WBEZ | Art

Searching for sweat-free fashion in Chicago

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:56:00 -0500

The collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Bangladesh on April 24 continues to make headlines. One of the "worst industrial accidents in the world" is now known to have killed at least 1,127 people.

The event has roiled Bangladesh. There have been worker protests, a number of other factories have been closed at least temporarily, and the owner of Rana Plaza was arrested and faces murder charges.

Those poor labor conditions within Bangladesh’s enormous garment industry have had consequences around the globe. Rana Plaza workers helped supply major European and North American chains, and there’s increased pressure on these companies to help improve safety standards in the global garment industry. Unfortunately, not everyone is getting with the program.

And many consumers, including me, have started to take a hard look at those innocent-looking outfits hanging in our closets or stuffed in our drawers. What, exactly, are we buying into?

Now I’d like to be able to give myself a pat on the back when it comes to sustainable or ethical fashion. After all, I buy the majority of my clothes at thrift or secondhand stores. Yes, even shoes. But I can't say that concern over the clothing supply chain drove me to it. I started thrifting in high school because I wanted to look cool, like my older brother’s girlfriend at the time, Heidi.

Heidi was a madly savvy thrifter, but she was actually concerned about ethical consumerism. She dug up a copy of Diet for a Small Planet by the early eco-foodie Frances Moore Lappé, and stressed the reuse and reduce angles of the holy environmental trinity. She also worried that her Mennonite family had strayed from its social values in favor of conspicuous consumption. Heidi was smart and persuasive, so I kind of paid attention to her ideas. But mostly I made note that replicating Diane Keaton's preppy menswear style in Annie Hall was going to be dead cheap at a church rummage sale.

And so, driven more by the thrill of a good find than a set of good politics, I’ve kept going to the thrift store. But that's not to say I haven’t picked up a few insights along the way.

One way of weeding out the real retro clothing from the Old Navy clones is to take a look at the label. If it says "Made in America" then chances are I’m looking at a garment that dates back to at least the 1980s. Up until then, locally made clothing was easily available. And if the dead-stock price tags I've stumbled across are any indication, it was also affordable. And not just the polyester stuff. We’re talking quality clothes, made from cotton, linen or silk. I often wonder if that's because they were produced simply: I'm struck by how low-tech the actual assembly of many of these garments appears. More than once when I've taken an older dress to be altered, the seamstress has mistaken something factory-made for a hand-sewn garment.

In just a few short decades though, oh, how things have changed - at least if we’re to judge by the stuff current discount retailers such as Forever 21 or Target or "insert name here" are selling.

One of the reasons I stopped shopping at those places is I couldn’t take the increasingly poor quality of the clothes. I kept wondering not just where the clothes are made, but what they’re made from.

These days, new clothes smell so strange, like molded plastic products, made via a chemical-laden process better suited to car or weapons manufacturing. And if elastane and polyamide are just the new synthetic fabrics, why do they feel so flimsy and slip-slidy? Why don't they actually feel like clothing?

They're the garment world's equivalent of mystery meat. And despite my knee-jerk belief that the best clothes are those to be had on the cheap, I’m developing this mad compulsion: To dash into the fashion aisles yelling "Don't (wear) anything your Grandmother wouldn't recognize as (clothing)!”

Okay, who am I kidding? I’m not the Michael Pollan of clothing. I haven’t entirely given up shopping at places like T.J. Maxx or Marshalls. For many of us, especially people with kids, cheap or disposable clothes feel like not just a bargain but a necessity. After all, how many of our salaries have risen alongside the price of Mary Janes or Garanimals?

Still, I'm not alone in wondering how it’s possible to make a T-shirt so cheaply you can sell it for $5. A majority of Americans say they are willing to pay more for clothes made here. Apparently pride in the idea of a homegrown clothing industry trumps even our pocketbooks (wherever they come from).

Unfortunately, even if we want to buy clothes locally, we’d be hard pressed to find them. As my highly unscientific survey of thrift stores confirms, we’ve "offshored" the bulk of American clothing manufacturing, some 98 percent of it, according to many reports.

In doing so, we seem to have traded quality for quantity. But the bigger trade-off is transparency: We can’t see where our clothes come from, who makes them and under what conditions. That’s the hard lesson of the Bangladesh factory collapse. And in an effort to take it seriously, I’ve decided to cut out the disposable clothes and start looking for clothes designed and manufactured right here in Chicago.

If you think that’s easy as pie in the "best country in the world" think again. There are deplorable labor conditions to contend with much closer to home. Recently, both WBEZ and the Chicago Reader have explored questionable labor practices behind some of our most everyday objects. According to the Reader report, if you want to know who made your Beanie Baby and how much they’re paid to do so, you don’t have to go to Bangladesh or Guatemala or Eastern Europe. Just take a trip to Bolingbrook, Ill.

Still, according to some of the people I spoke with, small-scale and ethically sound manufacturing is on the rise in our area. We also have a government that appears to be willing to help grow it. So to the extent we too can support our local factories, that's likely to make for good economics and good politics.

With a city this big and creative, I can only scratch the surface of consciously made clothing options. So I've decided to focus on independent "high" fashion made on a small scale. Most of these designers and producers reflect a relatively new but growing interest in sustainable, hand-crafted goods, including clothing.

The Designer: Shelby Steiner. I was immediately intrigued by Steiner when I found out the source of one of her collections was inspired by “The Cove,” the devastating eco-documentary about dolphin slaughter. Steiner makes her own custom prints, and she’s used that talent to design collections that reflect on rhinoceros poaching or conflict diamonds.

Steiner says finding truly environmentally friendly fabric can be difficult: The high temperature process involved in its making can be difficult to get around. But she sources as much of her materials from the States as she can, and uses materials like vegan leather or fabric that is free of that nasty plastic, polyvinyl chloride.

Steiner is currently in residence at the Chicago Fashion Incubator, a 2005 collaboration between the city of Chicago and Macy’s to help young designers launch their careers. Steiner says all six of the current residents are trying to create fashion made solely in Chicago or the U.S. Their next big runway show is in October; right now the designers are getting their lookbooks ready and approaching boutiques with their designs.

