(As you can see, I am playing with headings.) If you just happened on this page, my Unemployment Projects have only two requirements: they must take plenty of time and almost no money. This particular project involves those free tote bags that you probably have piled in your closet with pictures of baby kittens and bank logos. As you will see, this is a very, very loose DIY. Why? Because I recommend you work with whatever products you happen to have on hand!
My grandmother gave me my bag, which was a plastic tote with a big fuzzy blue sky that said something about saving something or other. She obviously got it from donating money to an organization. Since everyone gets totes for donating money, and most people can’t do with all of their totes, then you will find any thrift store (ie Salvation Army) will have piles of $1 bags such as this. I recommend a plastic tote bag, but I am sure if you are cool enough you can figure out how to paint a canvas one successfully.
I put a big piece of paper inside my bag just in case the paint would go through (it didn’t) and then I coated the front in white acrylic paint.
I used scrap paper to cut out different designs. I did these really simple explosions, and because I am COMPLETELY impatient, I didn’t spend too much time getting anything perfect. I also used a hair dryer in between colors so that I could do the next layer right away. If you are patient or have lots of time, let it air dry! And, you can make more exact templates out of heavy cardboard or thin black electrical tape might work.
I outlined my designs with black paint just so that you couldn’t see my messy edges. You could even use, again, black electrical tape if you want really straight outlines. But since this is an “unemployment project” I completely recommend you work with whatever products you already have!
This past weekend I went to the biennial Dodge Poetry Festival in Stanhope, NJ. Just forty-five minutes from the rural-ish town (cows > people) where I grew up, this poetry festival is one of the largest (the largest?) in North America. It always features a few poet laureates and other publicly-ordained-people of poetic fabulousness (Mark Doty, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Franz Wright, to name a mere four).
As I walked around the festival this year, I noticed that poetry festival attendees, mostly middle-aged women, are comprised of two main fashion-groups (male-poetry-enthusiast fashion is a different animal!):
Interestingly, both sets contain more long-haired middle-aged women than the American population as a whole. That hair is either: Long, straight, and unlayered. Or long, frizzy, and sort-of-tamed with a silver barrette. (In case you are wondering, I knew that earth-tones would be in at the Poetry Festival, so I arrived aptly dressed in one of the few neutral colored outfits I own.)
Anyway, enough with the stereotyping! Wait, actually, not enough with the stereotyping. First, I have to provide my guide for your How-To-Dress-Like-Someone-Who-Likes-Poetry needs (see image above, links & commentary below).
AFTER THE JUMP: links, commentary. Also, there may or may be not a picture of what I might or might not have worn to the poetry festival. (more…)
