”.
-h.kai
