In the Depths of Quarantine Dyeing

Welcome to my very first blog post! We are past the halfway marker into 2020 and my gawd! 2020 has given us all a real one-two punch or maybe I should say a twenty twenty punch!

I want to say first that by writing this post I’m in no way trying to make light or disregard the events happening around us. I’m an active participant and doing my best to stay aware while trying to follow up with action and not spend too much time just sitting in my thoughts or worries. There are so many issues that I care about and that many of us care about, such as racial injustice, the political landscape, the wealth inequality, climate change, environmental challenges, and so on. It’s one of the reasons why I decided to build into my business model where 5% of all of my sales will be donated to various causes. In doing so I also want to highlight these causes and some really amazing organizations. I hope to encourage others to participate and support important issues. And also why I want my products to be accessible to as many people as possible without compromising creativity, quality, and sustainability. I hope that people out there are taking care of themselves and each other right now, that everyone is being careful and taking the necessary precautions such as wearing a mask and continuing to socially distance. I felt that it was important to start off by stating these things. And now I present in the rest of this post the depths of my quarantine dyeing!

I dyed this shirt after a couple months of being into lockdowns and stay-at-home orders and perhaps that energy shows through into the design. I dyed it so many times that I lost track. I dyed it, and re-dyed it, then dyed it again, then I would look at it and dye it again, I thought I was finished and then I would dye it again! Not sure what I was trying to achieve, I got myself into what I call the Blackhole of Design. It’s a dark place where you are so deep into the design, where you’ve spent so much time in the project and so much time thinking about it where you no longer know what’s good or not good any more. It’s a kind of spiraling place, a place where you often sweat in weird ways and weird places. And if you spiral too much out of control you start to doubt everything, not only the project, but yourself, what you are doing in life and your sense of anything good design wise. At least for me I’ve been in those depths many of times, so I was able to observe that and not spiral too out of control. And if you know of any artists or designers and you ask them if they’ve experienced the Blackhole of Design and explain what it is. A common response from them might be “oh yes I know this feeling” along with a thousand yard stare.

This shirt was a custom order piece for someone who might quite literally be one of the sweetest people I’ve met. I know that everyone says this, but I think in this case it might be true. And if you’ve met her you’ll probably agree. A sensitive soul with a love of nature, her name is Veronica. You can check her out @veroonelove on Instagram. She also makes some really unique jewelry that’s infused with her own impeccable style. Her personal style can be summed up as “Dries Van Noten meets California” or “Isabel Marant goes on a hike.” She wanted me to dye a piece for her and expressed that lately she felt inspired by touches of fuchsia that she recently seen in some designer creations. I thought that some dark black dye with indigo shades would be the perfect compliment to that color. I like fuchsia because although it’s in the pink family and has that feminine connotation, it feels more intense and rebellious. It’s not a soft color and not a color that shies away from attention.

So this dyeing dance began and it became, not enough fuchsia, now too much fuchsia, now not enough black, now too much black. Is it saturated enough with color? Is it too saturated with color? Is there enough balance in the design? Does it just look crazy now? Is she even going to like it? ... and so on. And now I ponder the sometimes maddening dance of design and creativity. Maybe it was just me somehow expressing my quarantine energy through dyeing this one shirt. Control and chaos living and swirling in the same space. In many ways we have all gone back and forth during these times, asking ourselves and each other “what the hell is happening?” Many of us also have had long stretches of vacant time where it would have normally be filled with work or social plans or normal routines that we all thought could continue on without interruption. All of a sudden this time was filled with ourselves in a very different capacity, maybe it felt quiet or reflective, maybe filled with anxiety at times. Maybe some of us filled this time with more shows and movies, more projects, more cleaning, or more parental supervising. Whatever was the case, all of us changed in the way we prioritized things and the way we even saw the world. We really started to see the things and people that are important to us and the other things that superficially seemed important before just fell away.

I learned something about myself through this one dyeing project. I learned a little bit more about my own obsessive tendencies and what drives my desire to create. It was supposed to be an incredibly simple project. My dyeing and re-dyeing over and over again of this shirt did not make sense in the way of money or effort or recognition, and none of these things could have been the motivation. It was my singular drive to see something in the design that I loved and that’s all that mattered, everything else fell away. And sometimes that’s the sacrifice. I learned that at times I will continue to put my energy into something against all models of business and production. Also that’s not what really matters to me. I think of business just like money, a way to get somewhere but definitely not the larger goal. We also see over and over again what happens when business and money becomes more of a priority than people and life. In my experience in the textile and fashion industry, it often becomes the death of what could be a beautifully creative process... And eventually I stopped dyeing this damn shirt, although I probably could gone a few more times if it wasn’t for Veronica coming by to pick it up. But I looked at it again and I felt that I saw a depth of color not normally seen, a brightness and intensity mixed in with rich tones and a kind of beautiful brooding darkness. I didn’t know exactly what I was going for when I started this project but I’m content to feel like what I made was something special. Sometimes we do things and we don’t even know what we’re necessarily trying to achieve and only know once we see it or feel it. Or sometimes we look back on something that we did and realize it was actually more about the process. I definitely can’t promise I’ll be creating every piece this way! But I can say that what I do and create will be done thoughtfully and with care and maybe a little bit of my neurosis of trying to achieve something that I don’t even know what it is until I see it. That I can promise.