Storm Nemo Comes To Boston

Since I last wrote, Boston Massachusetts has survived a massive snowstorm followed by Valentines Day- the one day out of the year where the lovers of the world all put tremendous pressure on their significant others to sum up a loving relationship with symbolic acts that “defines” the way they feel about each other. 

The beginning of this adventure starts the two days before the snowstorm Nemo. My boyfriend was just getting out of work from the Prudential Tower as I met him to go buy some groceries for that night. One of the joys of living in the middle of Boston is the 24 hour super markets always located a hop and a skip away from your apartment. The supermarket we were headed to on this lovely Thursday evening is called Shaws, and is located next the the Prudential Tower right smack in the middle of the city. 

When we entered through the sliding doors the store was a buzz with people doing their pre-snowstorm grocery shopping. “This is normal,” I thought as we walked through the store, observing people who had carts that would lead one to believe the end of the world might be tomorrow. Back home in Amherst Massachusetts, I find that people stock their cabinets with the slightest warning of an impending storm, so my mindset was that Bostonians must do the same therefor making this normal.

It was not until we were halfway down an aisle that was set in the far back of the store that we noticed a unsetting amount of people just standing around with full carts. At first, I experienced immediate irritation. I couldn’t understand why people were literally standing in middle of the aisle doing nothing. Perhaps, for some reason, there was a large number of clueless people out and about, that all decided to go food shopping at the same time? I wasn’t sure.

It wasn’t until I was blocked by three different people in the cereal aisle that I peered down to the front of the store. It was then I saw it, the line of never-ending lines. For you to understand how ridiculous this whole situation is its important to know that this Shaws supermarket is HUGE. In fact, it might just be the largest supermarket in Boston. The lines were so long, each spanned at lease half the length of the store, which is insanity because there is a plentiful amount registers at the front of the store. 

This site would annoy most people, but my mood instantly changed to that of excitement. I began passing each aisle, peering down at the people in it as if I was observing some National Geographic special on television. 

After my excitement began to calm down, and I started turning from a 5 year-old back to a 23 year-old, I took notice of the dominating item in everyones carts: alcohol. One man, about the age of 35 had a handle of vodka, a bottle of Patron tequila, two bottles of wine and some snack food that one would hardly call a well balanced meal. The man ahead of him had two bottles of wine, and so on. If I had to guess, I would say 85% of shoppers had $30+ each of alcohol in their carts. 

Out of curiosity I looked into the liquor section of Shaws. Lets just say, If you were coming into that store without knowing what those aisles held, you might assume, judging by the amount of people grabbing bottles off the shelf, that those bottles held something that was a necessity for staying alive during a snowstorm. 

Once I was done running around the store, observing people as Mark rolled his eyes and tried to distance the fact that we knew each other, we put our meager three items each back on the shelf, and got out of there. We substituted CVS as our supermarket that night as we stopped by a whole foods briefly only to find the same shopping frenzy of people in a mad dash for groceries.

The next day was Friday, and Nemo had officially begun. I was released from work early as the snow fell and the parking ban turned into a driving ban. It was strange walking home seeing streets on Boylston naked of the cars that were always parked on both sides.

Mark (my boyfriend) came home from his finance job that evening with the unfortunate news that his second night job at a local bar had not let him off work. In fact, the bar was so determined to stay open, they put their waitresses up in a local hotel. Not one to miss the possibility of adventure, I whimsically decided to give him some company at work with the promise of storm photos lingering in the future. Plus lets face it, I wanted to see Boston engulfed in snow to the fullest. Little did I know how interesting the actual bar part of the night would be. 

Most people in a blizzard hunker down in their home with some hot coco, and maybe watch a movie or have a drink if your in the mood. Apparently Boston people take this chance to buy alcohol like it was water and party hard. For those who could not do this in the privacy of their homes, there is the bar, if that is, your brave enough to fight the storm to get there. 

By the time Mark and I adventured outside to make the 10 minuet journey to his bar job, the winds were wicked and the snow was more like ice shards that angrily insisted on making their way into your eyes. The level of the snow had climbed to my knees, which was impressive as it was only 9pm at night. Considering we would be at the bar until about 2 am, adventure was definitely afoot and ready for us.

