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 p ahern

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.

If you think work like this is important and want to see more of it, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $2/month and gain access to exclusive content.

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.

If you think work like this is important and want to see more of it, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $2/month and gain access to exclusive content.

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?

Instagram: tsbs17

Twitter: Rainestsbs17

If you think work like this is important and want to see more of it, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $2/month and gain access to exclusive content.

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.

If you think work like this is important and want to see more of it, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $2/month and gain access to exclusive content.

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.

If you think work like this is important and want to see more of it, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $2/month and gain access to exclusive content.

Kristen P Ahern

Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.

February Conscious Hero: Beth Uber

By: Kristen P Ahern

Threadline Studios main workspace

For our first few features, I want to stay in my Chicago community which inspires me so much. February we are highlighting Beth Uber, an incredible local draper and a champion of shared resources for costume professionals. 

While many people have discussed the need for shared studio space, in 2014 Beth took the leap and launched Threadline Studios to fill that need. She was fascinated by the sharing economy which worked well for industries like transportation or conventional office space. After a large contract for Lyric Opera that exceeded the capacity of her small apartment and led to MANY awkward red line rides, Beth realized how impossible constructing costumes without shop infrastructure is; she needed a real workspace if she was going to make freelance draping her full time career. It needed everything that her job at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre shop had, but she did not need it all to herself and could share the resource. Thus both Uber Costume and Threadline Studios were born in a Rogers Park storefront that Beth passed each day on her way to the red line.

Many theatres in Chicago do not offer construction space for costumes, in contrast to many other design areas, so local designers and technicians previously had to build and store costumes in their homes. Having Threadline as a resource empowers designers to have labor equity with other design areas. “By using the studio and turning a bill to the production manager, a costume designer can easily show an expense...negotiating time at the studio into your budget is useful way to demonstrate that, while most sets are similar in terms of materials and construction process, when a theatre picks intensive costume shows there is an additional challenge that should be taken into consideration and compensated for.” remarks Beth.

Threadline is a member based organization with a low enough cost for membership that even designers working in storefont theatres can afford ($25/year) and gain access to free perks (like free fabrics, notions, pattern and reference book library!). However, the real treasure of this space is...well, the space. Threadline offers all the perks of a major costume shop with a “pay as you go” rate of $25/day, this includes eight foot cutting tables, well maintained machines, industrial irons, a huge variety of dress forms, storage space, fitting space, etc… However, as Beth points out: “we can't pay the rent with compliments...Threadline needs people to use it to stay open.” A loyal, routine user base is key to any successful membership community.

Beyond a workspace, Beth created a gathering space for costume professionals to build community. I’ve met more Chicago costume professionals at Threadline in the last few months of our partnership than I did for the first three years of working in the city. It is a community of costume folks who have decided ENOUGH with cutting fur and sequins on our kitchen tables and who want to separate work and home and it is so inspiring. If you live in or around Chicago, come check out the space by booking a tour or coming to one of our open houses. 

Beth and I met about six months ago as I began researching space for a shared costume stock. Conscious Costume Closet opened within Threadline Studios because Beth and I instantly saw a common cause in our individual missions: to serve Chicago costume professionals and be the infrastructure that small theatre companies do not offer. 

Sharing resources is one of the best ways to be more environmentally and ethically conscious in your costume production, it reduces waste and increases accessibility! I’m thrilled to work with her and this is why Beth Uber is the February #ConsciousHeroOTM! 

If you think work like this is important and want to see more of it, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $2/month and gain access to exclusive content.

Threadline Studio’s private fitting room complete with the most comfortable couch I’ve ever napped on!

Kristen P Ahern

Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.

January Conscious Hero: Elsa Hiltner

Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash

By: Kristen P Ahern

New in 2020! Let’s focus on (because it’s 2020...get it?) some of the heroic work already happening in creating more Conscious Costumes. Each month I will feature one person who I consider a Conscious Hero relating to the creation of Conscious Costumes.

To launch this series, I’m starting close to home with an activist in the local Chicago theatre community who has a voice on the national level. She is a friend, mentor, and personal hero of mine: Elsa Hiltner.

I assisted Elsa early in my career and learned so much about the problematic textile industry right out of the gate. Then, in 2016, Elsa shared the depth of her activism for better working conditions for costume designers by writing a compelling (and controversial) essay featured in Howlround that called out lack of labor support for costumes in many theatres and the relationship with the gendered history of theatrical design fields and sewing as a craft. In the article she calls for sweeping change in budgeting and hiring practices by small and midsize theatres who often require costume designers to recruit and pay for their own labor. 

Elsa’s defines herself as a storyteller, her “costumes speak about the characters, relationships, the plot, and environment all while looking as natural on the surface as if the characters had dressed themselves.” Add to that her dedication to raising up her fellow designers, women, and textile workers and you can see why she was the obvious choice for my first #ConsciousHeroOTM!

Elsa motivates me to examine my process and she inspired me to really explore environmentalism in costume design. Her knowledge and passion for human rights encouraged me to dig deeper, beyond environmental impact, to pursue advocacy for more holistic conscious costumes that consider the people and the planet impacted by the creation and disposal of each costume I design. 

Right now, Elsa serves as the Director of Development for Collaboraction, “an ethno-diverse theatre company using art to dismantle oppression and transform Chicago,” and designs costumes for theatre and commercials. Her work will continue to inspire me to be a more considerate artist and I am so grateful to know her!

If you think work like this is important and want to see more of it, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $2/month and gain access to exclusive content.

Kristen P Ahern

Kristen is the founder of Conscious Costume and a designer, activist, organizer, and educator in the Chicago area.