When my daughter finally cleaned out her sock drawer over the holidays, she presented me with this colorful pile. I wondered what to do with these mismatched dirty old socks. I don't want to add more clothing waste to the landfill, but because they are made of synthetic fibers, I can't compost them. What's a gal like me to do? And when I cleaned out my mother-in-law's house two years ago, I came home with bags of scraps from all the clothes she had had altered to fit her - - At 5" and getting smaller, she needed a lot of hems and cuffs removed and shortened. I love that Pam saved these scraps, perhaps thinking they could be used to mend her shirts or trousers if they needed it. Or, perhaps she had a vision for making a quilt some day. But then she forgot about the scraps & those ideas faded with time. When I originally found her bags of cuffs, hems and other fabric, I wondered if I could compost, recycle or reuse them. That's just how I think. The thought of tossing these remnants of my mother-in-law's life into dumpsters made me really sad. I couldn't do it. It's not that I am a hoarder or that I am overly sentimental. And it's more than the reality that I hate waste. In fact, I found these on a day when I had been ruthlessly sending all manner of things to the landfill. At that moment, though, I had a feeling there was a story embodied in those bags that I would explore someday. So here I am, wondering about my daughter's old socks and my mother-in-law's fabric remnants. The thing that's bothering me most is that they can not be composted because these colorful textiles are made from or contain synthetic fibers. As I have recently learned in Rebecca Burgess's Fibershed, there is more to our clothes than I ever knew. For me, though, these piles of fabric are kind of like the piles of vegetables and other scraps I witness in the compost pile. The colors, textures and shapes seduce me, inviting me to pay attention. I notice Pam's love for blues and greens. I notice the mix of silk, denim, linen, wool, cotton-knit and shining polyester. Although she now needs a wheel- chair to get around, she once swooshed and swished at parties, did errands in town, and dug in her garden. Each of these scraps reveals a different part of her life, a different part of her. It turns out that I am asking the same questions of these scraps that I ask of my compost. Where you do come from, how did you grow or how were you made? Who was responsible for your emergence and ultimate journey to me? Were those responsible for you (fabric or fruit) paid a living wage? Was the soil from which you grew (veggie or fiber) rich with compost, or was it polluted? The Fibershed, it turns out, is like a foodshed or a watershed. Meaning, there is a connection between geography and the health of our food, the cleanliness of our water, and the sustainability of the clothes we wear. Each is part of a system much larger than itself. I started exploring these connections last year when I wrote blog posts about an old t-shirt, old dresses that belonged to my grandmother, and finding new shoes. Ultimately, when I eat yummy, healthy good, I feel better. When I wear well-made, beautiful and natural fibers, I feel better as well. To continue exploring the relationship between re-imagining my clothes and, in the process re-imagining myself, I'm excited to start hosting a community conversation on this very subject. Stay tuned. I have no idea what will emerge from this... Don't worry.
I'm still hanging out with compost, but I'm also seeing where that compost leads me. For the moment, it's inviting time with fabric, because, like food, textiles could be removed from our waste stream if we only knew how.
Steven Ornelas
8/15/2020 12:33:57 pm
I'll luv to buy any socks!!! Comments are closed.
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Lyn Swett Miller
reframing the narrative, one day, one image at a time Let's ReFrame: By Degrees
A place where photographer Lyn Swett Miller considers wonder, joy and transformation in a complex world. Archive
September 2021
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