ELLEN HAUPTLI
2015 FALL STUDIO SALE
Saturday, September 19 10am-4pm
One day only this time!
Don’t know what to do with those Hauptli’s you don’t wear anymore? Bring them here – I’ll sell them for a fraction of their original price and donate the money to the MSSociety. That’s a good deal for everyone!
FIVE YEARS OUT
It was a sad day for workshirts of the sentimental variety. I had worn and worn my mother’s J.Jill chambray cotton shirt ever since I inherited it. It was a casual pale blue but with small classy details like the Chinese knot button and loop closure. Even though I don’t wear much blue, I loved the opportunity to wear her shirt. She wore it on many a dog walk and out in her garden watering her voluminous hanging hoya plant. I wore it when tending and feeding our chickens in the backyard, when planting the dogwood tree that replaced the hens when they went to live with more enthusiastic egg-eaters, and when weeding, watering, and harvesting lettuce, kale, and onions. For days on end it was my uniform while I spiffed up the garden in preparation for our son’s wedding last August. I felt Mom was there helping, too.
But during my zealous raking late last March, I reached over to scratch an itch. The fabric ripped where the sun weakened it first on my mother’s shoulders and then on mine. As I raked and pruned and weeded, I thought I might salvage the shirt with patches and stitching since whenever possible, I like to mend or rehabilitate my favorites so I can wear them longer. But by the end of the work day, I decided to let it go. Wearing out the J.Jill completed one aspect of my grieving and it did its job well.
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Speaking of cast-offs, according to a 2013 report from the EPA, we in the U.S. discard about 13.1 million tons of textiles every year, much of it clothing. This disgraceful waste results in homeless garments, deemed unsalable, unfashionable, unflattering, out-of-season, or just old. Chere Mah and I are featured in the show Body as Agent: Changing Fashion Art (September 12-November 15 at the Richmond Art Center) and in one collaborative piece seek to creatively resuscitate some of these fashion victims in an attempt to bring at least a few of them back into favor and hence ready to be happily worn again.
Chere and I will perform entertaining re-imagining in the gallery on September 13th and November 15th, 1:30 to 3pm. I’ll bring my sewing machine and scissors, Chere her safety pins and paints for garment re-building through means both conventional and unorthodox. We invite you to bring your sense of humor and one of your own closet casualties that is ripe for a possible metamorphosis. Also connected with the show, Jean Cacicedo and I will present an ‘Old School Panel’ slide show and talk Sunday, November 1st at 1:30. Below is one of the three other pieces I will be showing.
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Once again this year I will be raising funds for the MS Society’s Waves to Wine Bike Ride in their on-going campaign to find a cure for this debilitating disease. And this year I’ll again conduct a raffle. For every $25 you donate to help me toward my goal of $5000, I will enter your name into my studio raffle! The prize winners can special order a shirt or jacket from any bolted fabric in my studio. This year I will pick three winners at my holiday studio sale in December. Last year’s winners are wearing their prizes right now! Every dollar is much appreciated. Here’s my personal page for donating on line:
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/CANBikeEvents?px=12339400&pg=personal&fr_id=25199
If this link doesn’t connect, copy and paste into your browser.
Or send a check made out to the MSSociety to the address below.
Thank you,
