Work Table : The Dress ... for lack of a better name for now

Over the past month I've been processing all of the sewing I did over the summer into a new piece. I'm working on a dress, but not an ordinary dress. This one is made up of sixty four pieces of clothing. These sixty four castoffs (from my and my friend's closests) represent the amount of clothing that the average American purchases every year. I learned this little fact from reading Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth Cline.  Ponder this for a moment. That's over one new article of clothing a week. Really? It's hard to visualize, no? Hopefully, this dress will help us see it for what it is.

The images show only twelve pieces of clothing at this stage, a far cry from sixty four. And yes, that will be some train coming off the back.

Most of us are guilty of buying a lot clothes these days, myself included. It took me an entire year to figure out why I wasn't wearing half the clothes in my closet. It's because after one wash, they never look as good as they did on the rack. In fact, they look terrible. Oh yeah, it's because they're cheaply made! So the clothing languishes in my closet, unworn.

This dress also won't be worn, unless I want to break my back wearing it. But, hopefully, it will make a statement about how much we're wasting with the 'fast fashion' movement. We will be able to see it with our own eyes.

And now I need to come up with a name for the dress or, perhaps the project, if it turns into one. I ponder that as I sew it together. Yes, I'm handsewing it. With a visible, bright red thread, of course.

Exhibition schedule and catching up

I've been so busy the last few weeks I didn't even remember the last time I posted here. At least I left the blog with some lovely eye candy. I'm also behind in updating my current exhibition schedule so here we go. Currently, the Foreclosure Quilts are spread across the U.S. Here's a little info on each show:

Unbound: Quilters and Artists Redefine Quilts, September 11 through November 5. Hollister Gallery, Babson College, Babson Park, Massachusetts. For all of you east coasters, this should be a wonderful show, especially if you're interested in quilts. Be sure to check it out before it closes. I was only able to spare one quilt for the duration of the show but it's my latest one, Miami. My, have I even shared Miami with you yet?? Once I have it back, I'll take some better photos and repost them.

Miami Foreclosure Quilt, 2013.

Material Witness, September 26 through November 15th. Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College, Atlanta, Georgia. I have a great story to go with this gallery. My late aunt, Louisa McIntosh, owned the McIntosh Gallery in Atlanta. (Yes, I'm a Southerner and yes, my maiden name was McIntosh - why did I give that up!) When I was thirteen, I had such a memorable experience visiting the gallery for the first time. Something I had been studying in art class at school was expressed in a painting on her gallery walls. There was a click that went off in my head that said "You need to be an artist when you grow up." I even made my dad take a picture of the moment. She attended Agnes Scott College so it is like full circle to exhibit my work here. I have two quilts in the show: Albuquerque and Riverside.

Albuquerque Foreclosure Quilt, 2011.

SPRAWL, October 4 through January 5, 2014. Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, Texas. This looks like such an exciting show and I'm thrilled that when you hit HCCC's main website, you're hit with a picture of the Chicago quilt. I have three quilts in this exhibition: Chicago, Detroit and Cape Coral.

Detail of the Chicago Foreclosure Quilt, 2013.

And there's more coming soon! I can't believe how these quilts have taken on a life of their own. One of the quilts will be in an exhibtion in St. Louis in February and for all you Bay Area people, I will finally have a solo show in Santa Cruz in February. More details on these coming soon. In the meantime, you'll see what I've been up to in the next few posts. All good, just not enough time to sit down and type these days! Happy Friday!