The Retailer: Dovetail. Over the past 10 months, Julie Ghatan has been quietly but steadily turning her vintage clothing boutique into a showcase for locally made designs (including those by Shelby Steiner). Ghatan had her epiphany about the clothing supply chain while shopping for a "splurge" in a high-end boutique.

"The price point was above $100, but all the labels said 'Made in China,'" Ghatan said. “So what am I paying for?"

Ghatan thinks people are getting "bamboozled" by shelling out for designer labels "when the source materials are the same as Forever 21."

Ghatan started with menswear and all the lines she carries, including Vagrant Nobility and Glass House Shirtmakers, are made locally (see below). More recently she's branched into women's wear. Currently, Sadie Monroe and Claire Henry of Co.lab are showing their first ready-to-wear line there, a summer collection inspired by nomadic voyages.

Ghatan says that though she's in West Town ("not exactly a shopping hub") people are making the trip to see and buy local clothes. She tries to convert people by explaining the labor process behind the higher prices and by hitting them on a "selfish level" — both she and the designers pair their quality clothing offerings with a level of enthusiastic and attentive service that's largely absent from corporate or discount retail.

The Manufacturer: Stock Manufacturing Company. For Tim Tierney, one of the designers behind local menswear line Vagrant Nobility, making clothes locally was actually a selfish option – or at least a cost-saving one. "Early on we were not given a choice,” Tierney said. "We didn’t have the volume or funds to afford manufacturing overseas."

Tierney and his partner found a local option at A. I. Industries, a uniform manufacturing company run by Areill Ives and his family since the 1960s. Tierney, who used to work in the pit at the Chicago Board of Trade, says they quickly realized that instead of just manufacturing their own line, they could also be a resource for other small designers, who were also looking to make stuff locally at a decent price. So they brought in Ives and two other partners to form Stock.

Teirney attributes Stock’s efficiency and economy to its "vertical process" whereby everything it takes to make a garment is done in-house (except manufacturing the fabric itself, which Tierney sources only from developed countries, including a trusted Japanese textile maker). Their operators are paid by the piece, and Tierney says nobody makes less than $10 an hour (but closer to $16 or $17 depending on how fast they work).

But it also has to do with a more radical gambit.

At Stock they combine a largely unchanged process of making clothes on old school machinery (and by hand) with the very modern power of social media. Partnering with local people (designers, bloggers, tastemakers), Stock puts designs up on its website and ask people whether or not they’re interested. If enough people buy in, the object (shirts, ties, you name it) gets made and sold at a price without a retail markup.

So far Tierney says most of the designs have attracted enough buyers to be made. As for the future, he says if things take off, they have plenty of room to grow. Between uniforms and designs (which are still a tiny part of their output), the factor generates about $1 million in revenue annually. But Tierney thinks they have the capacity to expand to about $10 million annually in their current space

The bigger question may be whether Tierney and his partners can sustain their own energy. "Running a factory, managing its production, is brutal," Tierney said, adding that it isn’t all that easy for newcomers like him. "[To do it well] you have to do have done so for a long time, back in the heyday of Chicago production."

So, clearly a shift in our clothes consumption isn’t going to be easy - for anyone involved. And I'm not saying buying a locally made, button-down shirt can make up for all the deaths at the Rana Plaza complex in Bangladesh. What could, short of criminal proceedings, alongside a wholesale overhaul of our global clothing economy?

Plus, buying local or handmade clothing may not even be the best solution. Some think moving to a fully automated manufacturing process might be the way to bring back an affordable, safe and sustainable garment economy in the United States.

But what do you think? How - and where - do you shop for clothes? Do you care about sustainable or organic fashion? Would you give your businesses that make clothes locally, even if the prices are higher? And if you don't, what would make you change your mind?

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Gallery Walk: Artist Andrew Young

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:38:00 -0500

Chicago artist Andrew Young leads a gallery walk through his exhibition, Of Light Air: Mixed Media Works by Andrew Young, to speak about his artistic concepts and techniques, background in biology, and continued interest in paleontology and human interactions with the environment. Andrew received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute in 1989 and has since been working as an artist, author, and lecturer, including collaborations in both the arts and sciences.

Recorded live Saturday, May 11, 2013 at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

Abercrombie & Fitch is not the only brand that hates fat people

Fri, 10 May 2013 08:00:00 -0500

Remember that song by '90s boy band LFO with the line, "I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch?" Well, apparently the company's CEO Mike Jeffries only likes his girls to wear Abercrombie & Fitch if they're a size 10 or smaller—no exceptions.

The controversial clothing company makes $5 billion a year in sales, yet still manages to exclude the vast majority of the American population and make them feel like worthless lepers at the same time. And of course, this stupendous level of bigotry is no accident: fat-shaming is the spiny backbone of A&F, and a philosophy that Jeffries holds dear.

According to Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail and CEO of The Robin Report, recently laid out Jeffries' bottom line:

"He doesn't want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people," Lewis told Business Insider. "He doesn't want his core customers [ages 18-22] to see people who aren't as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they're one of the 'cool kids.'"

A&F won't sell clothes bigger than a size 10 pant and a size L top for women. For men, they will sell up to size 2XL to accomodate athletes.

In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries himself confirmed that the A&F business model was founded upon unabashed size discrimination:

"In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and there are the not-so-cool kids," Jeffries told the site. "Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive, all-American kid with a great attitude and lots of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes] and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

In Jeffries' sad and distorted worldview, only the thin people can be happy, cool, popular and beautiful. This is a logical fallacy of epic proportions (is he blind to the stunning beauty of Adele, Sara Ramirez and Christina Hendricks, et al?) but unfortunately, Jeffries is not the only fashion mogul who openly shares this belief.

Karl Lagerfeld

The eccentric German fashion designer and current head of Chanel had a very strong reaction to Brigitte magazine's announcement that they would begin using "normal, realistic" women instead of scary-skinny supermodels in their photoshoots:

"It's absurd! No one wants to see curvy women. You've got fat mothers with their bags full of chips, sitting in front of the television saying thin models are ugly. Fashion is about dreams and illusions. No one wants to see round women."

