Fabric
I took two of these home. The women in Tanzania have such responsibility; you hardly ever see a women who is unencumbered. I love these batik depictions of womanhood.
This is a little sewing piece from a local artist. I love her work.
I love high heels at the beach. If I find them, I take them home. Then the cowboy below keeps it company with this wooden cup from my family on Guam, half a truck I found in a gutter, a black feather boa from my friend Karen who left us CONTINUE >
Outside the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, there are so many tiny little shops. This place I found was barely even a stall. It was only a few feet wide and maybe 20 feet deep. The guy had crammed so many patches in the place. I spent a very long time CONTINUE >
I do not know why they call this a chief’s belt. The Massai do not wear big belts like this one. When you go to the art market in Dar, and it happens only 2 times a year, you have to go very early if you want a shot at CONTINUE >
In Qatar if a family leaves their original home in the desert, you may find that many things they intended to throw out have been buried in the sand. So I’d often go scavenging in the sand near our house and once I found this really cool dress. It weighs CONTINUE >
There is a little beachfront bar on a remote beach on Koh Tao. The guy who owns it walks around in a Ghandhi diaper most of the time. He made his bar entirely out of stuff that washed up out of the ocean. There are several beached wooden boats he CONTINUE >
This little suit is a Korean baby suit. Koreans dress impeccably. This sweet little handsewn suit is from the 1920’s.
Of course the Miao region of China is a poor region, and as we travelled on foot between villages, we saw people begging, but they do not beg for money. They beg for eyeglasses so that they can sew their beautiful garments. I brought lots of glasses with me so CONTINUE >
There is not much food in Miao country, so the local people eat everything they can, including ferns, which they soak for days and then boil and then pickle. I ate a lot of pickled fern whilst there, and it did my whole system in long after I got back CONTINUE >
One of the villages in Miao country where I visited I was warned I’d have to sing to be hosted. So we arrived at the elder’s house and the women were all lined up in chairs on one side of an upper room. The Miao live above their pigs, so CONTINUE >
In Miao country there are lots of camillia farms, and the women farmers are dressed in these gorgeous sequined, beaded dresses. They wear their long black hair in rolls, and a mother and daughter share hair, they use long cuttings of hair to make the roll. I was hosted in CONTINUE >
I was able to do research in a remote part of China where the Miao people live. The trip requires going into the region with a minder organization, and for me and for my assistant that was a French nonprofit. We were hosted in the little village that was reachable CONTINUE >
This little brass mirror is from a fair trade shop in Luxor. The brass in Egypt is beautiful, and I love the little hammered design on the front. I tied the mirror doors shut with a little Bedouin camel tassel.
These are handmade by women in Nepal. They stuff the rings with straw and plastic bags and then sew on the designs so they can use them to balance the cargo they carry on their heads. I bought all these in a really, really dirty, tiny little shop run by CONTINUE >