By Raquel Buriani
Here is a list of the resources we cited in our Plastic Free July posts, click on the quote for full context and credit.
We will update this post throughout the month as we add more plastic free research.
Getting Started with Natural Dyes: Growing and Gathering
by Amanda Whitfield
This post contains affiliate book links that support Conscious Costume’s programming.
As a costume designer and technician, I rely on the natural dye process of coffee and tea for dipping down bright whites to a softer tone and breaking down textiles when distressing clothing for film and stage. That had been my extent of natural dyeing experience until a few years ago when I started to find great joy in forging for plants. Initially, the excitement of forging started with finding wild blackberries, honeysuckle, dandelion, and chanterelle mushrooms to incorporate some whimsy in the kitchen and create flower essence for the bath. As I incorporated the grounding practice of forging into my homelife I started to get excited about abundance practice that I could incorporate into my work life.
wild edible blackberries on a cutting board, Westside Atlanta
Cherokee Homestead Exhibit in the background, Historic Hayesville, Clay County, NC
I discovered some history of natural dyeing when visiting heritage sites, art centers, and local museums in the Blue Ridge Mountains just a few hours north of Atlanta. I’ve learned that plant matters: you can’t just pick any plant, flower, or berry and expect the color to bond to fiber. I’ve been studying plants to grow and gather that will be easy to incorporate into my flow.
As I learn more about natural dyeing and the revival of natural dyes, a lot of lore and recipes are handed down and practiced across cultures from antiquity. This winter I found an abundance of black walnut and lichen on a hike in Hayesville, NC. The Appalachian Mountains were home to the dominant Cherokee Nation who utilized black walnuts for dyeing.
pecan dye test nested with cheesecloth
stringing fresh marigolds to dry
Foraging is a beautiful practice that connects me to nature. It comes with responsibility: take only what you need and no more than one third of the plant. You leave a third for the animals to eat and the remaining third for the earth to regenerate. Some of my favorite plants to forge for dye include: pecan, dandelion and goldenrod. I also save my avocado skins and pits in the freezer to use for a soft pink dye bath.
fresh picked magenta dahlia’s & vanilla, orange, and tiger marigolds
In addition to foraging and collecting plant matter you can grow a dye garden! Marigolds I planted last May bloomed until November with the Atlanta climate and are the easiest to grow. I also planted dahlias, gladiolas, and a eucalyptus tree last spring and have been gathering, drying, and storing the plant matter as I learn more about the mordants needed to make natural dyes stick. You can plant marigolds in a container or as a great addition to your vegetable garden. Not only do they deter pests and animals from eating your garden they smell amazing and can be used for flower essences and energy healing. What I love most about this study is that it allows me to slow down, experiment, and have full creative freedom. Fiber and mordants play a role with pigment, vibrancy, and making the color stick.
Suggested Reading:
Natural Dyes and Home Dyeing (Revised)
by: Rita J Adrosko
The Wild Dyer: A Maker's Guide to Natural Dyes with Projects to Create and Stitch
by: Abigail Booth
Wild Color: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes
by: Jenny Dean and Karen Diadick Casselman
The chart below is a color reference to get you started. If you are looking for a nature escape and to do some foraging check out my cabin rental in Murphy, NC on Instagram @TheCabinEffect, you can follow me @CostumeNotions. Happy Dyeing!
Getting Started: NATURAL DYE COLOR CHART
Pink(ish): Avocado, Pecan, Fresh Dahlias. Yellow(ish): Marigold, Dandelion, Goldenrod. Black/Brown(ish): Black Walnut, Lichen, Dried Dahlias. Orange(ish): Eucalyptus, Marigold, Tumeric
Amanda Whitfield is an Atlanta based Costume Designer and the Costume Shop Manager at Theater Emory. Her work spans Theater, Film, Dance, Academia and Apparel.
Thoughts on Abundance
What I’ve learned from a year in a BuyNothing group
By: Kristen P Ahern
Disclaimer: many of the ideas presented here are based in the wisdom of indigenous peoples and community activism. Though the words reflect my own experience, these are not revolutionary ideas. If this is a new idea to you, I hope my words inspire you to begin your own journey to Abundant thinking.
Scarce: 1: deficient in quantity or number compared with the demand : not plentiful or abundant. 2: intentionally absent
Abundant: 1: existing or occurring in large amounts : AMPLE. 2a: marked by great plenty (as of resources) a fair and abundant land. b: amply supplied : ABOUNDING
In theatre design, we are comfortable with the concept of Scarcity; Scarcity of time. Scarcity of resources. Scarcity of money. These are the confines within which we design, the are the limitations that inspire us to be creative but are also the source of our greatest stress. While we are intimately familiar with Scarcity, how on Earth can we imagine Enough, or even Abundance?
Through my own journey as a designer and activist, I’ve heard about the importance of the Abundance mindset, how revolutionary and transformative it is. “Sure,” I reasoned, “it sounds great, but I don’t have the time or resources to really think Abundantly right now.” Only now do I realize the contradiction in framing a transition to Abundance in this way. Scarcity led me to cling onto old ideas and things, hold them “just in case” I needed them later. Abundance helped me engage in DEEP trust that the things I needed would be there when the time came.
“We see a world of abundance, not limits. In the midst of a great deal of talk about reducing the human ecological footprint, we offer a different vision. What if humans designed products and systems that celebrate an abundance of human creativity, culture, and productivity? That are so intelligent and safe, our species leaves an ecological footprint to delight in, not lament?”
― Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
In July of 2020, my partner and I moved to a new apartment in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of Chicago. We’d previously gotten rid of lots of our furniture, whittling it down to only what we really loved and needed, so setting up a new home meant we were in need of new pieces. I’m used to shopping second hand for these types of things, and in a normal year, we would have gone to a few thrift stores to find what we need and then supplemented with Ikea or Target. But in a time of financial Scarcity and a public health crisis, we required a new solution. We discovered a THRIVING BuyNothing group in our neighborhood (if you are unfamiliar with the BuyNothing project, I highly recommend you check it out HERE). This is the only time I have consistently been a part of a community doing things for others with no expectation of anything in return.
“BuyNothing offers people a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a worldwide gift economy network in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people. We believe that communities are more resilient, sustainable, equitable, and joyful when they have functional gift economies.”
-BuyNothing Project
Besides sourcing many pieces of furniture (a shelf, TV stand, lamp, and rugs, among other items), I’ve never felt closer to and more supported by my immediate neighbors. When my partner had sudden late night back pain last year, I was able to drive to a neighbor’s house and pick up ice packs safely from their front porch to alleviate the pain without the risk of going into a store during a pandemic. When a mother of a newborn discovered she was out of onions and wanted to make stew, I delivered an onion to her door while walking my dog. We give what we do not immediately need for the sake of our community. This felt revolutionary, transformative, and all together wonderful.
“Never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need.
Take only that which is given.
Never take more than half. Leave some for others. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Nature does not hoard, nature flows, nature takes what it needs, not more. That’s why plants and animals die when they get too much. Too much sun, too much water, too much food, too much of a necessary thing is a poison. Water is needed, but flooding happens when we get too much all at once, wildfires happen when we don’t get enough. It is about balance; it is about the synergy of things working together.
I’m not demanding that we should keep no things and have no precious pieces, this is a provocation to consider the materials in your possession as more than just yours. They are energy, moving through the world and I believe that energy will flow to where it is meant to be. We are holding them for just one moment in their lifecycle. How can we be good material stewards and hand down quality things to the generations who come behind us? In many cases, we work with goods that have components older than we are and things that will outlive us. Everything has a home, a natural next step in its existence where it is actually desired and useful. It is up to us to take the time to help it find that next home instead of just throwing it away in a fit of frustrated cleaning and purging.
Just because it is out of your life, does not mean it disappears. There is no “away” in throwing things away; so, how can you get rid of things abundantly? Let’s take The Magic of Tidying Up one step further, after you determine that a thing does not spark joy, ask: would this spark joy for someone else? Then try to find that specific person instead of a nebulous “away.” This is true abundant thinking, realizing that there is Enough, and that if you share your excess, your needs and desires will find you.
Sure it sounds a little “woo” to manifest things in this way, but an Abundant way of living is based on trust. We (usually) trust our employer to pay us on the schedule set out in our contract, right? We trust that our direct deposit will hit and we will be able to pay our bills, in fact it is shocking and derailing when that doesn’t happen or when our bills are higher than we believe them to be. We talk about trust in currency, in brands, but where is that trust in others, trust in our Abundance?