Tom Ford

In an interview with Time Out Hong Kong, the British fashion figurehead of Gucci and CEO of his own Tom Ford label revealed a preference of Asians to white people in terms of ideal body type:

"Americans are too fat. And in London they are starting to get fat too. So I have to say that if we have to talk about race system and nationalism, I find it refreshing that everyone Chinese is slim."

Anna Wintour

Everybody knows that the infamous fashion editor of Vogue loves her models "Paris-thin" and hates fat people. In a 2009 interview with 60 Minutes, Wintour admitted to telling Oprah that she should drop a few pounds before gracing the cover of her precious magazine:

"I suggested that she...lose a bit of weight...I said simply that [she] might be more comfortable. She was a trooper! She totally welcomed the idea and she went on a very stringent diet and it was one of our most successful covers ever."

But let's take a look on the bright side: not all fashion designers and clothing companies reject the average American woman (who wears a size 14, by the way). Popular retailers for young people like Forever 21 and American Eagle carry up to size 18 in women's clothes, and H&M's newest swimsuit model is size 12 beauty Jennie Runk.

Still, we live in a world where 50 percent of girls age 3-6 hate their bodies, and one in 10 people will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lives. Jeffries' message perpetuates a pro-skinny elitism that is not only irresponsible, but also blatantly cruel, outrageously sexist and frighteningly detrimental to our society as a whole.

We should raise our sons and daughters to value themselves not by the numbers on their clothes, but by the attributes that make each of them unique regardless of their size.

Also, who cares if you can't fit into those A&F distressed denim jeans? They went out of style about 10 years ago anyway.

Leah Pickett writes about popular culture for WBEZ. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

Elizabeth Smart decries abstinence-only sex ed, and her message hits home

Wed, 08 May 2013 08:00:00 -0500

Before Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight and Berry's young daughter were discovered in the basement of a Cleveland home on Monday, held captive by a neighborhood man for over 10 years, the nation was captivated by another abducted girl-turned miracle story: the case of Elizabeth Smart.

In 2002, 14-year-old Smart was kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City. She was found nine months later, only 18 miles from her home, and her captors (who also raped her repeatedly and threatened to kill her) were sentenced to life in prison.

Today, Smart is working on behalf of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation for abduction awareness, and in light of recent events in Ohio, speaking out against abstinence-only education and its detrimental effects on victims of rape and human trafficking.

During a panel at John Hopkins last week, Smart (now 25 and finishing up a music degree at Brigham Young University) described how intense guilt and shame kept her from escaping her abusers:

"I remember in school one time, I had a teacher who was talking about abstinence,” Smart told the panel, “And she said, 'Imagine you’re a stick of gum. When you engage in sex, that’s like getting chewed. And if you do that lots of times, you’re going to become an old piece of gum, and who is going to want you after that?’ Well, that’s terrible. No one should ever say that. But for me, I thought, ‘I’m that chewed-up piece of gum.’ Nobody re-chews a piece of gum. You throw it away. And that’s how easy it is to feel you no longer have worth. Your life no longer has value."

I received a similar abstinence-only lecture while attending Catholic school in Texas. As I sat in a gymnasium with 200 other girls between the ages of 12 and 14, a speaker put on a pair of velcro garden gloves ("Barbie and Ken," he called them), slapped his hands together and then pulled them apart with a loud, drawn-out ripping noise.

"That's the sound of your virginity being taken away," he said.

On another occasion, my middle school classmates and I were shown pictures of aborted fetuses, then given white cards that we had to spray to reveal our pink stains of STDs from pre-marital sex.

I got chlymadia on the card, but not in real life. Meanwhile, the abortion scare tactics seemed to have little effect on my peers, as many of them went on to have sex behind the bleachers in high school.

Unfortunately, this "virgin purity" absurdity is perpetuated by faiths the world over, and causes religious victims of rape and molestation to feel even more worthless than they would already.

After being raised in a Mormon household, Smart attests that she felt "so dirty and filthy" for being forced into pre-marital sex, and understands why victims don't run for "that alone."

However, she also believes that instead of slut-shaming children with creepy used gum and premarital-sex-is-like-being-a-dirty-glass-of-water analogies, they should be taught that "they have value no matter what."

Smart remains a devout Mormon to this day (married to a young man whom she met on a mission, no less) but her strength and courage in denouncing a key component of the religious right proves that she is a true advocate for more comprehensive sex education as well.

When asked for her thoughts on the Ohio kidnap rescue earlier this week, Smart said that she hopes the three victims will "find their own pathway back to some sense of well-being" and not blame themselves for the abuse that they were forced to endure:

“[Their abductor] has stolen so much from them already, they deserve to be happy," Smart told ABC's Good Morning America, "I would tell them I hope that they realize there is so much ahead of them, that they don’t need to hold on to the past … They don’t need to relive everything that’s happened, because it’s proof, their rescue is proof that there are good people out there."

"It's not their fault," Smart made sure to add, "It's never their fault."

Leah Pickett writes about popular culture for WBEZ. Follow her on Twitter @leahkpickett or join the conversation on Facebook.

Chicago Global Artist: Zimbabwean filmmaker and novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:41:00 -0500

Chicago’s rich and lively arts and culture scene is due no doubt to our deep bench of homegrown talents.

However, our city has also been marked in significant ways by artists from around the world.

Many of their contributions have been grandly public. The Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza and Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate are notable for their trajectory from daunting sculptural objects to beloved playground-style icons.

More ephemeral projects include Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 1969 project to wrap the Museum of Contemporary Art, a move which made art history and elevated the reputation of both the artists and the MCA.

But we can’t always see the ways global artists work in Chicago. Some come for very brief spells. And as artists in residence at small cultural organizations or universities, their opportunities to meet with a broader public can be limited, or fly under the radar.

In an effort to give more visibility to their work and to provide opportunities for you to interact with these artists, we’re launching a new global arts initiative on WBEZ’s international affairs show Worldview. Every few weeks I’ll profile an artist who has made her way to Chicago, for a brief or longer spell.

First up: Tsitsi Dangarembga.

