How making choices in your collection or textile art is connected with the art of living.

Inspiration for the zoom class about color and choices: https://nl.pinterest.com/marijkebongers/colorstudy-liberationskirt/

Later I will add the presentations about chosing color for you work and how you can make your own choices.

Making choices

Making choices and colors, today (June 2, 2020 a day after the demonstration on the Dam in Amsterdam about #blacklivesmatter ) I talk in my zoom meeting with the #liberationskirtchallenge participants about making choices and colors. (The challenge has now two groups of people and I will work with them on their own projects)

What do we want to say?

I am always aware, but now even more, that if you truly work on being authentic, picking colors, making choices, it will not only show others who you are, but also yourself. I think I even need it, to know and learn who I am and what I have to say in a changing world

It is an interesting journey to develop your own work. We learn from others, they are a mirror to us. By them showing their choices we can feel inside if that feels good, very good or very wrong to us. That doesn't say a lot about the work of the artist, but more about yourself. Feeling recognision might feel even less lonely, feeling not touched or feeling offended might learn us how to deal with the the differences. What does it do to you, is there a boundary that you need to give a voice or is it possible to just let it be. Does it stirr questions? Does it makes you curious? Can you be more open to that?

Art and your personal work is an extra language. It might be helpful to know that.
You can react, or you can stay silent, you can shout or you can whisper, let your reaction to work of others cure a bit before you decide what to say and try to understand what it is that triggers you.

Looking at other people’s work and and notice our deep feelings, tells us who we are and might help us to make our own choices.

I think we can use this idea in real life too, in how we want to live.
In what way you want to live, in what way you want to speak. We all have our unique way of communication and how we feel about it. Learning more on ways to communicate can help us to express ourselves.

We might need to do some work on our communicationskills. Although we communicate more than ever we are often feeling more apart. Maybe the skills of Non Violent Communication will help me. Maybe we need something else. What I do know is that making choices feels like it has a price. And we are not sure that, what we want so much, will happen. So we often make no choice and stay with the old and the that seems kind of save. But on the other hand the choice of change might be way better for us. Today I made some choices to speak where I normally stay silent. It feels scary, I might loose someone I rather not loose. But to be aware that saying nothing is also a choice, not only in art but also in live is, I think, a crucial part of creativity. And also of life.

Making new choices for my studio

PS: The #liberationskirtchallenge is full now. It will run for a year and I already doubled the amount of participants. (thank you for your enthusiasm!) i will try to support all the participants on their own journey. And be open to what is happening in the world and our lives. That is only possible if I have a limit in the amount of participants.

I am working on ways online and offline in the studio to offer you coaching combined with practical lessons to help on Haute Couture and other surface design skills, so you can be guided by me, one on one, or in a group, to work on your brand, collection or artwork.

I will let you know when it is in our shop. You can follow the proces of the challenge here on our blog. I will share the updates here too. In this way you you can travel with us and be inspired and see what you like of our journey. Because I want also to share my work for a better world I also work together with a #diverse group of people in the XR NL Fashion Action group. In that way I hope to offer some choices for most of you.

update: I decided to take a kind of a sabbatical and work more with Extinction Rebellion. So this year is for fashion activism against climate change, polution and the modern slavery in fashion.

#liberationskirtchallenge part 1

This challenge is a whole fashion academy in a nutshell!

This year our studio is working on an Eco Textile Academy for fashion students and lovers alike. The online Academy will be a place where you can find a lot of small online courses on fashion skills and sustainability subjects. Think of pattern drawing, sewing skills, making a mood board, working on you own collection and most of all, focusing on doing all of this in a circular and sustainable way. The liberation skirt challenge combines all of the above.

Refuse, reuse, recycle:

Creating a skirt or an outfit based on the ideas of the Dutch liberation skirt is a challenge in itself. In due course I'll tell you some more about what the liberation skirt is all about. How will this challenge work? During the year I will guide you through the challenge and you will get tips, ideas and we'll share our progress on Zoom. You will get all the guidance and inspiration you need: from developing your ideas in a mood board, learning some stitches, to actually making your skirt or outfit. All materials used for the skirt or outfit must be recycled or reused.