Abundance takes vulnerability, flexibility, and patience, and that is something we are short on in contemporary capitalism. It can be difficult to ask for what we need and to wait for things to arrive, particularly in a culture that is so used to instant gratification. It didn’t take long, but it seems that everyone is conditioned to expect that any delay is unreasonable when shopping online. Buy it, and it’s there, browse photos, pick the thing, it arrives and is what you predicted. In contrast, Abundance asks us to wait, to trust that a friend or neighbor will come to our aid, a vulnerable act in a culture that glorifies independence. Abundance asks that we take what is given, not selfishly wait for the thing that is exactly what we imagined. It can even be vulnerable to give, admitting that you took more than you needed, or that your life situation has changed and a treasured item is no longer useful. Many people currently give at times of transition, weight change, moving, downsizing, new job, new beginning.
Abundant giving is also a slow, patient process. Though it may feel like you have lots of amazing and useful stuff, finding the person or organization who actively wants it will take time. It can be much more comfortable to just get it all out at once, dump it at a second hand shop, rip the band aid off and just move on. But that is not Abundant thinking, go back to the nature metaphor at the beginning of this section, rarely does nature fruit all at once but instead it goes slowly. There is always something blooming and fruiting for us. In that way, make regular checks in your life on what you need and or can spare, keep a routine flow of things in and out of your life. Eliminate the sense of overwhelm and panic that comes from the massive sort and purge cycle.
You may believe that a simple solution to this is second hand shops. What on the surface could appear to be an act of generosity, we know that these stores often take in more than they could ever sell. Often your donation can get damaged in the sorting process and put in a landfill anyways, or it is deemed unworthy for sale and will get shipped (a carbon intensive process) overseas to simply become someone else’s problem. Consider this: am I being generous and sharing with Abundance OR am I overwhelmed with the stuff I hoarded in capitalist resource Scarcity and now I need it gone ASAP before I explode?
Twice last year, Conscious Costume ran a textile drive fundraiser. While I’m proud of the work that we did, I did have some major questions and concerns. During our appointment to deliver the materials, it was pouring with rain and I saw several boxes of donated books being destroyed with water, I saw a box of dishes fall over and shatter, and bales and bales of “unwearable” clothes, destined to be sent to countries exploited by Eurocentric cultures. All of these items were donated in good faith that someone else would want and need it, buy it, love it, and maybe pass it on. That’s not the reality, we (as a culture) purchase, and get rid of more than can ever be resold. With the rise in the popularity of thrifting, many people who rely on these shops for economic reasons, have noticed steep rises in prices. I would much rather rehome each item myself, knowing that the next owner wants it and needs it.
“Here's where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good.”
― William McDonough, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Often we begin our design careers in Scarcity, but this forces us to look around with an eye for Abundance. What could a thrifted dress become? What do I have that I can bring to this project? Who do I know that I can go to for help? When I ran a small start-up theatre company, I shared my time with almost every department because time and funds were scarce so we pulled from where we could. We borrowed flats where we had a connection, we pulled a desk from the alley to use on the set. Without the funds to purchase, we looked at the world, not with a credit card, but with our eye to the Abundance of what we could find. The show didn’t have a gorgeous or groundbreaking design, but the performance was generally what we wanted.
As we advance in our careers, we unlearn this skill. We now have the resources to just go buy what we need, which fits perfectly in our vision and does not allow for mistakes or innovation. While the practice of thrifting and upcycling is acceptable for young, scrappy designers and companies, once a certain level of success is achieved this practice is frowned upon. Let’s just buy it, let’s buy options just in case! We flip the script and buy more than we need; we collect and hoard. Even in early career years, often the Scarcity of time or support leads us to make quick, fast fashion purchases to be able to complete a project on time. It would be disingenuous to pretend that early career artists are all creative material angels and mid to late career designers are selfish or lazy.
What I wonder: can we be just as materially creative in our budget Abundance as in our budget Scarcity? I see Donyale Werle as a perfect living example of this. She could have things built from scratch for her Broadway shows. Vacuform plastic in the exact shapes she wants, the budgets allow for this. However she still dumpster dives and collects and cleans otherwise unwanted materials for her designs. Similarly, many Downton Abbey costumes are built from vintage clothing or flea market materials that have been salvaged and turned into beautiful new costumes. The scope of production could probably support all new materials from wherever the designer wants but authenticity took priority, so material creativity, Abundant thinking, and green practices followed.
Ask yourself this: am I TRULY generous and Abundant when sourcing and sharing with others? Consider the overstuffed costume storage. What if using technology, you could clear out that storage and have a good chance of getting back that costume or something better in the future when you actually need it? Instead of hoarding it, cycle it out to the community and cycle it back? Imagine if part of the production process was always to ask each other for what we need. Imagine if we were all in the habit of posting our wishlist somewhere and had a nation of designers and shops who could pull, photograph, and send.
Another part of shifting this paradigm is also changing the dynamic of renting and borrowing. Within the current system, borrowers are frequently expected to return a piece exactly as it is. What if we reimagine sharing with an Abundance mindset? We could give away instead of lending and create an Abundance of space, or perhaps the piece could be improved when returned? How does it benefit your stock to keep that piece unchanged? How does it benefit you to keep it at all if, upon the close of a show, a performer wants to keep or purchase a garment? I am a proponent of letting actors keep/buy what they wore in a show because they will love and treasure that as a memento as well as keep it in use. If you really need it back, you could always reach out and possibly rent it from the performer instead of storing it. What if part of our artistic Abundance spread to our communities, giving away winter coats and gear from costume storages to the unhoused, furniture or prop dishes to resettled refugees?
BUT (I hear you screaming as you read this) this takes time! It does, which is why we need new models and broad buy in. To borrow an analogy from the activist community: it’s like a choir, if we all breathe separately and trust that someone else will carry the note while we are breathing then we can do this. Continuing the choir parallel, this requires a collective, a community. We work together to rehome the things that aren't right for our needs any longer. And we ask for what we need. Can you put some budget towards a staff member or assistant to find the free, low cost, or second hand option? Can you pay for that time instead of paying for the stuff? Obviously this proposal creates new challenges and I’m not demanding an overhaul tomorrow, just trying to approach our materials with a new, Abundant, outlook.
Abundance also asks us to be vulnerable and to behave “differently” from current theatre structures. Asking to borrow is often done with a sense of guilt and shame, assuming we are inconveniencing the other person with our presence and needs. What if sharing were treated as a joyful experience for everyone?
I often love pulling pieces or having people come look at CC’s collection because it gives me an opportunity to joyfully share. We make a small rental or purchase fee, which may seem counter to the Abundance model I’m sharing here. Unfortunately, as long as we are trying to shoehorn ideas of Abundance into capitalistic models that promote Scarcity, CC needs to make some money to exist, the fees generally do not pay for the time I put in or the space and we are primarily supported through grants, donations, and Patrons. Are there ways that we can detach financial exchange from theatre models? I hope so.
Enough: 1: occurring in such quantity, quality, or scope as to fully meet demands, needs, or expectations (Enough food for everyone). 2: in or to a degree or quantity that satisfies or that is sufficient or necessary for satisfaction : SUFFICIENTLY
Kristen P Ahern
Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
Why Conscious Costume: A Primer
By: Kristen P Ahern
Photo by Francois Le Nguyen on Unsplash “Sorting through hundreds of tons of clothing in an abandoned factory for a social mission called Clothing the Loop.”
Often Conscious Costume focuses on solutions and hope, uplifting the art we do to the level of activism and having an impact on our world. However, it’s also important to understand why conventional costume production is problematic given our relationship with the global textile and fashion industry. CC sees the role of the costume professional as stewards of materials, one step in the complex supply web, one moment in the journey of that material from its creation to the moment that it returns to the earth as either a nutrient or a poison.
We are grateful for the many organizations who have done fantastic work in researching the harms and potential solutions to the global fashion market. They have created articles and resources to help us (and you!) understand the problem. We hope this provides a digest of fast facts to help you make educated decisions in your own practice and advocate for better institutional solutions.
PART 1: THE PROBLEM
There is power in data. There is clarity in understanding the scale of the global fashion and textile industry, their impact on the environment, and our place in it. Here are a few fast facts to help understand and communicate the urgency to more ethical costume production.
Photo by Rio Lecatompessy on Unsplash.
Water Use
1 pair of conventional jeans takes over 2,000 gallons of water to make
Land Use
“The fashion industry’s footprint goes back into the climate crisis in a way that disproportionately affects black and brown communities both in the states and globally, based on the structural racism of positionality and the systems of lack of information and protection,” Dominique Drakeford
Natural fibers like cotton rely extensively on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which can harm soil and water nearby.
“More than 120 million trees are cut down each year to make our clothing.”
Labor Issues
“An Oxfam 2019 report found that 0% of Bangladeshi garment workers and 1% of Vietnamese garment workers earned a living wage.”
Buying US made garments is not a solution to labor concerns of buying garments from overseas, workers in LA still often work for just 5 or 6 cents per garment, meaning they would have to produce 300 pieces in an hour in order to make the local minimum wage of $15/hour.
Many garment making facilities are notoriously unsafe places to work.
