seeds

Process journal for a project that is a quest ~ an openly shared path of questioning and
analysis and a space for (un)learning, (re)orientation and creative
exchange.

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For a long time now, I have been (and still am) asking - in which way
can I best apply my skills to this changing world? I am working on a project that is the
beginning of an answer. It is an attempt to tie together the threads of
my own history and experience and trace onward the lines of connection
and affiliation. Like ripples on water or a system of roots underground.
An openly laid out structure that can hold whoever or whatever is looking
for cover and transform in  accordance with those encounters ~

I have always been drawn to stories. Growing up in rural Wisconsin,
the lusciously green rolling hillsides around me were a backdrop to
written fantasies that filled my mind. I grew up in a small pocket of a
community nestled away in the Driftless Region - an area untouched by
the flattening force of glaciers of the last ice age. I learned to read,
to sew, to harvest vegetables and to sleep under the stars on a small
farm surrounded by cornfields. At the time I had no idea how lucky I was
for the bountiful simplicity that was this way of life and for the
vibrance and support embedded in the local community. 

That appreciation has come with time and the distance of compared and
contradicting experiences. Upon graduating high school and seeking
speed and chaos and cultural diversity, I moved to Brooklyn, NY to pursue a BFA
in fashion design and sustainability studies from Pratt University. I
was drawn to creation in all its forms but had spent the previous years
immersed in the making and changing of clothing and felt a resonance
with this material as my medium.The transition from remotely rural to
urban chaos was made easy by the artistic and supportive bubble that
university created and I was able to digest this influx of input by
throwing myself into my practice. The studio became home and the
textures and ensuing designs were the solace through which I attempted
to evoke the natural connectedness felt through being in nature. And
despite the intensity of the city, I continuously found new ways of
feeling at home. Biking through the streets at all hours of the night I
would capture snippets of sunlight reflected in high windows and murky
puddles or get lost in a downpour at Prospect Park. The buzz of the city
was channeled through its inhabitants and the life and the people were
filled with unabashed energy. Patchworks of languages and cultures and
dreams - each street corner with a whole world hidden behind its back.
The people and their dance with the city was a never-ending source of
inspiration but it was the serene strength in the waves of the ocean and
the murmured softness of the trees that I wove into the folds of my
designs.  

After the four years of university and keen to expand my lived
experience beyond the country and culture in which I had spent most of
my life, I moved to Berlin. I was drawn to the openness and
unconventionality that seemed to run through the city, as well as the
options presented for living more alternatively. Wishing to apply my
skills professionally while continuing to expand my learning, I began
working a design team to gain industry experience and further explore
the role of clothing in an larger-scale more business-y context. 

These two years of industry experience coincided with the first two
years of the pandemic and what felt to me like everything turning inside
out and upside down and then back again. Admittedly, a part of me I
wanted this. I was in a privileged enough position to somehow be
comforted by the dissolution of certain structures and what felt like
the drawing back of the curtains on the sturdiness of normalcy which had
previously been taken for granted. 

It was a time of difficulty and of deep questioning yet also a time
of illumination and new germination. As I worked to uproot the social
and institutional learning that brought me to this place, I made space
for new voices of avenues of thought. Stories of resilience and
regeneration and feelings of being and community and fullness. To uproot
the stories of competition and conflict that are sold as the norm and
realize there is a whole new world of collaboration in its place. Nature
is living example. 🌱

These stories and their learnings are my guiding stars; stepping
stones forward through the murky waters of upheaval back to a place of
connectedness and a place of trust. Trust in our constant potential to
transform and expand as well as trust in our collective resilience.