Transcending Media and a Recap of Rochester Fashion Week
The first Rochester Fashion week is over. We participated in the runway show on day two of the event at the Four Walls Gallery, The Art of Fashion. We were honored (and quite surprised) to be the only entry in the wearable art category. The event was a blast. All of the designers, models, and everyone else we met were just fun to be around.
The only odd part of the evening was being asked how we created the bubbly look of the dress. "Well, that's just naturally what you get with balloons," I answered. "Balloons? You used balloons to make that dress?" Similar exchanges to that continued throughout the evening. I wasn't sure how to respond to that. It seems that people loved the dress and didn't even realize that we used our usual latex medium. I've been wrestling with this for a couple of weeks now. On one hand, what could possible be a better compliment than being told they loved the work without knowing how it was done. That, after all, is the goal I've been after. I want people to like what I've made because of what I've made and not because of the material used in its creation. And yet, I suddenly found myself in this odd place of feeling that people couldn't really appreciate the work that went into what I was doing if they didn't know what I had done.
Over the last few weeks, I've come to appreciate more how much my art has evolved. This is what I wanted. I don't want to be judged for my creative use of materials. I want to be judged only on how well the final piece works in the setting where it's been displayed. The material used is certainly one aspect of the final piece, but everyone sees art differently. Everyone notices different elements that are important to them. If they like the work, I've succeeded whether they recognize my methods or not.