Packaging
Poly bags that your clothing comes in are rarely recycled but a vital part of the fashion supply chain that protects clothing from costly damage and waste.
Returns
Overbuying is a common practice in costume production but most clothing returned online is not resold to another consumer and often it ends up thrown away.
Synthetic Fibers
“…about 60 percent of the material that makes up our clothes worldwide” is plastic based
“One 2011 paper found 1,900 fibers could be released from a single synthetic garment in a wash” These plastic microfibers are extremely damaging to marine environments.
Modal is often celebrated as an eco friendly synthetic fiber, however this material is made from trees (often from plantations that clear-cut natural jungle in favor of timber farming), and chemically intensive to process.
Textile waste
Textile recycling is energy intensive and often “downcycles” the fiber rather than “recycling” it because it becomes a lower quality product with less reusability after this process (fiber fill, rags, etc…)
“More than 15 million tons of used textile waste is generated each year in the United States, and the amount has doubled over the last 20 years.”
“According to the EPA Office of Solid Waste, Americans threw away about 65 pounds of clothing per person in 2015. That adds up to about 16 million tons of clothing and textiles every year.”
Emissions
“...the fashion industry contributes approximately 2.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in a single year, equivalent to 4% of all global emissions.”
Dye
“During the dyeing process, up to 80% of pigments are retained and the remainder are flushed out, causing 40,000-50,000 pounds of dye to enter into the water system each year.”
Shopping second hand problems
“As thrifting reaching new levels of popularity, troves of people are noticing a rise in prices at their local thrift stores. This can take a serious toll on the folks who rely on the used market for everyday wear.”
Thrifting with the intention to alter can also limit the already limited options for plus size shoppers.
Thrift stores benefit from fast fashion “We can swap out our entire wardrobe by dumping what we don’t want at a second-hand store with the hopes that it’ll be put to good use. Instead of buying less, we trick ourselves into thinking we can shop our way out of the problem by donating again and again.” But the reality is that only 10-20% of what gets donated, ends up on the thrift store rack. “The remaining 80 percent is shipped to other countries like Poland, Pakistan, and Kenya or turned into rags or post-consumer fiber.”
A lot of so called “Deadstock” fabric is just planned overproduction that goes to “Jobbers” or stores, one of the best known of these is Mood Fabric in New York.
Photo by Becca McHaffie on Unsplash
PART 2: QUICK SOLUTIONS
Often we are asked for the “tips and tricks” version of rethinking our approach to costume production. We see buying “better” fibers and brands or finding solutions for textile waste to be Step 1 of a Conscious Costume journey. Ultimately we’d like to reexamine the cycle of materials and the relationship between theatre design and the extractive and capitalist system. But, these are great places to start:
Natural fibers are a great solution because they do not require petrochemicals to make and they will eventually biodegrade. However like everything, buying natural is not a perfect solution and there are potential pitfalls, learn more here.
Organic Cotton is one of the darlings of solutions, and though it has a lower environmental impact, much more land is needed to produce the same amount of cotton because the yield is lower.
Natural dyes are made from natural materials and don’t use heavy metals or toxic chemicals in the dying process so they are better for local health (and likely for the wearer).
Shop Second Hand. Though above, we tried to demonstrate why shopping second hand is not a silver bullet for fixing our impact on the planet, there are some distinct advantages and it’s a great thing to incorporate into your practice.
“...extending the average life of clothes by just three months of active use per item would lead to a 5 to 10 percent reduction in each [item’s] carbon, water and waste footprints,”
“...quadrupling the average life span of these items resulted in a 75 percent savings in freshwater used for dyeing and other processes.”
Worried that your thrifting is just supporting for-profit organizations making money off of other people’s garbage? Check here for charitable thrift stores.
For shopping new, head over to Good on You or some of the many other guides to better understand which shopping option is right for you! They have a great primer on getting into ethical and sustainable clothes shopping.
Fabric recycling: But for now, having any sort of recycling plan is vitally important. Materials we don’t use, extras, things that get damaged, or just costumes once a production closes. In the next section, we will dive deeper into more community oriented circular solutions.
Donate to a thrift store
Donate to a Creative Reuse Center
Post in your Buy Nothing Group or Freecycle
Textile recycling: For Days’ Take Back Bag will take back all textiles, no matter how small, and you get a store credit.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
PART 3: REVOLUTION
What we really need is to radically rethink our approach to costume materials. Conscious Costume is most focused on advocating for and facilitating more circular material use. We take inspiration from some amazing artists and academics who have been working in this space for far longer than we have
Look for a more detailed examination of the costume revolution in a future blog post but for now, chew on these other resources to get an understanding of our inspirations and learn some of the terminology we’ll be using.
Photo by Francois Le Nguyen on Unsplash
And for those readers who want extra credit and want to understand more about the issues in the current fashion and textile industries, we highly recommend doing a deep dive into the following reports:
Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
Carrying Forward Practices Discovered in Virtual Theatre
By: Amanda Whitfield
Amanda on a hike in North Carolina. Light skinned woman with long hair in a forest with bright sunlight.
Pivoting a season to virtual production caused shifts in calendar planning, reduced rehearsal time, and created strong opposition to the law of production. While I found pulling from previous practices gave me a pathway to solving problems, I needed to re-think approaches to the tried and true and find balance with the law of production.
I’m a huge fan of actors wearing their own shoes in production. It saves time, money, and is an opportunity to collaborate with the actor. While the actor may not always have the perfect shoe for their character this is a great conversation starter to discuss character attributes and a more conscious option.
Grecian draped knit costume dress made of hemp, wool, and cotton fibers on a dress form with woman in black wearing a mask taking the photo reflected in the mirror.
EXPANDING COLLABORATION
Virtual production allowed me to expand collaboration and further engage the actor by pulling from the actors closet. Research and design ideas were presented to our cast before zoom consultations where the actor brought some items from their wardrobe inspired by the costume research or sketch. We talked through options in a short conversation that included our director and stage manager. During the consultation we decided if additional items or instructions need to be provided. Shop assistants supported production by developing “how-to” worksheets and “dress lists'' for actors and stage managers to reference. Continuing to pull from actor closet’s can further engage the collaboration process and is a balanced approach with costume production whether in person or streaming performances.
TIME MANAGEMENT
I plan to continue virtual design, team meetings, and initial actor emails. Maintaining remote practices to save time and energy by continuing virtual measurements and fittings whenever possible. While the needs of the show may dictate in-person activity a virtual fitting and fit photos can be a successful mode of communicating. Email correspondence with actors explore conversations about character and center actors as an expert of their body by discussing what clothing they own, where they make purchases, comfortable sizes, and any values they have around clothing their body.
PRACTICING VALUES
I took some time to expand my values and attend training on equitable and green practices. Advocating for pay equity and additional staff is an important practice. I'm in the process of involving production partners and creative team members with evolving backstage dressing room practices. Part of my job is to inform our collaborators of the production needs; virtual reality gave me an opportunity to build on communication and transparency that I’m determined to carry forward.
My value awareness has expanded and I’m improving choices with my work. I prioritize choosing fabrics and natural fibers such as hemp, bamboo, wool and cotton. I repurpose notions & trims and restore garments so they can be reused for another show. I encourage actors to keep items they will reuse. Purging what no longer serves my stock and workshop has allowed me to use and share resources with fresh eyes. Using what I already have and investing in organizing inventory is an ongoing project to carry forward. I’m trying alternatives to plastic storage bins and found rectangular canvas totes great for sorting fabrics because I can pin fabric swatches to the bags for a quick reference.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Laundry products in front of potted plants.
The summer downtime from production allowed me time to pivot standard practices and research new products to further reduce consumption and consider alternatives to the tried and true. I discovered Earth Breeze liquidless laundry detergent sheets, Cosy House Collection reusable wool dryer balls, and sourced local Atlanta cleaning products Squeaky Green to reduce waste and save energy. I’ve enjoyed questioning my practices and looking to new brands for expanding choices. Implementing a new practice can take time and is not perfect, letting go of perfectionism is part of the evolution towards equity and conservation. I’ve learned setting small goals and working towards change can have a big impact.
PARTNERSHIP
Purging what no longer serves my stock and workshop has allowed me to use and share resources with fresh eyes and to give unused items another purpose. Now that I can see my resources, I can share them with my students and designers. Our collective consciousness can evolve the industry as we continue our work and imagine fresh ideas, systems, and values. What impact or changes have you made during this time? How have you pivoted your craft and artistry? What techniques or resources can you share?
Amanda Whitfield is an Atlanta based Costume Designer and the Costume Shop Manager at Theater Emory. Her work spans Theater, Film, Dance, Academia and Apparel.
January Conscious Hero: Elsa Hiltner... Again!
By: Kristen P Ahern
Elsa posing with The Sex Issue of The Chicago Reader which featured an article on her work in labor equity. Photo from Elsa’s Instagram, used with permission.
