Here are some of the incredible shoes and boots designed and made by Jamie Okuma (born 1977). Jamie is a Native American visual artist and fashion designer from California. She is renowned for beadwork, mixed-media soft sculpture, and fashion design. She is Luiseño, Wailaki, Okinawan, and Shoshone-Bannock. She is also an enrolled member of the La Jolla band of Indians in Southern California where she is currently living and working.
"Between my reflection on knitting and my interest in the forgotten poetry of familiar objects, I therefore naturally associated knitting and cutlery in a process of re-reading daily practices. My cutlery, through their treatments, tell us about their scrapping, their erasure. Their metamorphoses, their assimilations into the natural environment from which their materials come, lead us to a poetic reflection on ourselves ... The object certainly loses its usefulness, but it becomes a catalyst, a revealer of our attitude towards the world." Cyril Maisonnave
Venera Kazarova is an artist who works with costume and fashion to give voice her ideas, this piece is called 'Burden Dress'.
'I create clothes for theatre and contemporary choreography as well as paper cut objects for decorating the space and photo shoots.In my work I try to combine my love and passion towards paper & fabric with the use of both materials as well as plastic utensils, polyethylene and everything that comes to hand, especially vintage stuff.My inspiration comes from nature forms & from dreams & fairy tales.' Venera Kazarova
Séverine Gallardo's wonderful felted, embroidered and knitted headwear. Séverine graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Marseille in 2000 and fought to major using textiles and medium she had used since a child with her grandmothers.
"My Mom passed 33 years ago. She asked me one year to make her a dress to wear to my Dad's company picnic. I made a floor-length sleeveless dress with a sash of patchwork African fabrics. My Mom was excited to wear it and my Dad felt embarrassed about the dress. My Mom wore the dress and there were ladies from Africa at the picnic that loved the dress, Mom was proud telling them her son made it for her.That original dress was lost through the years so I created a new one inspired by those memories. Mom's new spirit dress." Danny Mansmith
This dress is part of the exhibition "Like Mother" at The Vashon Center for the Arts May 7 - 30, 2021