Dangarembga came to Chicago about four years ago, to give a talk at Northwestern University. Based on that appearance, along with raves from some of his graduate students (who said her novels changed their lives), Reginald Gibbons invited her back, as the 2013 Spring Writer in Residence at the Center for the Writing Arts.

Dangarembga’s career can be measured by a number of firsts. Her debut novel Nervous Conditions, published when she was only 25, was also the first novel written in English by a black Zimbabwean woman.

When she moved on to filmmaking she also broke ground. Neria (1992), based on her screenplay, became the highest grossing feature in Zimbabwean history. And when Dangarembga made her own film, Everybody’s Child in 1996, she became the first black Zimbabwean woman to direct a full length feature.

None of this came easy. Nobody in Zimbabwe would publish Dangarembga’s novel, apparently because her coming of age tale, about the treatment of women in a newly independent Zimbabwe, wasn’t deemed representative of African women.

And Dangarembga’s style is challenging. Take a look at the trailer for her film Kare Kare Zvako (Mother’s Day). The ‘folk tale musical’ is a fantastical tale with a lively soundtrack of an abusive man who attempts to satisfy his greedy soul by consuming his wife.

Still, Dangarembga continued to make art. Nervous Conditions, which is widely considered one of the greatest African novels, proved to be the opening salvo in what is now a trilogy. The second volume The Book of Not was published in 2006 and Dangarembga’s looking for a publisher for the final volume Chronicle of an Indomitable Daughter.

She’s also continued to develop an international presence. Dangarembga gave a Tedx talk in Harare, in which she used her cat’s behavior as an opportunity for an amusing take on the rather depressing state of Zimbabwe - and human nature more generally. And Kare Kare Zvako screened at Sundance in 2005.

But most importantly, she’s done a little institution building in Harare. After forming her own film company Nyerai, she merged it with Women Filmmaker of Zimbabwe to create a platform for women filmmakers. Since 2002, they’ve hosted the International Images Film Festival for Women.

That Dangarembga has been able to do that with the very limited means and opportunities available in Zimbabwe, is instructive as we ponder the role of artists in Chicago, and wonder if we’re creating the conditions which allow art to flourish.

By the way I’d love to hear your suggestions if you know of any global artists who are new to Chicago and working here on a temporary or permanent basis. Email me acuddy@wbez.org

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Q&A with Julie Klausner, author of 'Art Girls Are Easy'

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:13:00 -0500

You probably know Julie Klausner from my 2010 interview with her. If not for that, maybe her memoir I Don't Care About Her Band or her personable podcast How Was Your Week. Starting Tuesday, you will also know her for her role as Young Adult author, as her new book Art Girls Are Easy, a funny and romantic summer camp romp with an artsy twist, will be released May 7. I asked Julie what it's like wearing a new YA hat, and below that, check out an excerpt from the book.

How hard or easy was it to switch gears into YA writing? What challenges did it pose?
It's completely tough to write a book, period. But switching gears into fiction was absolutely challenging, if only because I had to make sure I wasn't using my own voice the whole time when I was writing—whether it was in the description or in the dialogue. I don't have a lot of experience writing fiction. Part of that is because I have such a loud nonfiction voice. I am who I am. Another element of the challenge of having to sit down and make sh*t up is imagination. As I grow older, I become more and more fearful that I have little to no imagination. The kind of abilities I had as a little kid to just play and make things up as you went along. So, I had to get past that fear to crack the story, and then to write in the voices of the kids I invented. But as far as it being a challenge from a YA perspective, I honestly have to say that I just tried to be true to the material, and I didn't think of the audience as being below or necessarily less sophisticated than somebody I would usually write for. I didn't dumb down my prose—or, I tried not to.

You don't have to give us details (but feel free to), but how much of the book was inspired by your own young adulthood?
I absolutely relate to the main character in the book. I was a very emotionally intense adolescent, very interior. I was eaten alive by my own passions, which were equal parts artistic drive and sexual madness. That's where I drew the inspiration for Indigo's tumult. Her conflict is more internal than it is a concrete struggle with her best friend. She does have some love affair gone sour stuff with her best friend Lucy, but the main plot exists within Indigo, I think. As far as the setting, I did go to a Fine and Performing Arts sleepaway camp, but it wasn't like Silver Springs at all, insomuch as the counselors were NOT sleazy and I will go on record as saying nobody ever tried to make out with me at the time. Which is still disappointing.

What YA books have inspired you, either when you were a young adult or now in your general adulthood?
The first Gossip Girl novel, by Cecily Von Ziegesar, was a huge inspiration, in terms of when I was first researching the genre and my agent suggested I see what was out there. I was so impressed by its satire and humor and its references, as well as by its structure. It read like a television show in how it was laid out; each scene introduced a couple of characters and they all converged in the middle and at the end. I mean this as a huge compliment. So, that absolutely encouraged me to write one of my own. AS far as growing up, like everybody else I was shaped by Judy Blume's opus, but I also want to give a shout-out to Paula Danziger. She wrote some steamy—for me, at the time—novels about teenage girls making out with dudes and coming of age, and I plowed through every one of her novels. Also, if you Google her, you'll find some pretty incredible photos of her wearing a jaunty headband, which I guess, along with her purple glasses, was a trademark. She's dead now, which is very sad. A fellow redhead, too! Redhead Hall of Fame for her, no doubt.

What are your plans for celebrating your first YA book's release?
None as of yet! But I will probably overeat that night.

Who is currently your favorite animal? (Neither your nor my pets qualify.)
Well, that is unfair to disqualify Briscoe and Jimmy Jazz, but I'll play along. I'll go with most recently adored instead of utmost overall pet. Yesterday I met Marc Spitz's two basset hounds, Jerry and Joni. Jerry dazzled me, with his vocal displays of neediness and alpha-tude, but Joni ultimately won me over with her nuzzles and her plaintive, God-like eyes. I love them both. They are good hounds.

[Editor's note: Both Marc Spitz's and my dogs are named after Jerry Orbach.]