To kick off our 2021 season of Conscious Heroes, I want to circle back to our first Hero: Elsa Hiltner. I’ve learned so much from a year of interviewing and writing that I thought Elsa deserved a more robust profile like many of the other people featured in 2020! Elsa Hiltner is a Costume Designer and Wardrobe Stylist for theatre, film, commercials, and events based in Chicago.
Elsa’s work in labor equity began as concerns about labor surrounding the clothes that she buys and wears. Like many people in the sustainable fashion world, the Rana Plaza disaster in April 2013 was a moment of awakening. Elsa read books about the changing fast fashion industry (Overdressed) and gender issues in the evolution of clothing (Sex and Suits) and looked for a way to get involved with labor in the garment industry. She searched for information specific to the costume industry, recognizing how the gendered and exploitative pay in the garment industry was reflected in theatre but couldn’t find any resources so she took it upon herself to begin writing.
Elsa published her first article, “A Call for Equal Support in Theatrical Design,” in Howlround as that seemed like the type of platform where people would be receptive to what she researched. Since I last shared Elsa’s work, she has written two additional articles for Howlround: “Inequity by Design” and “Pay Equity: What’s in it for Theatre Companies?” Elsa continued working with Howlround for the subsequent articles because it is easy to submit ideas and she was already familiar with the process. Elsa finds many ways that her design skills translate over into this writing and activism. As many of us have discovered in this last year, our skills can be repurposed in new ways. Writing an article has a flow similar to the design process, how each article feeds into the next, in the research and mental (and physical!) organizing during the prep work.
In her latest article: “Pay Equity: What’s in it for Theatre Companies?” Elsa sets out to make the case that companies, not just individuals, benefit from pay equity. Aside from the fact that we should all care about each other and not exploit fellow artists (or other humans), Elsa’s research shows that people, including artists, do better work when they are paid equitably. She asked approximately forty-five Chicago local theatre executives a series of questions about how they define pay equity, what they see as benefits for enacting pay equity, what tools are needed to enact pay equity, and what their motivations are for doing it in the first place. Perhaps if the industry and artists understand these things then we can work on creating the tools and motivations for companies. I highly recommend a careful read of all of Elsa’s incredible work for more information about her research and conclusions.
One point that Elsa is always careful to make is that the onus should not be on individual artists to advocate for themselves but that the companies and industry need to push for collective, institutional change. So what can individuals do? Elsa says “Every time I take a job, I’m approving of a system, approving of the way it’s being done. So if people on the team aren’t being paid equitably, I’m approving that, I’m normalizing it.” This is an awareness that every artist needs to have, be aware of the collective power dynamic, who has the power to say yes or no to pay rates or contract stipulations.
One of Elsa’s early projects was the Theatrical Designer Pay Resource, an anonymous crowd-sourced pay transparency document with years of pay data from designers across the US, representing every major theatrical market. Elsa sees her activist role as starting conversations; that asking questions to encourage people to talk and think is her main organizing strategy. Besides writing, her latest project is On Our Team, which Elsa co-founded one year ago, with Bob Kuhn, Christine Pascual, and Theresa Ham to address ongoing labor and pay equity issues in Costume Design and other theatrical design areas.
For many, it feels as if the theatre industry has the potential for a turning point right now. Elsa and I discussed the generalization that the theatre industry, as a whole, values cheap over good (or fair). This in turn is why society doesn't value art or theatre, there is little value placed on the skill, expertise, and longevity of the people involved. As a result, we are losing a lot of very talented people. Even before Covid, many found that theatre is not sustainable as a career, which is bad for the industry, the artists, and for the art. We have an opportunity to grasp the way that goods, labor, the environment, etc… are holistically connected and we should work for a society that benefits everyone so we can live in a safer and healthier world.
One of Elsa’s early projects was the Theatrical Designer Pay Resource, an anonymous crowd-sourced pay transparency document with years of pay data from designers across the US, representing every major theatrical market. Elsa sees her activist role as starting conversations; that asking questions to encourage people to talk and think is her main organizing strategy. Besides writing, her latest project is On Our Team, which Elsa co-founded one year ago, with Bob Kuhn, Christine Pascual, and Theresa Ham to address ongoing labor and pay equity issues in Costume Design and other theatrical design areas.
For many, it feels as if the theatre industry has the potential for a turning point right now. Elsa and I discussed the generalization that the theatre industry, as a whole, values cheap over good (or fair). This in turn is why society doesn't value art or theatre, there is little value placed on the skill, expertise, and longevity of the people involved. As a result, we are losing a lot of very talented people. Even before Covid, many found that theatre is not sustainable as a career, which is bad for the industry, the artists, and for the art. We have an opportunity to grasp the way that goods, labor, the environment, etc… are holistically connected and we should work for a society that benefits everyone so we can live in a safer and healthier world.
As individuals, we need to keep this conversation happening, continue advocating for yourself if you feel you have the privilege to do so, but also find ways to create groups where you can take a collective stand. Elsa found that her collaborative skills from theatre have been particularly helpful when working with designers around the country who are working on similar issues and how they can support each other and build off each other’s work. Two such groups are the Chicago Costume Community and the Costume Enclave in Minneapolis/St. Paul, in both cases, these groups are a community of individuals coming together to discuss costume unique issues and “lean in the right direction.”
The minds behind On Our Team. Left to Right: Bob Kuhn, Christine Pascual, Elsa Hiltner, and Theresa Ham. Photo credit to the server at Eleven City Diner, taken from Elsa’s Instagram and used with permission.
Elsa is already working on the 4th essay and I cannot wait to see how she builds on the powerful call for more equity in theatre! She is also now working as a pay equity consultant to help theatre companies establish pay equity policies. Elsa has been featured in The Chicago Reader, The Smartistry podcast, and will be appearing on an episode of the new podcast Dirty Laundry. Elsa was also instrumental in establishing Call Time, to cultivate and share mental wellness resources with Chicago theater workers while de-stigmatizing mental illness. She hopes to continue to push people to change how they frame pay equity, which is why she is our Conscious Hero for January!
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Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
December Conscious Hero: Kaitlin Stewart
By: Kristen P Ahern
Kaitlin (light skinned woman with dark hair, gold hoops, printed black shirt) standing in front of a mural of the Earth with text “We All Live Here” Photo Credit: Tommy Kennedy
Conscious Costume is all about looking at the issue of sustainable and ethical production from different perspectives. December’s #ConsciousHeroOTM is Kaitlin Stewart of Windy City Thrifter! Kaitlin is a multifaceted theatre artist turned Eco-Stylist. With her overlapping skills in theatre and passion for bringing sustainable style to people’s personal wardrobes, she was the perfect fit for our last Conscious Hero of 2020.
Kaitlin brings a sense of joy to finding and using second hand clothing, she has a passion for social justice issues, and sees Eco styling as a way that combines all of her different loves and passions. When she is performing, she identifies most strongly with her character when she gets into costume, she doesn’t fully feel like the character until that moment and examines how the clothing influences her performance.
Kaitlin wearing a red dress and red boots. Photo Credit: Tommy Kennedy
Windy City Thrifter was founded almost three years ago when Kaitlin was looking for a focus for her Instagram account; a story to tell through her posts. She loves the challenges created by other influencers and sees them as an opportunity to create a “character” by shopping out of her own wardrobe. Recently Kaitlin participated in a “Wear your Weird Shit” challenge (by Amelia Hubry) which she particularly liked because it encouraged participants to wear things they don’t often wear, to look into their closets and create from what they already own. Kaitlin’s “Intention Haul” series is similar and she unpacks why she is picking items and how many different ways she can style it.
In fact, in closet shopping, or “Closet Remix Sessions” are where Kaitlin starts with many of her clients. Currently, Virtual Remix Sessions are how she is operating exclusively with clients. With a closet remix, Kaitlin helps her clients see the potential in each individual garment, more than they realized before. She wants her clients and audience to see how they can be more intentional with their clothing budgets and what they bring into their closets while achieving a sense of ownership over their personal style. Clients find joy in realizing they can do so much more than they realized with what they already have, that creating a new style doesn’t have to be tied to consumerism.
Kaitlin is a hero because she is bringing conscious consumption and costume design approaches to real world clients. She sees thrifting and conscious consumption as activism against the consumerist, fast fashion, capitalist system. Styling is a branch of costume design where the character is the client’s goal self. They seek out stylists because they feel stuck in their wardrobe or maybe they’ve experienced a major life change. They enlist the help of Kaitlin and WCT because they want to make this journey with intention. Thrifted clothing is one of the most direct (and often cost effective) ways to make a shift to more conscious consumption. Budget mindfulness is one of Kaitlin’s top priorities with her clients.
