In Memory of Casey

So, today is the aniversary of a friends death. She has been gone a year. She died suddenly last year of stomach cancer.  The last time I heard from her was an e-mail to a discussion group where she said she'd be fine.

  So what does this have to do with creativity?  It is the flip side of my coin. I am always pushing the notion that creativity, atristry whatever needs no audience that artist should create for themselves and the joy of it.  And here I am - I create Dance costumes for a living, and yes there is some joy in that.

BUT:  The clothing I created with joy was worn by Casey. It was she who got me to submit clothing to Alternative Design in Cape Town, she took the stuff there herself!  She encouraged me a lot. 

Copy cat country

Fab - here I am sewing away making things for tribal girls.  One such girl buys 2 alice bands from me. Then she goes home and makes them for her mothers emtire troupe. Then she comes here today to have some pants made and says  "Oh Ja, Im selling these now"  I tell her that that sucks, Im trying to earn a living here!  She says "If you see a good idea go with it".  I was gobsmacked and did my usual keep quiet and stew about it.  Now hours later I want to burn her fabric and send her the ashes with a note "copy this bitch!"  *sigh*  Then I pop past my other competition's page (Same one who has photos of dancers on her page without their permissions as "examples" ) on facebook and Lo and behold a new album full of hair stuff - just like mine.

And what is the answer to this?  In the short term - I tell miss copy pants that I will not make her pants In the long term I decide that whatever I make must be so recognisable as mine that no one can copy it without everyone knowing its a copy.

Hello Kitty Costume

For a while I have been thinking about sewing a silly costume for myself.  I fould a bag of  metal hello kitty charms for R20 at the bead shop in Linden, a while ago I bought a bit of hello kitty fabric with large motifs of her face and on Saturday I found bags of pink buttons and another kind of hello kitty fabric - this one is a check with tiny kitty faces. I also have lots of pink fabric scraps, feathers and sequin dot.  I might also get some fo the pink and black stripped fabric to make pants - those Im not sure about - dunno if my legs can carry that off!

I began the belt - its a 2 piece Mardi Love style belt which will have hello kitty faces as the hip accents and the check fabric as the band.  I began beading it on saturday whilst watching the saturday afternoon Bollywood movie on TV.  The hip accent faces will take quite some time - I only managed to finish 1 that afternoon.  I did the charm fringe on one piece and got half way on the other.  Today I will carry on with it and perhaps finish the front of the belt.  I forgot about the buttons and edged the lower front with other beads which I will have to  replace with buttons.

I havent decided on the the style of the top yet.

.

Oh!

A realisation about myself and my creativity and what Im actually doing with my abilities hit me in the face the other day.

I love fabric - that is really the part of my work that I enjoy. That is why I have cupboards full of the stuff, I cannot drive past a shop without seeing what they have. I feel a pain in the general heart region when find some fabulou cloth that I cannot afford or justify.  
And I love Embelishment - It is this love of decoration that sent me on a screenprinting course 7 years ago, that made me want to buy an embroidery machine and fills yet other cupboards and shelves with beads.

This explains why Id buy a piece of cloth just because it is beautiful and keep it for 15 years without planning to sew it into anything. 

Great and so what do I do with this realisation.  Is an unmade length of material like the unused ingredients bought for a wonderful meal that was never made.  does unused mean wasted?  It might.