Now please enjoy an excerpt from Art Girls are Easy:

“Wake up!” Eleanor hissed. Sure enough, the bus was pulling up to campus, and the sign welcoming motorists to Silver Springs elicited cheers and general rabble from the peanut gallery of young campers at the front.
Indigo felt disoriented and groggy. She rubbed her eyes carefully so as not to smudge her mascara and looked out the window.They were just pulling up to the front of the camp.Indy could make out the lush lawn and blue buildings with sloping gray roofs in the near distance. Massive shady trees were spaced evenly throughout the campus, and the Silver Springs camp flag, which bore a feminized coat of arms that represented each discipline taught at camp above the Latin phrase ArsGratiaArtis (“Art is the reward of art”), danced lightly in the breeze. The overall effect was quite ethereal. Indigo began to imagine which colors she would mix to achieve the specific shades of the scene if she were to paint a landscape right now. Chartreuse and goldenrod. Maybe some cerulean.
“You were snoring.”Eleanor smirked, her thin lips a line graph of contempt under her Lancôme burgundy matte stick. “It was pretty annoying.”That was rich, coming from her. Indy gathered her things: she couldn’t wait to get off this bus and avoid Eleanor for the rest of the summer.
As the girls lined up like elegant, talented cattle down the bus aisle, the camp director, Lillian Meehan, greeted each camper as she exited with a lei made from organic peonies tied together with red kabbalah string. Lillian was tall and amiable, and thin enough to look great in clothes, though not necessarily pretty. Basically, she was Glenn Close with dark hair and a whistle around her neck.
Lucy looked back at a still-sleepy, rumpled Indigo before getting off the bus. As the two girls made eye contact for the first time since their light dish session about Tyler or Taylor or whoever, Lucy smiled and winked at her friend, and Indy felt the warm rush of camaraderie wash over her. She smiled back and soon enough emerged from the bus into the warm kiss of sunlight on the grassy patch, where Lillian greeted her with a lei. And when she lifted her face to take in the familiar postcard of the sprawling green campus before her, Indigo found something small and sublime in its composition.
There, on the lawn of the main sprawl of Silver Springs, right near the office, stood Nick Estep, holding a blowtorch to a life-size rectangular metal sculpture. Goggles rested over his longish hair, which trickled onto the collar of his Nirvana T-shirt in the Berkshires sunlight.Indigo’s heart rocketed to every point on the surface of her skin. He was here after all.

Follow Claire Zulkey @Zulkey.

Reviewing ‘The Walk’: Student fashion from the School of the Art Institute

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:35:00 -0500

Never mind the weather, here’s how I know that spring has really arrived. It’s the moment when I find myself inside a temporary tent set up in Millennium Park, perched on the edge of a long, white runway, seated next to my colleague and fellow fashionista, Natalie Moore.

Pens and cameras in hand, outfits tight and sharp, we were more than ready to review “The Walk,” the School of the Art Institute’s annual student fashion show.

Now in its 79th year, the show features the work of sophomore, junior and senior students. As you might expect of an art school, some of the looks are highly conceptual and absolutely unwearable. They’re explorations of an idea or theme or moment in history which makes for drama on the runway, but won’t translate into a street look — at least not without major refinements.

Natalie and I both appreciate experimental or cutting edge art and fashion. But face it, like most of you, we’re also just looking for something to wear!

The sophomores in some way face the biggest challenge. They work with a very limited set of materials and color palette, and they only get to produce one look.

Press play, then "X " for full screen. "Show info" displays captions.

Still, they’re the base from which all the looks emerge, and we often can trace a transition across the different classes. What starts as an idea or concept among the sophomores will be radically transformed by juniors, only to bloom into the seniors’ fully-realized set of fashion looks.

Turns out, that wasn’t the case this year. In fact, I’d call 2013 the year of the upset!

For one, both Natalie and I were far more entranced by the juniors’ work than the seniors’.

Rosa Halpern’s work was particularly exciting. Working with a dark, dramatic palette, Halpern’s looks included an elaborately constructed puffy long coat, perfect for today’s fall-like weather (Natalie said it looked a bit like some of Junya Watanabe’s work), which included one of the most intriguing and prominent accessories of this year’s show: masks and other facial coverings.

Halpern said she was inspired by Algerian Muslim gypsies and female hip-hop artists, and wants to make clothes “that make women feel stronger and better and more awesome, and enjoy life more.”

Jelisa Brown’s outfits deployed some Chicago icons, including our city flag. Brown also referenced Michael Jordan on the back of a flowing red cape. Her looks reflected hometown pride but also took a playful or even critical stance toward those icons. The Jordan image, for example, looked a lot like that fabled gingerbread man, running away and yelling ‘catch me if you can!’

That the juniors stood out kind of makes sense. Junior year is the moment to experiment, since students have made it through the trial by fire of their first year, but they don’t yet feel that pressure seniors have to get out there and find a job!

But it was also because the senior work felt safer to us than in recent years, especially last year.

The color palette was very muted in many cases, and minimalist looks were rampant. That can be interesting fashion territory to explore. But too often it created looks that made me think of the fashion establishment: think Calvin Klein or Eileen Fisher. Both are great designers, but they’re hardly what you’d expect from student designers, who tend to be more experimental and adventurous in their work.

In a few cases, a minimalist approach did work well. Kirstie Breitfuss, whose theme was “The Art of Noise,” used an unusual palette of light browns, reds and greens to create a sophisticated, subtle texture.

Other standouts include Krystle Thomas, whose collection “The In-Between” reminded me of Chicago artist Hebru Brantley’s work, as if some of his characters had come to life on the runway.

Carlie Hougen said her looks are generally inspired by a historical period, in this case the 1950s anti-communist sentiment that culminated in the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), as well as films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Hougen took those images of cultural anxieties and, inspired by a short film she found depicting the effects of LSD on a woman, explored “how a housewife on LSD might dress.” Our favorite look was an over-sized black and red check wool trench coat (think lumberjack) over a very soft and fragile pale pink- and yellow-patterned dress.

But the stand-out (and to my mind, the second major upset of this year’s show) was the menswear. I’ve often found the men’s clothes just don’t measure up to the designs for women. So I was pleased to see that the work of many designers, but especially the looks by Sam Salvo, raised the menswear bar very high.

Salvo’s looks incorporated ideas about the power structure of male sexuality, including bondage elements (a thigh harness and chains!). I was struck by the dramatic and elegant edge to his clothes.