Windy City Thrifter’s styling sessions are similar to a costume design process, beginning with questions for the client about who they are and what their goals are in hiring a stylist. When it is safe to do so, Kaitlin goes to the thrift store with her clients and helps build full looks to try on in the dressing rooms in order to elevate their wardrobes to reflect who they want to be. At the store, Kaitlin always pulls one wild card piece that’s a little “out there” for what was described and says that clients often end up buying that piece. She focuses on how they “feel” in the clothes more than how she feels they look, her goal is to give clients ideas of how to wear the pieces and feel a sense of ownership over their style. She says it is rebellious to simply take ownership over how you present yourself to the world and to do it in new and exciting ways!
Kaitlin wearing short denim skirt and tied orange cardigan with matching orange mask. Photo Credit: Tommy Kennedy
Kaitlin’s work is trying to encourage a more positive narrative around thrifting. For many people, thrifting can be an overwhelming experience or could have negative connotations about quality or cleanliness. To offset a discouraging outlook on thrifting, Kaitlin advises going with a plan and clear list to help cut through the excess noise in a thrift store and help maintain focus. Many thrift stores are color coded and it helps to go directly to the size and color that you are looking for and not to cast too wide a net. If you can scan the rack for the type of fabric you are looking for or another key feature of that garment (weight, hem length, etc…), you can shorten your trip and maintain energy for a positive experience.
This applies to costume design also, do not try to tackle your entire shopping list at the thrift store but narrow it down to what you are most likely to find and group it by type of garment and store section to streamline your shopping trip. Kaitlin also recommends checking outside your normal size section since often things get moved and commercial sizing can be variable.
Windy City Thrifter’s social media remains a source of inspiration and joy and I encourage you to check it out. Kaitlin is reshaping how her eco styling clients think about consumerism, one wardrobe at a time. Her work is a key bridge between eco fashion designers, costume designers, and the general public.
Her dedication to consuming with intention and being creative with clothing makes her December’s #ConsciousHeroOTM.
Kristen P Ahern
Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
November Conscious Hero: Lauren Gaston
The Plastic Harvest at Time Lapse Dance Company, Design & Rendering by Lauren Gaston, Choreographed by Jody Sperling
By: Kristen P Ahern
After a brief hiatus, #ConsciousHeroOTM is back with New York based Costume Designer Lauren Gaston! Lauren is a freelance costume designer, costume technician, and co-author of the Sustainable Production Toolkit. One question that people frequently ask Conscious Costume is about measuring our impact on the environment, if we change our practices, does it even make a difference? My conversation with Lauren reinforced the answer we give: engaging in sustainable practices is not about just about measuring the physical impact of our actions, it is about aligning our art with our values.
Early in her career, Lauren worked in the costume department at a major opera house where she found herself in awe of the beautiful costumes but saddened seeing fabric waste in the trash bins. This issue is not unique to Lauren’s experience but all production processes create an amount of overage at scale and many people are asking if there is a more conscious way to deal with that waste.
Screenshot from Lauren’s FABSCRAP panel on sustainable costume design.
Lauren recommends a textile recycling plan as an easy first step in a more sustainable design and production process because it doesn’t change much about the design process or day-to-day shop operations. There is no universal solution to how to recycle fabric scraps but many regions have creative reuse centers, like Materials for the Arts in New York where Lauren sometimes recycles, that will accept donations of fabric scraps to be repurposed by local artists, teachers, students, and creatives! A partial list of global Creative Reuse Centers can be found at The Reusable Resources Center. Lauren also volunteers and recycles with FABSCRAP (in New York and Los Angeles), they resell and sort textiles by content according to different recycling options. Lauren also looks for opportunities for costume shops to utilize FABSCRAP as a resource for textile recycling and education. In 2019, Lauren and colleague Megan Quarles hosted a panel for FABSCRAP on costumes and sustainability and recently Lauren led a webinar on making millinery flowers out of fabric scraps.
Collaborating with FABSCRAP is one way that Lauren advocates for small, achievable changes; moving to more sustainable production practices doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Designers often look at their designs through a lens of perfectionism but it’s easier to get involved with “green” design by starting with what you have the bandwidth for and building up from there. Lauren wants to interrupt people’s expectations and assumptions of what a sustainable design is, she compares it to exercising a muscle, getting stronger and better each time you make sustainable choices. Designers often worry that being more sustainable will mean they have to compromise their vision but starting small is a way to stay true to your goals as an artist. The designs do not have a certain aesthetic and any design could be sustainable with different approaches depending on the end goal and you may find your design aesthetic evolves over time as you start discovering new ways of thinking about your design and materials.
Recently, Lauren is a co-author of the Sustainable Production Toolkit, “a free step-by-step guide to make your organization more sustainable” currently available online and for workshops. The team behind the SPT anticipates that the guide will grow and change as they learn more about creating sustainable theatre. Lauren’s involvement in this project was kickstarted by her acceptance into the Creative Entrepreneur Project at The Actor’s Fund and she was immersed in a vibrant online community of artist entrepreneurs and teachers. She reached out to colleagues and friends at the intersection of circular design and production. Together with Edward T. Morris, Sandra Goldmark, Michael Banta, and Elizabeth Mak, they set about creating a series of holistic, practical steps to take on the often overwhelming process of becoming a more sustainable production department. The guide contains tools, best practices, and case studies to demonstrate the use of the tools in real life situations. A cornerstone of the toolkit is a process for assigning monetary value to stock in order to make the financial case for sustainability by quantifying and tracking the impact and cost. This was developed by Sandra Goldmark and Michael Banta who used their work at Barnard College as a case study for institutions to help understand how sustainable choices will impact already tight budgets. The SPT team is also currently researching different assessments and certifications to help organizations measure their impact and make a stronger case for adopting sustainable practices.
Though the guide could be picked up and used by any individual artist, it is probably most impactful when embraced by a full organization due to the holistic view of sustainable operations. SPT has also recently announced the launch of their first Pilot Program, together with Baylor University, the Broadway Green Alliance and a small number of organizations they are forming a cohort to continue developing this work. The aim is to collectively navigate the unknowns, reimagine what a more sustainable theatre looks like, determine how to prioritize greater environmental, human, and financial sustainability in the arts.
Lauren and the SPT also advocate for moving away from “the burn out model” and for the sustainability of labor for the technicians and designers doing the work. She sees the Sustainable Production Toolkit as a way of creating “scaffolding for care” for people, for the planet, and for resources. Environmental best practices are intertwined with human health and the institutional financial landscape and sustainable methods of producing costumes must consider the immediate impact on our artists. Many costume professionals are currently advocating for change regarding how they are paid and supported relative to other design area counterparts (for more on this, see the March Hero OTM: Elizabeth Wislar). In a recent project with Time-Lapse Dance, Lauren designed costumes that were made from upcycled Tyvek and plastic bottles to create garments that had sculptural and sonic qualities. One advantage to having low materials costs meant that the production could reallocate funds to pay local artisans to build these specialized costumes and contribute to the community.
Process Photo of Plastic Harvest costume, constructed out of Tyvek strips and recycled plastic bottles.
Lauren attributes her initial interest in sustainability to growing up in a multigenerational household. Her grandmother showed her the value of repairing things rather than throwing them away and now Lauren explores how mending can make an object more beautiful. Lauren’s background in costume construction allowed her to focus on the physical craft of costume design, she considers each garment for what it COULD be rather than what it is. Reuse is built into the costume profession and Lauren wants to encourage everyone to dive deeper and consider more ways to incorporate circular thinking into their designs.
Kristen P Ahern
Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
June Conscious Hero: Tristan Raines
By: Kristen P Ahern
Katie Barton as June Carter in Ring of Fire at Infinity Theater
June’s #ConsciousHeroOTM is Tristan Raines and our conversation on vintage materials as a tool in his vocabulary as a designer and that the act of modifying a garment is giving it new life, not destruction. Discussing vintage inspires similar conversations about costume stocks and the artistic mindset when considering material vocabulary, collaboration, and success.
Jacket under construction for Dracula: A Comedy is Terrors build by by the costume shop of the Maltz Jupiter Theater with the vintage laces and trims.
Vintage clothing is always present in the life of Tristan Raines both personally and professionally. Often in design conversations, directors will use the word “timeless” and Tristan finds that vintage clothing can be a window into exploring how fashion repeats itself and defining the look of a design. Handling the physical pieces helps really understand the detailing, silhouettes, and fabrics of the clothing. Vintage clothes also already have that “lived in look,” saving resources on distressing. Tristan described one outfit (below) he used in a show that “still had the beat of the club in the fibers,” that it can be a gift to the actor to wear the real thing and create a stronger and more authentic character through costume collaboration. In realizing a design, Tristan tries to consciously use materials that allow for conversation between him and the artists creating the costumes. In a production of Dracula, Tristan used about 18 different vintage Victorian lace pieces stitched together in strips to create a bolero jacket for one of the characters. There can be a journey in refurbishing and finding life in something old to put something new on stage. Tristan notes a critical consideration in putting vintage on stage is longevity. It would be unwise, for example, to put delicate 1920’s dresses on stage in a comedy. However, those dresses could be purchased and provided to the costume artisans for time period accuracy reference.
