I'm a finalist!

whoop whoop!!!

The poster I submitted to the Olive Tree Market Christmas poster competition has been selected amongst the finalists.

Check out all the finalists and vote for your favourite - https://www.facebook.com/theolivetreemarket

new cuffs

New cuffs made a couple of days ago

Mixed media cuffs by Pearl Red Moon, 2013, opened out

Mixed media cuffs, by Pearl Red Moon, 2013, standing upright

The cuff with the Frida Kahlo image is sold.

Rodney and I will be setting up the shop at Bondi Market, Sydney this weekend. The market at Bondi Primary School is every Sunday.

adornments

I still haven't found time to photograph all the new clothes!

Then the last couple of days I got engrossed in making some wearable adornments. Below is a picture of a mixed media necklace. The lovely focal picture is a miniaturised version of one of Rodneys portraits - "Violet". The dangling motifs are hand embroidered as is the larger one above the picture of Violet. I've forgotten what the polished stones are the necklace is strung on.

mixed media necklace by Pearl Red Moon with face by Rodney Swansborough 

Then I made three cloth cuffs.

Cuffs standing upright

3 cloth and mixed media cuffs by Pearl Red Moon, 2013

In another week or 2 I'll open another section in my etsy shop for adornments. The cuff in the middle featuring the image of Frida Kahlo has already been sold. The other cuffs are $55 each. The necklace is $95.00

One image can go a long way....

Newcastle City Council are also having a Christmas competition for artworks to display in the shopping area. So I pulled up "Aussie Icon" again and did some more manipulations in photoshop.

The original work was intended as an ironic interpretation of traditional european virgin icon images. The "virgin" figure was overlaid onto a lavishly warm backdrop resembling the brilliant rust orange colour of the australian desert. The little paisley motifs drifting around the central figure sort of vaguely resemble aboriginal motifs....

Aussie Icon 1, mixed media canvas by Pearl Red Moon, 2011

The Newcastle Council are calling for images that refer to Christmas. As a secular humanist there is no religious iconography that would be meaningful for me. I came up with this which is called "Fly with peace, love and good will"

Fly with peace, love and good will

Olive Tree Market Xmas comp

I designed and entered this poster in the Olive Tree Markets Christmas poster competition. The "Virgin" figure is taken from my mixed media work "Aussie Icon 1"

more lovely things

I have been really busy. So busy I keep putting off showing the new creations on the blog...now I have a backlog to blog about....

I've made about 10 new garments in the last couple of weeks that haven't been seen here or put in my etsy shop. Here are 2 gorgeous tunics from my "Celebrate India!"series that are made from vintage sarees. The green one called "Green fields" is pure silk, the grey one called "Beautiful Horizons"  is a polyester georgette. Both are beautifully hand embroidered and beaded.

Green fields tunic

Beautiful Horizons tunic  SOLD

The items haven't been put in the Boho Banjo etsy shop yet.

I'm keen to get into my sewing room and keep working on what was started yesterday. Working in some of my favourite colours - bright magenta pink and purple.

I hope to find time this evening to show more of the work

new wearable art

New clothes made in the last 2 weeks!

I call this dress "Denim Vines" because the blue of the print looks exactly denim blue to me. The grey appliques of squares resemble a lattice that the vine grows on.

The dress above is the "Flowers and Stripes" I just finished this this afternoon. Mostly printed cotton homespun except for the gored parts of the skirt are repurposed from a second hand viscose skirt.

See my etsy shop for more detailed information about sizes and prices if you want to know more.....

Who pays for your clothes?

For nearly 30 years it has been my habit and pleasure to read the Sydney Morning Herald every weekend.  This weekend I was saddened to read the item “Darkness behind white walls” by Ben Doherty in the news review section.

Doherty outlined the situation of exploitation many young Indian girls get drawn into by the clothing manufacturing industry. From ages as young as 11 they become sweat shop slaves indentured for 3 or more years living inside locked compounds working 7 days a week for the promise of a meagre “dowry” reward. The illegal dowry they eventually become entitled to after thousands of hours of labour is equivalent to about AUS$85

.

