Cultural Tech-Fusion Fabrics

 
 
Tomorrow (6:30-8:30 pm) I will be conducting an image collection event at the Cupertino Community Center. This event is sponsored by the Cupertino Library as part of their Asian Heritage Month programming. People who bring a cultural garment or fabric for me to photograph will be entered to win a pair of Zazzle shoes. I will have a mannequin set up with images of my preliminary textile designs flashing across it. This visual is to aid the public in understanding the project (and hopefully will draw in people just passing by.) It won't be dark yet and I will be set up in doors, so I don't know how visible this will be.

It will be a test run for a similar mannequin set up at the SubZero Festival on June 4th at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. At that event I will create a digital textile lab for one evening. The public will have the opportunity to experiment with textile design on  laptops generously loaned by the Krause Center For Innovation. Visitors can create textile tiling patterns on paper, post them on an inspiration board and will also be able to vote on the public submissions for the fusionwear sv textile contest. The printing of the winning textiles will be sponsored by Spoonflower.
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This pattern above was inspired by two public sumbissions to http://fusionwearsv.sjquiltmuseum.org/
 
I have two projects in the works relating to textiles. One is a NEA grant funded project reflecting on the public's views of Silicon Valley identity (ZERO1 Biennial) and the other (Creative Work Fund application in progress) centers around our past and present visual vocabulary through cultural textiles of Santa Clara County.  For this cultural focus I am working on a logo and press release for the image collection days at libraries. I want to be sure people come!
Here are a few studies.  My first public textile documentation event will be through the Cupertino Library for Asian Heritage Month, May 17th, from 6-9 in The Cupertino Community Hall. The library will be handling all the press as they are folding this data collection event into their programming.  People will bring cultural garments and textiles for me to photograph and document in writing what they are. I will also have a white garment upon which I will have a projector projecting images of my preliminary designs...something visually engaging so that they can visualize that all will come together into textiles and garment at a future date.