About a year ago, Tristan posted a photo to Instagram (above) of two vintage dresses spliced together for the character June in Ring of Fire. “I wanted June to feel like a vixen and a goddess and she needed power even if she had little. I found these two vintage dresses from Etsy and over a few days created this new dress by putting two vintage dresses together...When she walked out it was jaw dropping in the moment.” When asked about why they’d gone this route, Tristan explained “For me designing is about authenticity to a character first...We saved maybe $600 doing it this way. The dresses cost about $110 total from Etsy. We then bought about $50 in fabric and a zipper. It took the stitcher about 5 hours to do the work. I paid about $285. Building from scratch would have killed the budget.” Using vintage was both an environmentally and budget conscious choice for this design.
Worn by Maria Cristina Slye for Jesus Christ Superstar at The Muny.
Of course the issue of preservation also comes up around the discussion of vintage or stock pieces. Having a conscious mindset however, can mean going beyond an item’s original function to create something totally new. Tristan has “no problem” cutting up vintage garments to give them new life as a piece of art for the stage. When he was designing Jesus Christ Superstar for the Muny, he used almost entirely vintage or repurposed materials that were cut up, painted, and reassembled to create a totally new look. Successful use of vintage is about incorporating those materials into your design vocabulary. Look at an object for what elements it contains and how it could be transformed rather than just what it is right now. How can we see the potential in making a vintage or second hand item what we want when we can’t find a ready made solution? Having a broad material knowledge helps make choices that are both environmentally and budget conscious.
Tristan pointed out that the conversation we are having over vintage could also apply to any theatres’ costume stocks, for companies that are privileged to maintain a stock. These costume pieces were created to tell the story from the show they were created for, but that story will never be re-told exactly that way so it is essential to reimagine pieces in order to put them on stage again. Frequently theatre company higher ups encourage hoarding stock from popular or favorite shows, or perhaps items that were given to the theatre by treasured donors. We must not be too precious about our collections, after all, we collected it with the intention of one day using it so if we are holding back for fear of it getting damaged then it will continue to go unused. 2020 is magnifying the identity and relevancy crisis that theatre seems to always be in. Lately conversations in the costume professional community have been focused on labor and pay equity, on how costume work can be a sustainable career choice. By repurposing costumes, we are supporting our community by diverting funds from stores directly to the artists who are creating the costumes.
Tristan sees cutting up, refitting, and using found objects in design as a combination of the people he’s worked or studied under. He suggests that now is the time for designers to expand their material vocabulary and hone the skill of creating something out of seemingly nothing. It seems very likely that innovative, environmentally, and cost conscious material use will be crucial in post-Covid costume design. We talked at length about the ecosystem of design after Covid and how budgets, and thus materials, will be a necessary conversation when returning to work. “How can we, as artists, find and come back to that idea of being a storyteller?” Many artists anticipate that budgets will be significantly cut but design is still essential in telling the stories we are trying to tell. How can we go back to the basics of storytelling and embrace the excitement of figuring out how to create our visions with our limited resources? How can innovative material use be a part of that conversation?
Tristan believes we need to have more fundamental conversations through our work and this mass pause is forcing artists to reexamine and find themselves as human beings. We are taking time away to prepare ourselves to be more ready than ever perhaps, returning to theatre is not the path for everyone. Material vocabulary, ethical labor awareness, and finding purpose are all a part of a mindful path forward. We cannot continue defining success as costume designers with one particular path, it is essential that we self evaluate and ask: what is my success?
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Kristen P Ahern
Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
May Conscious Hero: Felicia Young
By: Kristen P Ahern
The UN Sustainable Development Goals costume. Photo by Felicia Young.
When crisis hit this year and threatened Earth Celebrations’ annual Ecological City pageant, they rose to the challenge and created a virtual pageant. The stunning design work and community engagement focus in Ecological City: Art & Climate Solutions Virtual Pageant 2020 inspired me to ask Felicia Young to be May’s #ConsciousHeroOTM !
This year’s pageant began as each year does with selecting the themes. Community leaders and experts present current environmental issues affecting the neighborhood at a community meeting that includes gardeners, residents, youth, and other members of the neighborhoods. Attendees then give feedback that Felicia curates into the overall goals and themes of the pageant. This year's new themes included Zero Waste, Carbon Sequestration, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and how they relate to local climate solution initiatives. Each theme is manifested into a new character for the pageant, using materials in the costume that reflect the theme of the character. Often people wear the same costume year after year and truly embody the character that the costume represents. Many performers that participate annually come to be known by the character identity instead of their name!
The Carbon Sequestration costume, check out Earth Celebrations’ Facebook page for more images of their pageant. Photo by Felicia Young.
The nine month long design and production process culminates in the theatrical pageant with over 500 artists, 50 partner organizations and 5,000 participants. The production elements are designed to be an aesthetically powerful expression and inspiring, visceral experience of the community, its sites, issues, struggles and achievements. As in a mainstream theatre design process, Felicia, as the director, and the artists-in-residence, such as visual art and costume workshop instructor, Michele Brody, develop design sketches that express the issues and concepts. Unlike the more hierarchical structures of many regional or commercial theatres however, Felicia’s entire process is collaborative, each artist considers opportunities to engage participation and leaves elements of the design open for improvisation and community input. Earth Celebrations hosts months of free public workshops where community members are invited to work with the artists creating the spectacular visual art, puppets, costumes, and performances. Artists are not set on a final visual outcome but require the participation of non-artists and Earth Celebrations embraces each costume, prop, or production element as a living representation of the spirit of the community that built it.
Environmentally friendly materials are integral to the development of the design and Earth Celebrations welcomes opportunities to learn about alternative materials. The Zero Waste costume was made entirely of materials that were biodegradable and compostable, including a kombucha scoby “leather” vest, grown in workshops from kombucha tea and a mycelium headdress grown from fungi (links are not the work of Earth Celebrations but included to provide more information about the process). The Carbon Sequestration costume needed to embody the materials that are key to sequestering carbon. Roots, mangroves, plants, soil and oceans were integrated into the look of the costume to communicate the importance of different sequestration processes working in concert. The crowning achievement of this costume (pun intended) was a molded kombu seaweed headdress, given seaweed’s important role in carbon sequestration.
These costumes are built in a series of free community workshops for three months, which began on February 29th this year, ending just a few weeks later after the March 11th workshop, when a lockdown of New York City shut down all in person group activities. Felicia and her team immediately transitioned their plans to digital workshops with artists live streaming from their homes onto Earth Celebrations’ Facebook Page and community volunteers taking project elements home. Some costumes had several artists and volunteers working on the various parts, continuing to engage a community even at a distance.
Cultures with deeply rooted public performance traditions strongly influence Felicia’s artistic practice in Earth Celebrations, such as her Indian heritage on her mother’s side including religious and cultural pageants local to the Vaigai River region in India. Another influence is the Nigerean Igbo masquerade tradition, particularly those that Felicia cites as a form of communal art in response to health or social calamities (read more about her influences and process in this interview in Cultural Organizing). Felicia is always "doing this work to respond to crisis" and never for a moment considered fully cancelling the pageant this year, it was always about finding a way to bring the community together in crisis regardless of the means.
To continue to engage the community in a time of crucial distancing, Ecological City transformed into a virtual pageant that included over 100 artist and performance videos created for specific sites and associated climate solutions. Felicia still wanted a way to engage the community the way the procession (typically five hours with a cast of around 500) normally would. Ecological City hosted a Parade in Place with about 50 participants as well as "Call of the Wild" which encouraged animal noises and drumming across rooftops, balconies, and fire escapes of New York City. Innovative community involvement and development is the cornerstone of Felicia’s work, whether or not meeting in person is possible.
Parade in Place on Zoom. Photo by Rachel Elkind.
The pageant streamed on Facebook while Felicia walked, masked, the original route through empty streets and past the locked gardens (gardeners are only allowed in right now for essential maintenance). Occasionally she was greeted by a gardener, everyone taking appropriate social distancing precautions, creating powerful visuals. The East River Park waterfront was the final stop, facing an uncertain future, death and rebirth of the park in the next five years as a new flood protection plan will begin construction soon. Felicia invited the East River Park Spirit character to appear at the park, her cape and dress embedded with the East Side Coastal Resiliency Design plan using photo transfer onto cotton. Felicia has previously invited this character to be a part of what she calls Creative Testimony, bringing the Park Spirit to city hall to advocate for the Community Vision Plan instead of the city's plan for the park.
Felicia's work is the perfect fusion of art and activism, her artistic practice is tied implicitly to her advocacy. After working at the Alternative Museum in 1987, she saw that only those within the arts community were being engaged to view the shows. So, she left the museum world to have a broader impact using arts as a method of engaging community and mobilizing action. Earth Celebrations first founded in 1991 to save endangered community gardens slated for destruction. By engaging the community in a fun project with ties to science, arts, and culture, they transcend the divisions between low income communities, activist organizations, and powerful people.