Don’t be deluded that that $5 tee shirt from K-Mart is a bargain. It is costing somebody - elsewhere – a great deal. At the beginning of this year many people in the first world were horrified by the disastrous collapse of a six storey building in Bangladesh which contained a clothing manufacturing business. More than 600 people died. There was a brief flurry of concern to examine the ethical sourcing of clothes by the big retailers here…which soon petered out…

The truth is the clothing manufacturing industry is one of the most resource wasting industries on our planet. The vast quantity of clothes being produced every day requires enormous amounts of labour and energy.

People in the first world are the ones generating the demand for this constant choice of new attire, through our naïve participation in the intellectual construct “Fashion”. The western clothing and advertising industry has created the idea that we need to constantly update and acquire new clothes several times a year to remain in conformity with what is being deemed as currently “fashionable” or risk being denigrated as dowdy, dated or outside the peer group.

So it might seem rather strange that as a person who makes and designs clothes – and wants to sell them to you! – and ultimately make a living from this endeavour;  that I write a critique severely criticising the clothing industry.  I like to think of myself as a person who examines choices and tries to live a life, as far as realistically possible, guided by moral and ethical principles. It is guided by those beliefs that I never shop at the big retailers for clothes, that most of my clothes are recycled second hand from charity shops, made by myself or bought from local boutiques and chosen from their range of small Australian designer labels.

I have been making and designing clothes to sell since my early 20s and the joy of creating something to wear that is arty, quirky, unique and different from “fashion” is still motivates me to keep doing it.

There are still a lot more things I could reflect on, and might say, another time. But there are no pictures in this blog and don’t want it to become a great big, boring looking piece of text…

I have actually been working hard ….in my personally chosen, solitarily womanned “sweat shop” … and have 5 new creations to show you in the next few days.

However, reading that piece in the Sydney Morning Herald gave me cause to think about my own place in this industry and how so many women in our culture unknowing participate in this system which is exploitative of third world cheap labour and young women in particular, damaging to the environment and benefitting very few financially except for the capitalist owners of large retail chains.

I would be really interested to hear the comments and thoughts of readers!

Celebrate India! new clothing series

"I've never really understood why women are so timid. For me, only someone with a powerful look -- Diana Vreeland, say, or Minnie Mouse -- is a person worth emulating. Because -- and here is a big secret -- if you construct an eccentric look and make it your own, you will be forever insulated from the world of fashion, a place where, let's face it, you can never be lissome enough, your hair never curly (or straight) enough, your chest never full (or flat) enough. And here's an added bonus: Truly wacky style doesn't date, so all those worries about wrinkles leave you blissfully unaffected. " – Lynn Yaeger

I acknowledge nicking that quote from another designer I admire and follow - Helen Carter of New York label "Secret Lentil" who has that quote in her etsy shop.

I just couldn't work out a way to sum up my own philosophy better.

I describe my personal "style" as a mashup of hippie, bohemian, tribal/eastern/ethnic. alternative arty with a bit of goth thrown in.

My lust to possess wonderful textiles took me on a solo backpacking tour of Nepal and India for a couple of months in 2001. I collected about 200 kilos of sarees and embroideries that I imported back to Australia at greater cost than my return airfare! What a delight that the internet has shrunk the world in the last decade and I can now sit at home in my PJs and buy gorgeous stuff that gets delivered to my door in a week or 2.

I've just been going through an "eastern" phase and bought 18 fabulous silk and cotton sarees that I'm remaking into womens casual wear.

These are the first of my creations, you can see more views, descriptions and the prices over at my etsy shop....

close up of a bodice on a dress that I've appliqued and stencilled

the full length dress with exquisite printed and embroidered vintage silk saree fabric in the skirt

a crepe de chine silk dress with beautifully embroidered bodice

a shift of printed silk georgette, light as feather, perfect for Summer wear

Happy 100th blog birthday!

Today I'm posting my 100th blog! The first was back in December 2011 so have managed to average about 1 a week since then.

Today is another special birthday....My etsy shop "Boho Banjo" is up and running now and featuring 16 of my original clothing designs. There is another half dozen more garments to put into the shop in the next few days.

I invite all my readers to have a look and let me know what you think! Either click on the url in red in the paragraph above here or the Boho Banjo graphic on the sidebar to the right. Please let me know if you have any problems linking or viewing the website. Also any comments or feedback are most welcome.