Carla Esperanza Tommasini [6]

Carla Esperanza Tommasini
London, England, UK
http://www.carlaesperanza.com

grandiflora

sculptural dress & performance

Inspired by the richness of the mountainous landscape of Trentino
South-Tirol, Grandiflora is a project that explores the relationship
between nature, local traditions and the clothing of the body.

Manufactured only using natural materials found in the woods, the
dress elaborates and combines some of the mythical pagan figures from
the popular local tradition of the Alps, giving life to a mysterious
presence inhabiting the woods, a wild and untamed woman, Grandiflora.

Theme: General

Bio:
1978, Italo/Venezuelan. After a degree in Theatre studies in the
University of Bologna (Italy), Carla Esperanza moved to London where
she completed in 2007 the MA in Contemporary Performance Making at
Brunel University.

Carla Esperanza’s work intersects different artistic practices such as
live performance, writing and image making, combining a variety of
experiences and collaborations that span theatre, live art and visual
culture. Her work originates from personal suggestions connected to
the human and bodily dimension as well as to site specificity. She
engages with the body and the politics of representation, using
movement, text and visuals to investigate social and cultural issues.
She strongly believes in collaborative practice and research-based
process, as she works on different projects both as artist as well as
producer/curator. She is interested in the dynamics of artistic
production, alternative modes for self-learning, as well as
sustainable and independent artistic practice.

She is part of Reloading Images, as well as Associate Artist of
Pacitti Company and SPILL Festival of Performance.

Presentation performance ‘Grandiflora’ - International competition
Vestiti D’Arte 2009
Spazio Ripicche (Milan) - Officina Giovani (Prato), Italy 2009

Presentation video ’Grandiflora’ - group exhibition “ CORPI “
Museum Borgogna and Museum Leone - (Vercelli), Italy 2009

photos: Massimo Giovannini

Amy Keefer [5]

Amy Keefer
San Francisco, CA
www.amykeefer.com

"You All Know Me" 2011

Hand knit fair isle sweater, the artist's/model's social security number in roman numerals. Merino wool

Theme: General

Bio:

Sweating

Sweater, (n): one, who works hard, a toiler; a tailor who worked for employer overtime at home; one who sweats gold coins. (Oxford English Dictionary)

In my early twenties, I knit for a living. I had moved to New York with a BFA in fibers. When I found a job that employed the skills I had learned and studied in college I was elated, most of my classmates were waiting tables or doing temp-work. The knitting boom was huge in New York and while I taught knitting classes by day, I worked through many nights, knitting specialty items for elite and wealthy patrons, or samples for fashion week. I felt that I was doing a great service to my students, passing on to them a skill that they could use indefinitely. I was the head of the household, paying the rent and bills that my then-boyfriend, a musician was unable to fund. I worked for two years before it started to hurt. The first time I noticed the pain, I was working on a baby’s sweater, commissioned by a wealthy grandmother who confided in me that she would tell her daughter and son-in-law that she had made it herself for their newborn daughter. Indignant, I accepted my pay. I had made the sweater overnight between business days.

I started dropping things from my right hand, losing muscle control during spasms. My fingers and thumb began to naturally curl inward to my palm, which my boyfriend teasingly referred to as, “the claw.” I worked perilously, if not for clients for paid work, on garments for myself. I was confident that excluding my hand from consumer culture made an impact. It was my revolt to knit, my political and moral stance. A slow pace was more satisfying to me than the instant gratification of any commodity. I left New York to attend graduate school in San Francisco. I continued to work with my hands knitting a new sweater to wear for each semester review. The other work that I produced was wrought in obsessive embroidery, hypnotically tedious bobbin lace, lace-knitting, and dense hyperbolic crochet. By the time I earned my master of fine arts, I had dislocated my shoulder, burnt through the tendons in my arm, and had premature arthritis in my hand. I hated the pain I and I hated the notion that my body was silencing my voice.