After a walked that seemed to be 30 minutes, we reached our destination. During I came to the conclusion that I would make a terrible arctic explorer, vying for a nice cup of hot coco rather then ice in the face. Everyone in the bar seemed to be prepared, however, as they were all dressed in snow pants and ski goggles. Throughout the night I met lots of people and has multiple interactions, but two of them specifically stood out. The first was a group of rebellious 35-40 year olds who insisted on being mischievous. Their tactic in doing this was to act out in small enough ways that they were not booted from the bar, but large enough ways to keep the bouncers busy all night with their mischievous actions. One woman, perhaps in her 40’s, actually starting hanging on a light fixture adorned to the wall above the woman's bathroom. The manner in which she did this was that of a pole dancer. For those of you who still aren't seeing this image, she was acting like a clothed stripper. The wall the light fixture was set into was made of brick, and the fact she didn’t end up with light fixture in her face still amazes me. 

The second person that stood out to me was a man that everyone refereed to as “Big Sexy.” “Big Sexy” stands at about 6’4” with dark skin, and weighs somewhere in the range 300 pound range. He was also one of the most hilarious, friendly, hard to miss people at the bar. At first, he was introduced to me by a friend who said, “ Sarah, this is  Sexy, Sexy this is Sarah.” However, we were in a bar, and I was so sure I had misheard the name, therefor assumed it was a unusual name that was hard to pronounce. Later it was explained to me that all the locals who come to the bar call him “Sexy” or “Big Sexy.” When I asked Mark what his real name was, Mark looked up quizzically for a moment before slightly frowning, then lifted his eyebrows in surprise saying “You know, I have known him for 2 years, and I have never heard anyone call him anything but Big Sexy.” 

At 3am we left the bar and ventured the barren streets of Boston. On the way home, we only encountered one lone man carrying a yellow sled under his arm. The next day was Saturday and we awoke like two kids on Christmas morning to go explore the snowscape that was not Boston. 

We traveled from Symphony down to the Boston Commons, and finally to the North End and Aquarium. Then, because the subway was closed, we headed the long way back.  During our commute we stopped to document the storms impact on the city. Bostonians were alive with the new change of scenery. There were people skiing in the streets, others letting their dogs off lease because no one was driving, kids being pulled on sleds, and finally runners who would never let a snowstorm get in the way of training for the Boston Marathon, forced by the snow to run down the center of the main streets.

At the end of the day we returned home with wind burned faces, and exhaustion in our limbs. Finally, we cozied up and did what most people do during a snowstorm, indulge in some hot coco, and a good movie. Of corse if I didn’t add my own competitive edge to the day, my name would not be Sarah Burke, so I submitted my storm photos to National Geographic’s My Shot section of their website, and it was later selected among the best of the best viewer-caught storm photos. The link to National Geographic and the photo itself are below. 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/pictures/130212-northeast-blizzard-nemo-pictures-snow-photographs-us/

A Word to the Wise

Fashion design is like walking a tight rope. On one shoulder you have your sanity, on the other your physical health. In your mind you hold your creation, over your head, the threat of failure. You walk this tightrope, trying not to look down, trying to balance it all as you know it is an act that requires you to keep your eyes on the prize. You know that if you stumble and fall, the time lapse it will take to pick yourself up is time you can’t spare if you are going to make your deadlines. Your aiming to be the 1% of the population who makes it, your planning on somehow making it to the top in your own right. All the odds stare you in the eyes as you see that nothing comes by chance. So you work, you work every day as hard as you can. The work you start producing becomes your way of screaming to the world why you are the person who can make it. But is it enough? You question this and come up without an answer to put your mind at ease. The stress threatens to drown you so you better be a good swimmer of positive thought to keep your vision of making it in the front of your mind. Positive thoughts become as important as the air you breath, for as the true artist, there is no such thing as good enough. You know you will do it better next time, but right now is all the counts. You want the world in an hour when all you have is a minute. You win some awards and people congratulate you, pat you on the back. But your already on the next project because you know that your only as good as todays achievements, and those awards and already yesterdays news. What have you done today? Why should the world care? You brain allows your genius if only you would let go. The world tries to tell you the right way to be working, you block it out and do what works. You do all of this with purpose, with conviction, wondering if you will get a break to show the world what you can do. For now, you live as loud as possible, trying to make a connection unfound in the present, but maybe existing somewhere in the future. For now, you live as an ant, unnoticed, small, and by no means an impact on the field you have started to obsess over. The only solution is to continue like your life depends on it. “An object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless an unbalanced force acts upon it.”-Newtons first law of motion. I plan to be that object moving forward, and if an unbalanced force comes my way, I plan to bob and weave until I get around it. My friend once told me “Healthy people look at life's challenges as an adventure, not a stress.” Since then, when I am lost, or feeling defeated I smile, because on the on the cliff destruction, comes the breakthrough of success if you know how to find it. 

