See and Be Seen

So this weekend was the annual wearable art attraction here in Juneau...it is the way the local arts coucil makes it $$ for scholarships and has become THE attraction over the years (so much so that it had to become a two show venue this year to allow everyone who wanted to see it enuf time/seats to see it...it outgrew the original spot 3 years ago and is held in the convention center and is PACKED--people buy their tickets/ book babysitters 2-3 months in advance, that's how popular it is. And those of us who are nuts enuf to be in it--well, we work on our art for months in advance. What is wearable art, you say?? Well, it's anything that you can make into art--loosely--that can be worn. For this crazy participant (ever since the event was created--what was that--8 years ago??--it means finding something that was gonna be thrown away, recycling it and turning it into something else...like last year a whole years worth of post-it notes from the front office made into a flapper dress (complete with feathers, beads)-previous years a prom dress made out of AOL disks, a boostiae make from spam can labels, a mosaic on a surgeon gown out of immunization vial lids. This year it was a years worth of radiology stickers (each xray has a sticker that says the date the xays was take) made into a --uhm--sorta ballroom gown. Yup--just stretch your imagination some and it'll come. It was fun--I gotta be wild and crazy on the runway (tons of people didn't recognize me) but I got a bizzilion complements....before ya ask, I didn't win any prizes. A "fish" costume made out of old dvds (nice and shiney) and a stiff prom dress made from puzzle pieces won 1st and 2nd prize--3rd split between a mini skirt dress made from bras and two dresses woven from garbage bags. Yup--Juneau full of high culture--I tell ya. Good times, good times. Looking for next year inspiration right now, if ya got any spare crap hangin' around....