Following Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the NYC gardens that Earth Celebrations helped save are now seen clearly for their role in climate resiliency, absorbing flood water and sequestering carbon. NYC Community Garden Coalition evolved out of the successful Earth Celebrations’ creative partnership building and citywide garden preservation coalition effort in the 1990’s. Recently they received a federal grant towards more green infrastructure including bioswales, solar micro-grids, porous pavement, water harvesting ponds, pollinator gardens, and more. Earth Celebrations began as a community pageant but transformed into a massive, broad-based, coalition effort to benefit the community. Felicia Young’s participatory art demonstrates how the arts can bring people and partner groups together to have powerful, tangible impact on their communities, which makes her our #ConsciousHeroOTM.
Parade in Place on Zoom. Photo by Rachel Elkind.
Kristen P Ahern
Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
March Conscious Hero: Elizabeth Wislar
By: Kristen P Ahern
One of Elizabeth’s upcycled sculptures: Reviving Ophelia
With everything happening in the world today, it was such a relief to take 90 minutes this week to spend on a video call with Elizabeth Wislar, one of the amazing founders of Costume Professionals for Wage Equity and our March #ConsciousHeroOTM. I knew that Elizabeth was an activist for wage and labor equity in our industry, however I did not know until more recently that she is also a passionate environmentalist and upcycling artist. During our conversation, we bounced seamlessly between these topics and it is clear that her passion for the arts, the environment, and fair labor practices are deeply connected.
In the spring of 2019, Elizabeth shared a particularly disappointing job posting she found with a group of colleagues online, expressing how horrified and disgusted she was. The usual griping and complaining ensued but finally someone suggested “Let’s DO something about all this” and thus launched Costume Professionals for Wage Equity. For the first 20 years of her career, Elizabeth worked as a freelance costume designer in Chicago and also founded Chicago Custom Costumes. Then she got her first job as staff in an academic setting, where she began realizing the steep disparity between staff and faculty. Following that experience, she remained more in touch with the ethics of pay in the theatre industry.
As a result of founding CPfWE, costume professionals are finally talking to each other and talking about how morally wrong many practices are. Elizabeth says we need to forgive ourselves and older generations for taking low paid, less supported work than our fellow designers. Only when we admit that it’s wrong and forgive ourselves can we begin to fix the problem. She provides a necessary link between an older generation of costume professionals who cannot see how far we have left to go to achieve parity. The same is true for how designers work with the environment, we need to admit something is wrong with how we are doing things, forgive ourselves, then begin to change our practices.
Elizabeth is living her values through her artistic practice. In our conversation, Elizabeth highlighted the privilege inherent in her ability to protest and attempt to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Pushing back against wage systems can have disastrous financial impacts. Similarly there is privilege in living a sustainable lifestyle, both sustainable choices in costuming and in life can be more expensive. There is a higher cost to buying more sustainable materials but also in more sustainable living options, like owning land to locally produce your own food, that are only available to those with the financial means to do so. By building a more financially stable theatre community, more people have the option to make healthier choices for themselves and the environment.
Upcycled materials are key in Elizabeth’s art and costume design, she believes that all the materials we need already exist. One place they exist is in costume storages around the country/world. The conversation about how this stock should be used, repurposed, and reinvented from one designer to another is crucial in transforming our material use as costume designers. Eliminating the practice of “stock hoarding” would be a huge advance in more sustainable design, if managers of stock’s can be convinced of the value of letting go of older pieces. Many garments exist that just need a little modification to be perfect in a new play.
Elizabeth’s experience with environmentally conscious materials in arts goes back further than her career in costume design. She began as a visual art student who explored use of upcycled materials. It is easy to see the connection between her costume design experience and her stunning upcycled sculptures. Typically she begins with some materials that she wants to use and develops the piece as she works on it. For Reviving Ophelia (above), Elizabeth had a discarded styrofoam display mannequin, balls of wool in stock, a collection of thrifted needlepoint pillows, and a backer board from a new door. As she was working on it flat on a table, the sculpture reminded her of The Story of Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais and named her piece Reviving Ophelia. It is even held together free of toxic glues, mostly using small metal pins!
Elizabeth always had an interest in our footprint on the planet and how we encroach on nature. She was influenced by her father’s Choctaw heritage to be responsible for all of her resource use. Her parents were both dedicated to making do with what they had, they considered the excessive packaging on grocery items and even took her brother’s Boy Scout troop on a field trip to a junkyard to just look at where all their stuff ended up. Much in the same way we’ve become disconnected from where our food comes from, we’ve become disconnected from where our trash ends up and you make different decisions when you understand what’s really going on.
Elizabeth hopes that one side effect of everyone working from home in March and April is that people will get a better sense of their waste, and hopefully put out less garbage because of cooking at home. She watches as people freak out over a lack of disposable materials (like toilet paper) and hopes it will force people to examine their consumption. As with many of us, Elizabeth sees her activism creating a more desirable future: financially stable and environmentally conscious. These efforts are what make Elizabeth Wislar our March #ConsciousHeroOTM!
Do you have a Hero to suggest? Use the “Contact Us” link for anyone you think should be featured here.
Kristen P Ahern
Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
Baby's First Listicle: The Podcast Post
By: Kristen P Ahern
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
People constantly ask for Podcast recommendations and it’s taken a long time to curate a list of Podcasts that I enjoy and find useful as a white, cis, bi, environmentally conscious, socially aware, history loving, character designing, theatre artist who is constantly striving to be better in both her work and her life.
General Theatre
Howlround: Theatre Commons: They rebroadcast other podcasts under the Howlround heading and amplify important topics. Some of my recent favorites are From the Ground Up (devising with an emphasis in Chicago) and Daughters of Lorraine, two of my former classmates discussing important black, feminist theatre through an academic and historic lens.
Broadwaysted: Drinking, theatre games, iconic Broadway guests, fun facts, and interviews. It’s great for staying in touch with what is happening in New York theatre (mostly musicals) though it sometimes has a narrow focus on performers and commercial musicals. I’ve often looked up the shows mentioned here to stay in touch with what’s happening. UPDATE: I have unsubscribed, maybe it’s just during the pandemic but I wasn’t finding their conversation as enjoyable while the industry is pretty much inactive.
Off Book: The Black Theatre Podcast: I was reminded in taking an African American theatre history class in grad school how under-educated I am in black theatre history so I listen to make sure that I’m staying informed about what’s happening in theatre of color. Like other New York based podcasts, it has a clear New York focus but they get on a variety of creatives including performers, choreographers, directors, playwrights, etc...
NEW The Smartist: Finally someone has created a resource for theatre people (and other artists) and business/finance! The Smartist is the podcast portion of Smartistry which was created to help artists have more sustainable careers instead of burning out.
Design/Costume
In 1: The Podcast: The only podcast (that I’m aware of) that focuses exclusively on interviewing designers of live performance. It’s terrific to hear about how some of the best known designers got their start. Could it use more costume designers? Yeah.
Frock Flicks: Terrific, often snarky, reviews of your favorite costume dramas. All of their social media is great and I’m only just getting into the podcast but definitely enjoying it. They work in the costume industry so they get why anachronisms get designed in, but that doesn’t stop them from being annoyed by it!
Voice of Costume: A costume designer centered podcast. Unfortunately film focused rather than taking a broad spectrum look at costume design (and I personally think we are too siloed) but it is great hearing iconic designers describe their early career and process.
Dressed: The History of Fashion: They cover hot topics in fashion history and some underrepresented gems. Nothing groundbreaking here but a really fun listen and I’ve definitely learned some things even as someone with a solid foundation in fashion history.
NEW Dirty Laundry: Okay, I haven’t listened to this one yet….because no episodes are out yet and it was only announced a few days ago BUT I promise to update this post when I hear it. However I had to include it because it’s the intersection of costumes, environmental and ethical issues around costumes. Host Johanna Pan plans to tackle all the sticky topics like cultural appropriation, fatphobia, transphobia, safety, environmental impacts, labor issues and more in the professional costume industry. Can’t wait!
Climate Change and Conscious Consumption
Mothers of Invention: Irish Feminist climate change solutions! What’s not to like? They highlight major issues and heros in climate change and feminism that’s increased my awareness on many topics.
America Adapts: The Climate Change Podcast: The early interviews are clunky and contain lots of leading questions. HOWEVER, I find the focus on adaptation for eventual climate impacts to be refreshing when so much media is still asking if climate change is real. He interviews experts already implementing projects to manage the impacts of climate change. I’m also impressed by the diversity of his guests! UPDATE: I’ve unsubscribed because I was pretty bored of climate coverage by a white, male on the science/policy side of the issue. See below for what I’m listening to now instead.