Designing my Collection. Concept and Sketches

Coming back to my real life in Boston was surreal. In London, living in Zandra Rhodes house, something inside my brain had clicked. I felt like Alice, who had fallen down the rabbit hole, gone on this insane journey only to return to real life with an execs of unparalleled memories that changed everything. 

           The first thing I did after the jet lag wore off was to start sketching. I sketched until my hand was sore and my eyes, heavy. When I wasn’t sketching I was thinking about what my 5 piece collection for my senior year would be. Before I left london, Zandra Rhodes had gifted me with three different hand-printed fabrics. The 5 piece collection would contain all three, but the concept was still emerging. I struggled deeply with the creation of this concept because I look at anything I create as communicating with the world. This grand spectacle would be a chance to say something to a large audience, but what was it I wanted to tell them? After days of thinking about it, I realized I wanted to illustrate my experience in London in a visual spectacular. I wanted to take the viewer down the rabbit hole I fell into, and show them the world of color, beauty, and fantasy I had seen. I aimed to illustrate the merging of Zandras train of thought and style of art with my own. The conclusion of this was that each of the 5 looks in the collection must illustrate a part of this journey. While only I know which parts of the journey they illustrate, the viewer will have the luxury of getting taste of the overall experience. 

A second inspiration to this collection came from artist Nick Cave who one of my friends introduced me to when I had gotten back from my trip. Nick Cave works a lot with costumes that contain materials that are designed to be seen in movement. The particular outfit that really inspired me was his raffia costumes. This costumes were heat to toe raffia which is a hula skirt grass that is really light and playable. After watching the outfits move I knew raffia was something I wanted to incorporate into the collection. The designs will change here and there over the corse of creation, but for the most part they are drawn the way they will look in real life. 

My Final Starting Sketches 

Raffia 

Print 1 from Zandra Rhodes

Print 2 from Zandra Rhodes

Print 3 from Zandra Rhodes

Part Two: My Real Life (Back to Boston)

Hello again! After returning from London and my adventure with Zandra Rhodes, I seemed to have fallen down the rabbit hole into my work and away from my blog. However, nothing could keep me away forever. Thus I’m Back, with a bag full of crazy stories, and a future full of possible success.

          To catch you up we will go back to the basics. There has been so much I have not told you about that the easiest way to get this going is to itemize what you have missed, since I last wrote. So here it is, In chronological order:

1.) Returned to MassArt to set up a Zandra Rhodes textile exhibit. (the exhibit is unfortunately over, however I will eventually show you the exhibit in my blog, and how it was set up.)

2.) Started my final year of college at Massachusetts College of Art and Design

3.) Designed a 5 piece collection for my final year, and created 3 of the 5 looks. 

4.) Met up with André Leon Talley and Zandra Rhodes at the VIP Zandra Rhodes exhibit tour and dinner. 

5.) Applied to the Wearable world of Art competition in New Zealand, and started creating the garments for the competition. 

6.) Started applying for jobs after graduation which is more of an adventure then you think it would be. I will eventually give you the 411 on how THATS going

This is the list my life has revolved around since I wrote last. The only thing not on that list would be that my boyfriend of 5 years has moved into my apartment immediately after I came home from London. I will tell you now, there is no better test of love for a man then moving into his girlfriends 1 bedroom, shoe box of an apartment, but we will get into that later. 

So hold tight, get cozy, and continue to tune into my blog. This is part two, my real life. I will be taking you into my home, school, and work in Boston Massachusetts. I am going to give you a view into everything, from how much work it takes to have anyone give a dam about you, to how to set up a gallery space for a big exhibit. I am going to tell you what it feels like to live a life where everything that you earn, you must work for as if you have nothing in this world that is more important. Lastly, I am going to tell you about how it feels, the sacrifices you make, and how I wouldn’t give this crazy life up for the world. So don’t call it a come back, because I really haven't gone anywhere...yet!

