today in the studio
April 16, 2009
Today’s task is to pick open the seams of these four uniform shirts so that I can reassemble them into uniform shirts that fit me. I’m going to start by leaving the shoulder seams and collars intact and just change the armscyes and shoulder caps and reshape the side seams. I’m really hoping I don’t have to change the collars, because I can see that being a royal pain in the arse. Once they’re resewn to fit me I can get down to the fun part, adding custom pockets and loops for all of my necessary doo-dads and making fun embroidered name tags and patches. I’m dying to do one with a big fancy monogramme just like Laverne.
L-R: a dark gray poly-cotton work shirt bought at the Salvation Army store in Athens, GA during our visit at the beginning of the month; light blue and light green Denver Hayes work shirts bought for me by Peter at Mark’s Work Wearhouse; a black Tim Hortons uniform shirt bought at the Goodwill in Stratford, ON last weekend.
Posted by jodi on April 16, 2009 at 8.20am
like hurtling backwards and forwards in time
April 7, 2009
Peter and I just returned from a six-day trip to Athens Georgia to attend the 2009 MFA thesis exhibition at the Lamar Dodd School of Art and to visit dear friends we haven’t seen since I graduated and high-tailed it out of Georgia, almost a year ago now. It was days and days of highway driving punctuated by little whirlwinds of red hot tearful reunion action, Waffle House coffee, record shopping and taking full advantage of the absurdly cheap booze to be had in this special little college town. But one of the very specialest moments of the trip was spotting this little boy at the Kentucky Welcome Center, pausing for a meditative moment in one of the weirdest makeup jobs I’ve seen in a while:
The funniest part is that painfully normal logo sweatshirt. I so badly wanted to pinch his cheeks, tell him how awesome he is, and then take him to the mall and buy him some goth-boy clothes.
Otherwise, when I wasn’t clinging to people (it likely won’t come as a surprise to anyone that I’m very hands-on, the huggy type), there was a whole lot of this:
and also copious amounts of this:
Also, since it was warm like summer and I was able to go around bare-backed quite a bit, I discovered that Michiganders love the hell outta me. They see the Great Lakes tattooed on my back and they come up with their hands raised in the mitten shape and say, hey Michigaaaaaaaannn! And ask me where I’m from. It’s awesome fun, and I’m thinking about starting to ask them all to write in my book or something. I haven’t yet met any Youpers this way, but I’ll keep on trying. Now, of course, I’m all bundled up again, having returned home from bare legs and tank top weather back to snow on the ground and dull drizzle.
Posted by jodi on April 7, 2009 at 8.36am