Conscious Chatter: Interviews with creators, designers, artisans, and entrepreneurs in the conscious clothing and “lifestyle” industry. There’s a wide range of perspectives here and it’s helping me find brands I can use in conscious designing. Kestrel Jenkins keeps it focused on us by asking what each listener can do in their everyday lives to be a better consumer.
Wardrobe Crisis: By the GODDESS Clare Press who does excellent interviews with visionaries all across sustainable or ethical design and production. It started with a focus on the fashion industry but definitely covers a wide range of topics and has opened my eyes. Similar to Conscious Chatter, but with an Aussie accent.
NEW Stories from Home: Living the Just Transition: From the Story Snapshots series by the Climate Justice Alliance. This is a new one but I’m already pretty hooked. Each episode does a deep dive into a Story Snapshot which are first hand accounts of “those living on the frontlines of the economic, democratic, and climate crises.” I’ve stopped listening to “America Adapts” because I was getting really tired of the dominance of white, academic voices dominating the climate conversation and this is definitely the antidote to that.
NEW Hot Take: This one is pretty new to my listening list also but it’s another attempt to replace “America Adapts” with something more inclusive. I wanted a social view of climate and environmental issues...not a scientific or policy one. So glad I’ve found this feminine lens on climate change issues!
Self Help and Inspiration
Hidden Brain: This is a podcast my therapist recommended. As many in the arts, I’m no stranger to mental health struggles (anxiety, OCD, depression), and Shankar Vedantam interviews experts who explain why I feel the way I do. Not only do they explain why/how the brain works the way it does, but also how to adjust your thinking/actions to overcome some of that programming.
Help Me Be Me: I’m a little addicted to self help, approaching a variety of difficult situations and the episode notes are well labeled so it’s easy to pick and choose the most useful episodes from the archives.
Call Your Girlfriend: I’m not *great* with female friendship but this series makes me try harder. I love listening to Anne and Aminatou discuss….anything, they are delightfully passionate and pragmatic and just make me feel happy and fired up at the same time. Fuck the patriarchy, listen to them.
Heroine with Majo: Majo interviews femme identifying badasses and their stories are so inspiring and energizing. I’ve learned so much and it’s one I listen to often when I’m feeling disheartened.
The Overwhelmed Brain: I don’t like this one as much as Help Me Be Me, sometimes Paul Colaianni loses focus and the advice is definitely distributed from a place of male, financially-secure, privilege. However: I keep listening because he covers hard topics, and often has useful thoughts, and is always rooting for his listeners to succeed.
Creative PepTalk: Let me start by saying Andy is weird, he meanders through topics and takes a while to get back to the point. That said, I love his energy, his positivity, and his weirdness. Sometimes Andy just talks on his own ideas and sometimes he interviews creatives across the creative fields, mostly visual arts. Great tips for making goals, being a creative and a business person at the same time, and pushing through lulls in work and self doubts. Another one I’ll listen to on bad days.
Bad with Money: This one is my new OBSESSION. Money always terrified me, I used to wait LITERAL MONTHS to submit receipts, racking up credit card interest, because I just didn’t want to deal with it. Host Gaby Dunn is equally terrified but tackling the topic of personal (freelance artist) finance and the greater economy. I’m about a year behind right now, but we’re sharing a crisis about how impossible the system is so that’s….comforting? She challenges her guests who give routine advice to really consider people in impossible holes of systemic poverty who can’t just give up avocado toast to buy a house. Love this show.
NPR Life Kit: Relatively short episodes that each center a basic life “thing” and tips for how to navigate that situation. They cover a wide range of topics including diet culture, socializing as an adult, and parenting. It’s pretty easy to skip around on these and just cherry pick the episodes that interest you.
Hurry Slowly: Jocelyn K. Glei interviews a variety of experts on being more productive by being more mindful. There are tangible, actionable ideas for creatives, freelancers, and entrepreneurs that also dives into the science or theories behind those ideas.
Food
The Splendid Table: I liked this show when Lynn Rossetto Casper hosted it, but I ADORE Francis Lamb. Now it’s centered on the STORIES that food and food traditions tell. Sure we’ll chat about an ingredient but we’ll spend longer on the chef’s grandmother or the national event that inspired a dish. Food=stories, that’s why I love food. If you tried it before they changed hosts and didn’t dig it, try it again.
GastroPod: This one explores a specific food each episode and the science and/or history of that food. It’s often the “why” of a food.
The Sporkful: I’m a nerd for food, if I ever leave the theatre world, it will be for food anthropology. This one covers more about history or dining than cooking or food science.
History
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History: Dan never met a historical event for which he cannot envision a different outcome. This is a deep dive on subjects that you probably glossed over in twenty minutes in high school. I just finished a six episode series (at 3-5 hours per episode) on a selection of major battles of WWI, how they were connected and laid the groundwork for the second world war. Good for a long project or road trip, long form episodes help pass the time.
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy: Short form episodes that each highlight some simple thing that has shaped how we live today, it makes you look at some everyday objects in new ways.
BBC History Extra: Interviews with experts on random events in history, they usually coincide with book releases or major exhibits but to the listener they’re random. Often reveals stuff I didn’t know, which is fun for a history nerd.
Great Leap Years with Stephen Fry: Stephen Fry has been one of my favorite personalities for a long time so I HAD to listen to this one. He discusses notable historical technology through the lens of how it’s important today. I’m only JUST starting the series but I’m already enjoying it.
Under the Influence: History of Marketing/Advertising. As someone who is interested in the history of consumer goods (like clothing), this is fascinating! It’s a scripted “…show about life through the lens of advertising.”
Storytelling and Games
This American Life: You all know this one, right? It’s storytelling on a theme. I love the blend of non-fiction and fiction, this is theatre, just in audio form.
The Moth: Short form, true, live storytelling, there are some amazing stories out there. Honestly it’s humbling and comforting to remember that other people have gotten through tough times. I love hearing about different childhoods and remembering that my experience is just one of many. Frequent tearjerker episodes.
Levar Burton Reads: Reading Rainbow for Adults! It’s weird hearing beloved childhood hero Levar swear or describe intimate scenes but you quickly move on and get sucked into the amazing story he’s telling. He often picks sci-fi or adjacent stories and frequently interviews the author.
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me: This one is probably also familiar. It’s news trivia with regular people, comedians, and celebrity guests. I listen to this one while driving or sewing, I like the interactivity, keeps me from going too stir crazy.
Ask Me Another: I actually like this one a bit better than “Wait Wait” because it’s more puzzles than trivia (one of my favorite games is “This, That, or The Other”). Also great for sewing or driving.
Science/Math/Information/Culture/Whatever didn’t fit in another category
TED Talks Daily: One or two TED talks a day, random subjects, frequently seems to match current events.
TED Radio Hour: Actually I like the Radio hour better than Daily because they combine different talks that are on similar subjects to give a broader picture of an issue AND do more detailed interviews with the speakers.
Freakonomics Radio: I attend the Podcast U School of Economics. They bill themselves as “examining the hidden side of everything” and I love that they delve into the economics of things that seemingly have nothing to do with economics.
Make Me Smart: This spinoff from Marketplace allows the creators to take a deep, nerdy, look at subjects they want to know more about. They respond to listener questions and input about the topic, frequently relating to the economy in some way.
Science Friday: Lots of people work in the sciences and enjoy the arts as a hobby. I’m the opposite, I LOVE learning little science snippets each week, easy to digest, wide ranging topics, and great guests.
How I Built This: Interviews with founders of big brands about their early days. As someone trying to REINVENT the approach to costume design by making it more conscious, I’m joining a movement, managing a business, and defining a brand. It’s helpful to hear about founders living on sofas and eating ramen for 10 years before their idea was successful; that they just started running without actually knowing everything because it felt like the right direction.
Fresh Air: Terri Gross is a brilliant interviewer, she gets great guests from all over the map of art, politics, literature, science, etc… They also frequently post “best of” where they’ll edit down two long form interviews to fit together in one episode.
Code Switch: Honest and well balanced and researched conversations about various racial issues. Often tackling current events, doing in-depth conversations on big questions, or illuminating racialized history of mundane everyday things like certain foods or phrases. This helps me break outside the echo chamber in which I grew up.
On Being: Though this is a religious or spiritual podcast, I don’t consider myself either of those things. I’m wrestling with many of the philosophical and ethical topics on this show and each interview tends to boil down to the importance of being a kind, open, and giving person. It doesn’t matter what “faith journey” you ‘re on, that’s a mission I can get behind.
NEW Curious City: Now that I’m back in Chicago, I’m back listening to Curious City. It’s one of those “I’ve always wondered why” podcasts from NPR that tries to find the answer/history to common questions about Chicago area...stuff. As with anything from NPR, pretty good at being balanced and clear.
UPDATED ON 9/30/2020
Kristen P Ahern
Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.