My Final Reflection

It hits me, as I sit in the tube, now 40 minutes away from the place I briefly called home. This trip, this trip has changed my life. It has changed what I knew and thought about fashion, clothing construction, art and life. I have come to realization after realization about all sorts of things I thought I understood. The main thought that I can not get out of my head is: what would life be like, to wake up and be who you REALLY want to be without the fear of judgement. Up until this moment I believed I had been doing this to the best of my ability, and then, I met Zandra. Being around Zandra made me really think about whether or not I was being who I truly want to be as a person, an artist, and a fashion designer. 

For example, do I wear what I want to wear, or am I a bit afraid of being judged? Would I walk down the street with pink hair tomorrow if I wanted to, or would I be too nervous for the reaction. I see myself as being very much who I want to be most of the time, but when it comes to physical attributes like clothing, hair and look I have still shy away from what I might really want to wear and look like. In fact, because I have not fully entertained the question of what I want to look like and wear without the judgment of society, I can’t fully answer that question right now. 

It took spending time with Zandra Rhodes and Andrew Logan to realize that although I may think of myself as being a ballsy person, I have so much to learn in the way of developing myself in this world. Zandra and Andrew are so comfortable in their eccentric lifestyles, so ok with who they are, how the world sees them, it just makes me humbled to my own level of comfort in relation to all of those things. I have learned so much and yet I have gathered a longer list of things to learn and goals to achieve then the one I came to London with. 

I look out the window of the tube at the blurring landscapes that I may never have the chance to explore, at the lives I will never have a chance to connect with and think about everything. Somewhere deep inside my thoughts, out of the pile of experiences, memories, and visual images emerges, the first glimpse of my senior collection for MassArt that I will create this year. It starts with one defining image, and grows into many. Within minutes my mind is full of color, patterns, garments, hair, makeup, shoes and catwalks. Finally, after searching all summer, the beginnings of my final 5 garments I will create for my last year at MassArt, emerges. 

It is moments like these that I, as an artist, live for. You work, and work and work to be inspired. You can sketch a million sketches without having one of them be right, and then you experience something that changes your life. And what floats to the top of the basin of memories that is now your past, but the thing you have been trying to create through it all, which is for now my future, and all too soon, my past. 

THANK YOU

To all of you who have read the insanity that was my Adventure to London, I thank you and hope it has entertained you, inspired you, for just been a laugh on a bad day. I started out writing it for you, but in the end found that it has become a documentation of one of the best trips of my life. 

Morning of Departure

           I awoke at 8:30 this morning, a half hour before my alarm, knowing it is my last day. The thought I do not belong here, that this is not my life, seems incredibly strange in this waking moment. I have been here, living in this house, that my mind seemed to accept that this was now my new life, and yet, I am going home today. Home, Boston, it seems so far away to me in this very moment. 

I get up, dressed and walk down the the studio to chat with Zandra. She works on Saturdays, in fact I don’t actually know if she takes any days off from working. We sit and talk for a while before It is time for me and my room mate Ruth to have out last breakfast together. I invite Zandra but she is in the middle of working and like a true artist must tend to the garden of her art. 

I get to have my first traditional English breakfast this morning. Ruth and I go to this little hole-in-the-wall place that does “a tradition fry up.” I tell the man to put anything and everything that might give me a heart attack on my plate, for that is what breakfast is all about. It is a lovely breakfast, but I still have to say that I-Hop trumps it. Then again, I Hop it a force to be reckoned with if your being unhealthy. 

We walk back to Zandra’s and I get the chance to talk a bit more with her before parting. I also get the chance to ask her if it would be alright if I put on one of her garments and got a photo with her. She agrees but insists standing behind me because she is in her work clothing for making art. So I was abel to snap this photo, which I am sure someday I will show this photo to my kids and grandkids summing up this amazing journey to the world of Zandra Rhodes. 

Finally, after photos, hugs, and goodbyes I am walking back to the tube with my two bags wheeling behind me. I have managed to take the tube to and from the airport on this trip, and it has saved me roughly 175 pounds by doing so. If you can manage to keep you calm while in a new world and lots of people, I would highly recommend taking the public transit. 

My last Friday- August 24th

My work day today was by far, the best EVER. My first job was to search the internet to find a place to buy multi-colored wigs for a reasonable price. I ended up finding this great costume store in Soho that sold what we were looking for, and was promptly sent out to buy them. At this point, taking the tube was easy and I had no trouble getting there, however, on the journey home, I hit a few snags. First, I took what I believed at the time to be a short cut, and ended up on this street with adult toy shops and theaters. It was a really odd street, and somehow looked a bit creepy in the sunshine with all these guys awkwardly walking around. I suddenly decided I would like to leave this little street asap. Walking at a brisk pace to get away from Adult movie-toy street I found myself in ChinaTown. I attempted to walk away from THAT area and found myself London’s version of Times Square. FINALLY, I found my way to an information booth and made my way home. 

