1/ Volcanic Hat / Active Mind
“the surreal cannot be taken out of my style just like the country cannot be taken out of my identity.”
- Laura E. Lomascolo
Volcano Hat: hand-embroidered with repurposed threads from past projects & embellished with volcanic, lava rock beads: includes a lining of scrap fabric
concept, lining pattern, & sewing by LEL
music “Lava Rock” by Kirk Osamayo (FMA & CC BY 4.0)
photography by David Schweizer
It began with a challenge.
When you grow up in the country / rural America, you are most likely taught Home Economics in middle school at the age of preteen to early teenager. Cooking, Tech Basics, Woodworking, & Sewing. All activities involve group effort except sewing which relies solely on the individual.
Memories at that age are unforgettable with lasting impressions. There was a room full of sewing machines and everyone was assigned one. Hand-sewing was taught as well. Repairing buttons, ways to thread needles, how to create a knot at the end of your thread, common types of stitches, ironing best practices, how to use a rotary cutter, the right way to shop for patterns that you can make your size, how to pin pattern pieces - the basics.
Out of everyone in a single year’s class and maybe all or most of the classes held at that school, only one person connected on a deeper level. Their personality wove into the act of making with fabric & thread. The combination of texture, expression, & obsession is felt. But the physical representation of what the fabric becomes wasn’t just a grade in a class as the final result of its purpose & existence.
Wearable art & fashion lives on through the people who choose to wear it, collect it, own it, rent it. It is a reflection of a timeframe of materials available, the values of the culture it is created from, & the mind of its creator.
A person learns to be BOLD in their beliefs.
meaning is made by our minds.
Growing up on a dirt road - that is still a dirt road - nearly living a life under a rock with no computer of their own allows for a young person to dream. Dream of better things, better days, better ways to spend their time.
A person can get immersed in the INTELLECTUAL particularly coming from a family with values, time, & effort in people and the mind. Your family is your life in a small-town.
Yet, nature is always there. Omnipresent. The internet is omnipresent to peers for most of their life, which aligns more seamlessly with their identity, while nature is the omnipresent force in a small-town - not a suburb, not a borough, no sidewalks, no streetlights. There is a difference. 90% Green. More trees than people. Meet a Millenial who did not grow up digitally native, yet recognizes its positive potential & takes greater risks regarding its reach.
THE GREATER YOUR STRUGGLE, THE MORE PEOPLE RESPECT YOU.
When you interact with a person, it becomes a major event - each time. Over the phone, in person, video calls. You dress up to get in your car and leave your house to go run errands just as much as you do to work or attend an event.
It is not about the volume per se, it is about the level of interest & intention of the individuals involved.
A person develops a rhythm & set of PATTERNS they embody.
Developing an adult identity in a city contributes to a person’s scope, experience, & awareness. People are the landscape. Grey concrete blocks emote the same character.
The approach to people & their contribution is the same as before, but the volume of people is greater 10-fold+.
How does one interact with people on a personal level?
1/
VOLCANIC HAT / Active Mind
“i simply love it because it comes naturally to me. Collage of seemingly, surface-level different parts combined to make something new, yet recognizable - elevated by how we perceive it.”
- Laura e. Lomascolo
Community-building. Subscriptions valuable to a close-knit group of people with shared sustained passion about SUSTAINABLE fashion. That is how it starts.
creative people are known for creative solutions.
If someone questions your abilities by being kind, giving, their idea of naive, or from a small-town, remember:
some of the very best, Most notable DESIGNERS / artists / CREATIVES WHO challenge & CHANGE THE INDUSTRY ARE FROM SMALL-TOWNS.
As long as you live your life with intention & purpose which you have reflected upon from within yourself, recognizing both your talents & desires, you have every reason to pursue it.
A person learns to be a STORYTELLER that others listen to.