I had worried going in that the fervor over Baz Luhrmann’s film The Great Gatsby might have produced a lot of 1920s looks (as it has in mainstream fashion). Salvo’s looks came closest, but put a fashion alchemy on a historical period (like Hougen) that made his clothes much more reflective of our moment.

Salvo says his fashion inspiration reflects what he wants, but also sometimes fears to wear.

And that’s exactly the impulse that made the best student designs so inspiring: the ability to turn personal or cultural or historical fears into fashion that is absolutely, one hundred percent fearless.

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Wire: Rock’s greatest super geniuses (after Eno)

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:07:00 -0500

Asked to assess the most important part of the legacy of long-running English art-punks Wire, most fans will cite the quartet’s first three albums—Pink Flag (1977), Chairs Missing (1978), and 154 (1979)—which chart a startling arc of growth and creativity that echoes and inspires to this day.

If you value my opinion at all, and you do not own these recordings, you should download them immediately. Your life will be richer for it, and I’ll wait.

Done? Good. Because here I will venture that as extraordinary as that music is, a case can be made based on Read & Burn: A Book About Wire, an impressive 400-plus-page appreciation of the band by Wilson Neate newly published by Jawbone in the U.K. and distributed by Hal Leonard in the U.S., and Change Becomes Us, the group’s 13^th studio album recently released on its own Pink Flag label, that Wire may prove to be best celebrated for its endless flood of Big Ideas, forever challenging the way rock bands interact, create, and evolve, to the point even of denying that the group has anything to do with rock at all.

In terms of philosophizing about the business of making an awesome noise, the only thinker who’s done more is that Great Theorist himself, Brian Eno.

Over the course of an on-again, off-again, ever-evolving 37-year career, Wire has introduced each new musical “object” (read: album or EP) with a grand theory: sonic, rhythmic, structural, technological, or all of the above and more. Some have been solid, undeniable, and timeless, some crackpot, misguided, and quickly dated, but all were declared in the moment with an unwavering dedication and sense of purpose. Eno had his Oblique Strategies; Wire has its Concrete Tactics. Of course, not every Big Idea has been a fruitful one, and as a guide for sorting through and trying to make sense of them all, veteran fans and new initiates alike can’t do better than Read & Burn.

Neate, an ex-pat Brit who earlier wrote in-depth about the group’s first album for the Wire’s Pink Flag installment of Compendium’s 33 1/3 series, tackles with equal passion, depth, and insight each distinct era of this complicated career: the initial burst that brought us those three classic albums, which was followed by a break of about six years; the “dugga dugga” days that began with the Snakedrill EP in 1986; a misguided period in the early ’90s when the artists were consumed by their own computers and foolishly marginalized drummer Robert Grey; and, after another break of about a decade, the ferocious incarnation that started early in the new millennium and which continues today, albeit with the loss of guitarist Bruce Gilbert.

Though the book is rich in varied perspectives from all of the key players, Read & Burn is less a conventional biography than one critic’s opinionated and insightful illumination of a daunting body of work by four extremely different and willfully perverse individuals. Neate’s theories about these arch-theorists take precedence over their own, which only is fair: This is his account, and the fact that every member of Wire not only has a different vision of Wire but often rewrites earlier versions makes concepts such as “definitive” and “objective” impossible, if they ever were desirable at all.

Here, the author slightly undersells the brilliance of Pink Flag, though he admits that’s largely because he’d already done the effusive gush in his earlier book, and he wanted to take a different approach this time (positioning the album more as a product of the punk explosion than as a radical reinvention of it). But in a brief Beat foreword, Mike Watt more than makes up for this, offering his own take on why this album has been so formative for bands ranging from the Minutemen, Mission of Burma, R.E.M., and Minor Threat to Blur, Guided by Voices, My Bloody Valentine, and Savages, to name but a very few.

To be sure, if Wire has given us one Big Idea on which a lesser band could base an entire career, it’s given us 100. Neate’s personal take on any one Wire album, era, or idea only encourages discerning readers to go back into the stacks, listen anew, and judge or reconsider for themselves; I can’t remember the last music book that sent me scurrying to play so many sounds again with fresh and eager ears. In the end, maybe you’ll think more highly of, say, The Ideal Copy than Neate or some of the band members do; perhaps you’ll hate Manscape even more. It’s all part of the fun.

Neate’s own Big Idea may be a bit more problematic. Basically, he argues that vocalist-guitarist Colin Newman’s rather dictatorial “pop” perfectionism always has ideally been balanced by Gilbert’s love of noise and embrace of chaos and confusion. (“Any form of disinformation is useful,” the sinisterly impish Gilbert once told me.) I more or less agree, and Gilbert’s “spanner in the works” is missed to some extent on the new album. But nothing ever is simple and clear-cut in Wire-Land, and Neate’s construction of the four-legged table somewhat shorts the contributions of bassist-vocalist Graham Lewis, the most lustful, poetic, and dare I say fun member of this posse of sometimes dour intellectuals, as well as adding to the near-universal under-appreciation of Grey, who not only is that rare drummer whose style and sound (minimalist though they may be) mark him as a singular voice, but who is genuinely a very nice man with a calming presence that cannot be underestimated in balancing the difficult forces of nature of the other three founding bandmates.

In any event, the fact that no member of Wire will be entirely approving of Neate’s reading of the charms and methodologies of Wire is one of the book’s strengths: This is just one exceedingly well-written and very passionate take on the band’s story and output, and too bad if the band doesn’t like it. As Lewis sang on 154: “I should have known better/Than to become a target/Albeit a target which moves.”

Ah, yes: the moving target. If all of this talk of ideas and theories seems joyless and pretentious, that neglects the fact that in consistently moving forward, Wire often disavows much of what it’s done in the recent or distant past. No one can take the piss out of Wire better than Wire itself. But the rush toward whatever is coming next always is so enthusiastic in concept and eager in execution that it’s impossible not to be swept up, loving the journey if not the destination. Plus, there usually are laughs aplenty along the way.