  Once I reached London Bridge Stop, I realized it was break/lunch time at work, and since I was already at Borough Market, I decided to pop in. Borough Market is this wonderful outside market that has beer, veggies, fruit, sandwiches, candy, pretty much everything! It is positioned under a bridge and you must keep walking around these big concert pillars to get to more of the market. The market itself is huge, it keeps going and going the more you explore it. 

When I returned, wigs in hand, Zandra was very happy with them. I did put one on for her, just to make sure it was a good fit (but really because I needed a laugh.) Now it was time for my next task, because I was done with the scarves for the exhibition, I worked on a slew of other things. 

 One of the fun things I got to do today is help in the designing process of Zandra’s new line of watches. This process: Zandra had picked out different patterns from the pattern bible (a large book with every pattern print they have ever done,) and photo copied the ones she liked. I cut the patterns into strips so they could be imagined on a watch band, then they were scanned in to the computer. From there, I opened them up in a program called illustrator, and started re-drawing them so they could be rearranged and organized in whatever way Zandra would like. Using illustrator, we could even put the design onto a drawing of a watch as a mock image of what the watch would look like in real life. It was a refreshing exercise to do after sewing for so long. 

               I ended up working late today, until about 7:30pm. I think it was because I was in a bit of denial it was my last day. Immediately after work I packed for home, and had a last dinner with Kitty and Ruth. Ruth is the most amazing cook, she can make the most amazing meals out of any ingredients. Kitty and Ruth have both been working overtime while I have been here. Kitty: to get her collection done for Paris Fashion week and Ruth: to design textiles that her agency will try to sell to stores like UniQlo.

  For people new to what a textile designer like Ruth does for a living, it goes a bit like this: She has an agent who might say, such and such a company wants a summer print for 2015, she then makes a variety of prints and sends them off. The agency presents them to a company like H&M for example, and if they like it they buy the print and Ruth gets the sale. It is a very competitive field where the biggest competition is yourself, whether you can get yourself to produce and meet the deadlines. 

        After dinner Ruth and Kitty went back to work on Kitty’s collection. Shortly after, I joined them, then popped in the drawing room to chat with Zandra for a bit. The nice thing about talking to Zandra is that, there is never a loss of interesting conversation. She has so many stories, and she has done so much. She also actually likes to talk, which is something we share because I talk almost too much. Too soon its time for me to turn myself into my room and try to sleep. 

Sleep does not come, so I just sit here, thinking about how its my last night at Zandra Rhodes amazing house. As I quietly think and reflect, my things packed neatly in a bag, I realize that soon, these 3 weeks will boil down to the memory of a trip that changed my life. Zandra’s personality had proven to be brighter then her prink hair. The people in her company, and who live in her house have been so full of character and lessons. These people I will always remember fondly.  Art, culture, creation and inspiration pulses through this house 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It has more history, and personality then most people I have met in this lifetime. While sitting here, thinking about all of it, I know that even though I leave tomorrow, these experiences will never leave me. 

  The last two days have been some of the best days since I have been here. Yesterday(Thursday,) me and my roomie Ruth went out to go get tea at the SwissOtel which we found out when we got there, did not exist. They had closed a year ago and their website was never taken down. We decided to just walk, eventually we found a candy store and I just HAD to go in! With out candy bags full we walked down the street looking at different things, shoes mostly. We went in and out of stores for a bit, then stumbled upon this amazing bar she had once been too. I ended up getting a drink called a Jamaican  Mule, which is 2 different kinds of rum, ginger beer, ginger and lime, she got a something tasty with blood orange. I didn’t catch the name of the bar, but the bar itself was all concrete with different artists on the wall. We talked for a while, drinking our drinks happily.Then it was off to China Town, to share some duck and toufu. After that, Ruth took me on a mini tour of the parts of London I had not known to go. Some, like London’s version of time square were touristy, some were hidden, like streets that simply looked amazing at night. 

A shoe store that Ruth and I visited

A cool building in London's version of Times Square

The Candy Store Ruth and I went to.