After the experience of working with my hands to live, I find it impossible to ignore the plight of garment workers around the globe. How simple it is to subvert the bodies and pain of people who we cannot see, to take their work which produces the relics of our culture for granted. To make things, to learn to draft, weave, cut and sew a piece of cloth , the effort that it involves stays with those who learn it forever. It is impossible to forget something that you have made with your hands, to forget anything you have touched.

photo: Justin Moore

photo: Justin Moore

photo: Bob Raymond

photo: Hans Wendland

photo: Kristophe Diaz

photo: ichifoto

Digital Mallarme [4]

Kathy Bruce (Lead Artist)
James A. Cook
Alastair R. Noble
New York City, NY, USA
kathybruceartist.com

Digital Mallarme is an exploration of poetic text as virtual social experiment, a moving digital interpretation of Stephane Mallarme's Un Coup De Des. The garment is transformed into a power book of poetic verse and imagery.

Themes: Cyberart and Words

Unfortunately, due to logistics, Digital Mallarme will not be present at the live runway show on May 6th.

Bios:

Kathy Bruce (costume design and performer) is an installation artist based in New York City. She received an M.F.A degree from Yale University School of Art and Architecture and certificate from The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
She is currently the recipient of a 2011-2012 Fulbright Hayes Senior Scholar
Teaching and Research Grant for Puno, Peru and is also the recipient of a 2010-11 Pollock-Krasner Foundation individual artist award. A feature article on her work appeared in the 2010 May-June issue of Sculpture magazine and a forth-coming article on her sculptural installations will appear in the April 2011 edition of Bamboo Magazine. Her work explores the subject of female mythological figures.

James A. Cook (Videographer) is currently Chair of the 3-D Division in the School of Art at the University of Arizona. He received his B.F.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley and M.F.A. degree from the California College of the Arts. His sculpture and video work have been extensively exhibited nationally and internationally, and he has participated in residencies, conferences, and symposia in the United States, Spain, India, Nepal, Japan, and Bulgaria. He has received numerous grants and fellowships, including the Fulbright Regional Research Fellowship to the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, the Freeman Foundation Fellowship to India and Nepal, the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship (Rockefeller Foundation) to Japan, and the Arizona Commission for the Arts.

Alastair R. Noble (technical) is an environmental/installation artist and printmaker, his cross-disciplinary work engages in contemporary cultural issues. Although originally from the UK he has lived and work in New York City for over 30 years and has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including Peru, Chile, Bulgaria, UK. His practice is a response to architecture and the natural environment and investigates particular sites in the context of literature, poetry or philosophical texts of authors such as; Mallarmé, Marinetti, Mayakovsky, Wittgenstein. The Library of Babel and On the Exactitude of Science by Jorge Luis Borges have been the subjects of his recent projects. The latter text he transposed into a series of environmental interventions entitled Mapping Arcadia these are investigations into alternative methods of mapping the landscape. Additionally he writes on sculpture and architecture for international sculpture magazines and journals. He has taught and lectured at numerous colleges and universities where he has organized symposia on the role of Public Sculpture.

Julia Dusman [3]

Julia Dusman
New York, NY, US
www.juliadusmandesigns.com

necklace "Tarantula", materials used- black onyx, coral, carnelian, glass, wire.

Theme: General

Bio:
My first experience of making jewelry dates back to 1990. I carried this passion through 20 years, while becoming a professional classical pianist. I always believed in the power of Beauty, and music education brought me to the deeper understanding of all the components of it. Composition, balance, style, proportions and, most importantly, individuality. I did not step far away from my profession, because I am trying to create a “Visual music”. I get inspired by almost anything: old photo, colors of sunset, person, dress, vintage button, rhythm of drums…, anything that is unique. Each design carries piece of my heart. Just like a melody through sounds, in my jewelry I am trying to bring the emotion out through the shape and color. And just like in music, I find it very important to have a room for interpretation.

photo: Justin Moore

photo: Justin Moore

photo: Bob Raymond

photo: Hans Wendland

photo: Hans Wendland

photo: Kristophe Diaz

photo: ichifoto

photo: ichifoto

Jennifer Sherr Designs [2]

Jennifer Sherr Designs
Boston, MA, USA
http://www.jennsherrdesign.com/

Collage and hand painted leather vest

Theme: General

Jess Barnett will be modelling the artist's work on the runway.