Personally, I’m vastly amused by Wire’s current rejection of one Big Idea from the Snakedrill/Ideal Copy days: the complete refusal to indulge in soul-killing nostalgia by playing any of its old material during its first extensive tour of the U.S. in 1987. (But then I would chuckle about that, given my own history with the band.) This doesn’t make that idea any less valid or brave: How many other artists ever have resisted giving the people what they want because they’re more excited about being here now or going somewhere new in the immediate future? Nor is it hypocritical; consistency, after all, is the hobgoblin of small minds. Finally, it certainly doesn’t invalidate the Big Idea behind Change Becomes Us, which attempts a different way to embrace the past in the present with an eye toward the future (or something like that).

When Wire first went on hiatus in 1980, it left behind a considerable body of work-in-progress, some of it heard in various forms of development on the sketchy 1981 live album Document and Eyewitnesses, as well as on scattered solo offerings and various obscure releases in the years that followed. The Big Idea on album number 13 is to return to these 32-year-old pieces and complete or reimagine them now, with Mssrs. Newman, Lewis, and Grey older if not necessarily wiser, and considerably younger guitarist Matt Simms assuming the role of Gilbert (sonically, if not philosophically; on board now for three albums, he has yet to assert himself on that front).

Think of someone picking up an unfinished Shakespeare manuscript and rewriting and completing it in the current vernacular, then doing a Burroughs cut-and-paste. That’s Change Becomes Us.

Now, as often is the case, something is just a little off in the realization of this idea. The original material is obscure even for Wire super fans, so the reimaginings are not necessarily as revealing or as much fun as they might have been. The only song that really grabs me in its juxtaposition of past/present/future is “Ally in Exile,” which opens the album in its new rendition and under its new title of “Doubles & Trebles.” What might have come of Wire 2013 reworking any one of the three masterpieces that started its career? I’d have been much more interested in hearing that, but then the lack of Gilbert might have been much more telling, whereas his twisted presence at least hovers in the background here, since he was in the thick of the original creation.

But with any new Wire offering, the idea only is one aspect of things. For all of the band members’ disdain for some of the words I’ve used—“fun” and “rock” chief among them—let us not forget that another purpose of the newest objet d'art is for us to listen to and enjoy it, however “American” that concept may be. (For this band, “American” and “rock” are pejoratives so nuanced with multiple levels of snarky meaning that no one who isn’t a perverse, nearly 60-years-old legendary English art-punk ever will fully comprehend them, while “fun” no doubt is a word that would leave even these loquacious chaps shuddering in speechless revulsion.)

Nevertheless, a fun rock album is what Changes Becomes Us is, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. The connections to one possible abandoned future post-154 can be heard in a sonic palette that is more lush, moody, and ambient than that of more Spartan recent offerings such as Send (2003), where the snarl took primacy. Yet the new one also is more playfully inventive and subtly skewed though no less tuneful than Red Barked Tree (2010), a “poppier” effort by Wire standards. With or without Gilbert, the quartet still gleefully brings the noise, and the now properly honored human element and relentless drive of Grey is central; he always will be the soul of this particular machine.

The dreamscape of “Keep Exhaling,” the ambient and lilting “Re-Invent Your Second Wheel,” the highly caffeinated “Stealth of A Stork” (with Newman’s frantic yelps of “Change!” every time the chords shift), the gonzo anthem “Eels Sang” (“Eels Sang Lino” in its earlier incarnation), and the absolutely lovely “& Much Besides” rank with some of the strongest and most memorable songs Wire ever has given us—though “song” may be another of those words that makes this band sneer, so conventional is the very notion.

Is Change Becomes Us the musical or conceptual equal of the three albums Wire gave us at the start of its history? No. But the band seems at long last to have accepted that matching or bettering those peaks isn’t possible, while moving forward to climb new if more modest ones is a worthy and possibly even enjoyable endeavor. As a whole, the four albums Wire has given us since 2003, with the latest being the most ambitious and the logical summation, certainly are more consistent and rewarding than any since the first three. So it’s fitting that all of this looking back and summing up is happening now, on record and in print.

Which is not to say that Wire isn’t about to blow it all up again with the next Big Idea any second, god love ’em.

(Wire performs at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park on Friday, July 19.)

Wire, Change Becomes Us (Pink Flag)

Rating on the four-star scale: 3.5 stars.

Follow me on Twitter @JimDeRogatis or join me on Facebook.

Chicago's 'Brave New Art World' is closer than you think

Wed, 01 May 2013 13:30:00 -0500

Stereotypes and stigma surrounding the art community are not entirely unfounded. Claire Molek, director of the relatively new River North space Hauser Gallery recounted her own experiences and education about the art world.

"The more I learned about the art world, the more I got disheartened about what I had to do," she said.

Molek, formerly of Wicker Park’s This is Not the Studio, recounted the differences between that space and the larger art world.

"That was all about community and hospitality and being able to contribute to an elevated contemporary discourse," Molek said. The space was a chance to create a structured platform for positive growth for community.

However, she noted that it was difficult to run a gallery while not selling art or 21 existing in a commercial space. The larger forces and "rules" within the art world left her disillusioned and she eventually left it for eight months. When she returned to the art world, her disillusionment turned into renewed reinvigoration. Molek wanted to "de-sterilize the gallery experience [and] make sure there’s a comfortable space to make people feel welcome."

This led to the creation of Brave New Art World, a new "arts unification movement." Premiering Thursday in the River North gallery district, the movement and event is a public forum. It will recur every first Thursday of the month from 5-8 p.m.

Featuring artist talks, performance art, and the open doors of such galleries as Catherine Edelman, Jean Albano, and Stephen Daiter, the event aims to provide a more inviting space for those inside and outside of the art community to come together.

People live and work in River North, but outside of the immediate vicinity of its popular clubs and restaurants, the neighborhood can feel isolating, abandoned and exclusive. When thinking about the market-driven art world in Chicago (as opposed to other art communities in the city), most reference the River North neighborhood. But the majority of artists living and working in Chicago do not live in the neighborhood.

Chicago as a decentralized – even segregated – environment impacts the cultural, racial, and social makeup of the city. This is felt in the beloved but underrated art community. For a variety of artists and audiences, River North – despite its centralization and density of gallery spaces – is a historically-significant, yet inaccessible hub.

