I met Laura Brody (etsy shop, main website) last summer at the inaugural Hollywood Fringe Festival, where her live draping event won an award from the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.
I’ve kept in touch with her not just because of the wicked cool jacket she made from leftover cloth used for a major character in the Thor movie, nor because of the fantabulous costumes for the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's movie about Cthulhu that she created, nor even because of the TOTALLY kick ass earrings I bought off of her. And the whole making costumes for the Black Eyed Peas thing? I didn't even know about that until recently, because she's the sort of humble that doesn't drop names.
I kept in touch with Brody because she's a phenomenally great person who, when clearly explaining her artistic ethos, made me think about how I directly contribute to a culture of consumption and waste - and what I can do to change that. Her eco-friendly creations are comprised of 90% re-purposed, re-used materials, cast-offs she turns into sensual, lovely clothing to be worn with flair. (You should have seen what she created out of some mudcloth I gave her! I can't find the picture at the moment in the morass that is my hard drive, but she mixed it with something else to create a fantastic samurai-style jacket for dreadlocked male client. It was gorgeous.) Whether she's doing a bit of steampunk-inspired outfits, or creating beautiful mobility devices for her friends, or designing awesome jewelry, Brody is an all around viciously talented nifty person.
Now Laura is branching out even further, and she's using Kickstarter to do it!
Take a look at the delightful video pitch for the project and read a personal message from her (in bold) below, then please kick in a couple of bucks. Every little bit helps! Please feel free to share word of her super-fun, worthy project with others by passing along the Kickstarter link!
It's my very first Kickstarter project and I'm stupid excited about it!
If you can, please take a look, share the link and be inspired to come up with a project of your own!
It's for a repurposed circus in Baraboo, WI. I was asked to put together a package of live draping workshops and events along with a fellow textile artisan for a new arts festival out there, and we came up a major proposal: right before the Wisconsin state budget cut issues went haywire. We're going to see about self-funding.
Baraboo is the home of the modern American circus, so it seems like a natural, and they have some great resources locally. There's also this great roadside artist, Dr. Evermor, who makes insane magical creatures out of scrap machinery and has a whole world created at the back of a local salvage yard. And of course he's never had a real gallery show there, so we figured we might be able help with that. I love his Forevertron.
Me again. Isn't that great? I'm throwing in next payday. Whatever you can give, please do so. You will not regret it. Now, go go go!