BIO:
Jenn Sherr designs specializes in collage on memorabilia and themed work, Her work has been recognized by over 25 periodicals nationwide, Jenn started doing collage at the age of 5 , Her Mother is also a artist , Jenn teaches the art of decoupage and marketing yourself as an artist at several schools and conducts lessons at her studio

Jenn produces and markets all her own work

Her strong passion for the arts allows her to participate in many juried shows and this summer is doing a group exhibit with her students at the Brookline Arts Center.

photo: Justin Moore;
model: Jess Barnett

photo: Justin Moore;
model: Jess Barnett

photo: Bob Raymond;
model: Jess Barnett

photo: Hans Wendland;
model: Jess Barnett

photo: ichifoto;
model: Jess Barnett

photo: Shil Sengupta;
model: Jess Barnett

And the winner is ... June Monteiro [1]

The Panel, consisting of Elena Sanders, Kathleen McDermott, Christine Liu, Deborah Everett, Alison Safford, James Ellis Coleman, is pleased to announce the winner of

The Word Game Fabric competition

Congratulations to:

JUNE MONTEIRO

Her winning fabricated design will be the featured, culminating piece shown on the runway on Friday May 6th at the 2011 Mobius Wearable Art Runway Show.

Her model will be northern siren http://www.modelmayhem.com/1558923


June Monteiro
Owner and Designer of ENAMOUR
Washington, DC, USA
www.everythingenamour.wordpress.com  
company blog with links and photos of both current and past events/work

BIO: Upon graduating from Maryland Institute College of Art with a degree in Fine Arts, June Monteiro interned as an assistant stylist for Kate O’Connor at L.A. Fashion Week. It was through this experience that she knew she wanted to pursue a career in design. After featuring her fun and edgy designs in multiple shows in Boston, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Cape Cod,she decided to attain her Fashion Design degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

In 2010, June created ENAMOUR/ENAMOUR SPORT. She was featured in the Rising Design Fashion Show during Boston Fashion Week, where her designs made quite an impression, garnering positive reviews in publications such as the Boston Globe, Stuff Boston, and multiple fashion blogs.

PAST RELATED PROJECTS: "SMARTIE Dress"- made with over 1,100 Smartie candy wrappers. It was shown at the MassArt fashion show, as well as in the Natick Collection in 2008. It was on display at "Sugar Heaven" candy store in Boston in 2010. "BOSTON MAGAZINE Dress" - made with over 70 Boston Magazine covers and 600 shredded pages from the magazine. It was shown at Simon's Mall Fashion Now event, Burlington, in 2010.

DESIGN DESCRIPTION: Using the origin of where the Word Game fabric came from as her inspiration, June Monteiro created the Word Game dress, with traditional Pakistani womens clothing in mind, creating a dynamic wrapped bodice, paired with the american cultural style lines of the chevron.

BRIEF DESIGN DESRIPTION: My design is inspired by the design lines of traditional Pakistani clothing (using the fabrics origin), but I incorporated classic american lines,like the chevron, to blend both cultural styles together.

Ms. Monteiro's winning design:

photo: Justin Moore;
model: northern siren

photo: Justin Moore;
model: northern siren

photo: Bob Raymond;
model: northern siren

photo: Hans Wendland;
model: northern siren

photo: Hans Wendland;
model: northern siren

photo: Hans Wendland;
model: northern siren

photo: Hans Wendland;
model: northern siren

photo: Kristophe Diaz;
model: northern siren

photo: Kristophe Diaz;
model: northern siren

photo: Kristophe Diaz;
model: northern siren

photo: ichifoto;
model: northern siren