Access is important not just for the general public, but for all participating tiers in the art world. River North, a neighborhood that can be accessed by multiple train and bus lines, is the perfect meeting point then for those in all "sides" of the city.

From a philosophical standpoint, Molek said that we are, "hungrier for human interaction...We want to learn about what is around us and develop our conscious in a different way."

Within a few months in her new position as director of Hauser Gallery, Molek realized that the same core tenets built within her smaller gallery practice were needed in this new neighborhood.

"I knew we would have to do something more than what we were doing to create a buyer base and breakdown the environment of pretension and elitism," she said. "That’s the environment the art world plays in. I realized I had to make my own politics and standards if I wanted to continue in this community."

Chicago has pushed out many incredible artists. People examine the city and wonder, "What are you going to do next?"

From a more localized standpoint, the event also aims to bring together the disparate art communities in the city. Brave New Art World is an attempt to address that question while staying true to the needs within the Chicago art community.

Molek believes that the young makers and administrators within the city should be looking at the galleries in River North as to how they became successful, while still bridging the gaps between perception and reality.

It is easy to buy into the idea of inaccessibility because it has existed for a long time. But in the end, these are often just "antiquated stereotypes."

"We think that these places are inaccessible, that these people aren’t nice," Molek said. "But the reality is that all of these galleries want to share."

Let Brave New Art World then be the first step in bringing together just one facet of this separate, yet culturally-united city.

Britt Julious blogs about culture in and outside of Chicago. Follow Britt's essays for WBEZ's Tumblr or on Twitter @britticisms.

C2E2 and Dark Lord Day let adults express inner adolescent

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:00:00 -0500

This weekend I went on an odyssey of sorts, through some of the strongholds of American popular culture.

Friday night I was at McCormick Place for C2E2 – the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.

Then Saturday, along with my colleagues Tim Akimoff and Andrew Gill, I headed to Munster, Indiana to brave Dark Lord Day, the annual heavy metal and beer event hosted by Three Floyds Brewing Company.

Both are fairly major cultural events. Over 50,000 folks made their way through C2E2 over the weekend. And in just a few years, attendance at Dark Lord Day has grown from a couple of hundred to 8,000, according to organizers.

Over the course of two days I got to talk with lots of great people: Local and international master brewers, musicians, comic book talent scouts, graphic artists, and novelists.

Many are enormously talented professionals, approaching or at the height of their game.

Still, in the midst of all this adult achievement, I couldn’t help feeling like I was among a pack of highly articulate adolescents.

Reading/talking about comics? Drinking huge amounts of beer? Headbanging and comparing tattoos?

The Gen Y and Millennial crew may be growing old, but their cultural choices haven’t aged at all.

This isn’t entirely new. Baby boomers were probably the first contemporary cohort to believe getting older didn’t mean putting away childish things, like their attachment to rock music. Instead they aged along with their cultural heroes, who in turn kept on playing and picked up new fans among the boomer offspring. Turns out it can be incredibly awkward when you and your Dad like the same band.

What does feel different now is that we’re not just remaining attached to our superheroes and suds, we’re giving them an upgrade.

Older music fans at Dark Lord talked about local band Bloodiest as “adult metal” (and were unabashed in their praise of concerts that allowed them to get their metal fix and ended at a reasonable hour).

And though keg stands are no longer the center of a party, that’s likely because the beer is way too good, too expensive, and too high in alcohol content to drink in volume.

Dark Lord, that pitch black, viscous, burnt sugar, sticky toffee and chocolate bomb of a Russian Imperial Stout, has an ABV of 15 percent and cost $15 for a 22 ounce bottle. Barrel variants sold for a whopping $50.

For a once-a-year beer, that price might be more reasonable than daunting. And clearly the Dark Lord crowd has the means to pay more. Outside the event, the ground was littered with rows of empty craft beer bottles, high end “dead soldiers” tailgaters had brought to drink or trade for other rare beer.

Back at C2E2, many attendees have similarly deep pockets, and are willing to shell out for elaborate cosplay costumes, rare back issues, or other comic related paraphernalia (a couple of guys from Los Angeles were hawking expensive wooden glasses frames imprinted with vintage comic book art).

All of this might provide further evidence of the cultural rise of “nerds”, the decidedly dude mentality at play in much of pop culture, or our general refusal (or inability?) to become adults.

And there’s merit to that line of thinking. After all, is it just a coincidence that the forthcoming (and highly anticipated) comic Peter Panzerfaust features that little boy who just wouldn’t grow up?

Still, like it or not, many of the tastes acquired in our adolescent years are pretty much driving adult or mainstream culture right now, often with fantastic results.

Take Chicago’s growing taste for fancy fast food.

Every week seems to bring another Irish pub, burger or rib joint, or taco stand run by a celebrity chef. Parson’s Chicken and Fish, a tonier take on shack food which opens any day now, will serve margaritas with a “Sour Patch Kids” flavored rim, and a Negroni “slushie” machine behind the bar. Novelty yes, but those frozen cocktails are delicious.

And even the most challenging cultural forms have been invaded. I ended my Saturday night at the opening program of Frequency, an ambitious new music series run by The Chicago Reader’s Peter Margasak.

Openers The Green Pasture Happiness, a trio of young electronics improvisers, make music with modular synthesizers, and as good as they sound, put on a show that looked less like a musical performance and more like a software hackathon.

Meanwhile, Dal Niente’s Mabel Kwan closed the evening with Stefan Prins Piano Hero #1, in which the piano and pianist, thanks to a midi keyboard, live electronics and video, are transformed into a glitchy, herky jerky variant on a Nintendo game.

Both offered further proof that adolescent pursuits, in the right hands, can in fact age well, into complex and yes, suitable-for-adults cultural fare.

The interview above offers another example: Marvel Comics talent scout C. B. Cebulski and comic artist Matthew Wade, who attended both C2E2 and Dark Lord Day, talk about how comic art inspired the mad delicious Three Floyds beer Zombie Dust.

Alison Cuddy is WBEZ’s Arts and Culture reporter. Follow her @wbezacuddy, on Facebook and on Instagram.