Joining this challenge will help you to practise what you learn and at the same time you'll be exploring in what areas you want or need more skills & training. And we'll have a lot of fun of course!

Practical information on the Liberation Skirt Challenge:

The Liberation Skirt Challenge (LSC) will start on May 3rd 2020 and end on April 3rd 2021. The first Zoom meeting will be on Dutch liberation day, May 5th 2020, 16:00-16:40 Amsterdam time (GMT+1, currently GMT+2 due to daylight savings). Instructions given in Zoom gatherings will be recorded, so you can look at them later.

If you want to join the challenge, please send me an e-mail on info@marijkebongers.nl so I can send you the invitation for the first zoom meeting on May 3rd 2020. Or the first one that follows. (you can not join anymore, but can have a look at www.ecotextileseconomy.com )

First presentation for the challenge from the zoom meeting may 5th

the zoom meetings

first zoom meeting May 5 first short presentation about the liberation skirt

The pages of the second presentation from the zoom meeting may 5th

All pictures are taken from Pinterest. You can find the pinterestboards that I used under the links, down under the presentations, they will lead back to the owner. Please let me know if you see your picture and want me to remove or replace it.

more info:

MORE LINKS:

On wikipedia is more info and links to follow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_liberation_skirt

Inspiration on Pinterest:

inspiration to find a style of your own: https://nl.pinterest.com/marijkebongers/liberationskirtchallenge/

inspiration on the runningstitch and more: https://nl.pinterest.com/marijkebongers/lsc-hand-embroidery-stitches/

inspiration on making a moodboard, inspirationwall, visionboard or notebook: https://nl.pinterest.com/marijkebongers/liberationskirtchallenge-moodboard/

Podcast:

In Dutch, the first part of this very nice podcast is telling even more about Mies Bossevain-van Lennep. And about the liberationskirt and ideas behind it. I am getting more and more inspired by this idea and giving it a contemporary new life.

It feels good to use this inspiration of this brave woman and use it for us (now for all genders, #inclusivity ) to tell our stories or to share our dreams for this world, to show with your clothes what you love most, or for what you want to speak up through your clothes.

In the tekst are links that you can follow. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/podcast/bevrijdingsrok?utm_campaign=uitnodiging&utm_medium=email&utm_source=20200505_nb_MEI&fbclid=IwAR2njSr5kqLAyPj5v6_buV0F50F2rThpQHKLSBki_xx1s9bCbgeQvJ8-PA8

Skills:

This is a video about the running stitch and using it for mending your cloth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6t19DCoNMU&fbclid=IwAR3CvVnZ0KSKIhHEIYHBXBOvKIVwpQMgSViTlg6fXWsgORds4tiRffOUHj4

This is a video that shows a highly skilled Japanese quiltster doing the running

stitch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3hYTRBYML8&list=PL6B1FE3B7625CC479&index=5&t=17s

Update may 25

The zoom meetings will be on Tuesday evenings 19:15-20:15 Amsterdam time every two weeks.

One time it will be a meeting with a subject and one or two presentations. After the first hour there is 30 minute to stay around and meet each other. The other time is just a show and tell, you can ask questions and ask advice, and show what you are working on.

next zoom meeting is June 2 19:15-20:15/20:45 Amsterdam time and will be a presentation about Dutch history of mending and about Boro, a Japanese way of mending.

The date for next zoom meeting for questions is: June 16 I will send an e-mail with information needed and the link a few days before the meeting.

Do you want to donate for this project?

Thank you so much for considering a donation! This project is free because I want everybody to be able to join. I think making and mending our own clothes is one of the solutions against climate change and helps us to become free of the big fashion industry. By giving our studio a donation you encourage me to go on in this way. And more so you make it possible to pay for the things we need to go on. By donating you help to pay for the Zoom account, and for the costs of the website. Especially now it is not possible to teach the normal classes in our studio, your donation is highly appreciated! Thank you so much! xxx Marijke

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