more bra project goodness

i found photos from this year’s bra project on the women’s center facebook page. they also have a special event page dedicated to the project, with radica and doodica (and polyrhesus) posing for the profile pic! i got an email from the organizer that said they ended up raising $3,110 for the mammography fund. AND, i have offically been assigned an article on the bra project for next fall's (magazine that dare not speak its name on this blog)! they're using my photos too. i'll start interviews immediately while this year's event is still fresh in everyone's minds.

here’s an article from the arbiter about the event. it also mentions radica and doodica. i hope the link stays good...it might have a different address once it’s archived. plus the arbiter website is just wonky in general.

my fairy princess

andy's been wearing his special halloween pretties all week. i think the bow tie adds an interesting dimension to the ensemble.

for spare parts, broken up

boise state women's center bra project 2009

last friday was the sixth annual bra project put on by the women's center. this year proceeds went to st. luke's MSTI mammography fund for uninsured and underinsured idaho women. i don't know how much money was raised, but it seemed quite successful.

the format was both silent and live auction--31 pieces in the silent auction and 18 peices that were either carried around or modeled for the live auction. i was not expecting my sock monkeys to be part of the live auction, but there they were...

the crowd went wild when radica and doodica hit the runway. lindsey (who works in the women's center) said they'd had it on display, and everyone who came in made a big fuss about it. someone else from the women's center asked if i'd be willing to make another one for her to buy. after the auction a writer from the arbiter interviewed me about my "inspiration"--it was so cute.
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the bidding started at $70 but didn't stay there long--paddles were waving all over the place, i think it was the most active bidding of the night. i was absolutely flabbergasted by how much money it ended up going for: $190! one hundred ninety goddamn dollars for something that cost maybe ten bucks and took six or seven hours to put together. the only live auction bra that went for a higher bid was woman-of-steel zella bardsley's metal masterpiece, "heavy duty bra":

which took in about $25 more. it's a total work of art.

my knitted bra was in the live auction as well, bringing in $50 (about average for the live auction ones). i thought it looked really nice on the model, she wore it well.

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i'm completely thrilled to have been able to help raise $240 for such a great cause...i wish boise had more community art projects for charity. i wish the mend project would throw another recycled toy event, but i don't know if mend is even around anymore, their website has vanished and i haven't heard anything.

^"beautiful" by ginger vogt.

^this is "hooters" by fran finkbeiner. i met fran at the women's day poetry reading last march. she wrote a long, funny story about the hooters using more boob-related puns than i could count.

^"the beauty in beads" by esther ceja. some jerk in the audience shouted out that he would bid if the model came with the bra on this one...rocci johnson was emceeing this year and she made a joke out of it, but if that had happened last year when mel wintrow (my gender studies prof last semester) was hosting, she would have totally said something about how inappropriate and stupid that was (but in much more tolerant, "i'm-trying-to-educate-you" words than i just used).

^this bra was called "no war in MY rack!", by brandi benson, made out of the artist's old military uniform.

^"save second base" by brandi benson.

^"innocence" by brandi benson.

^"june is busting out all over" by christine howard.

"bra-barella and/or metal form" by kay seurat. i love this one. the artist photoshopped the bra into a couple of old movie posters for barbarella. this bra was bought by the person modeling it.

"tickled pink" by kay coughran.

"flowers, buttons and bows" by sarah crawford.

and now the silent auction pieces...

^bethany and sienna's bra totally should have been in the live auction, since it's wearable and awesome...but some lucky bidder got it for a steal at $15.

speaking of being way undervalued, this magnificent piece ("heirloom" by janie gates) went for only about $20. it looks like the artist constructed it entirely from scratch. the artist statement mentions tatting, so i assume she even tatted the lacework. i came very, very close to bidding on this one but i really didn't want to spend any money, and i didn't know what i would do with it if i bought it.

as usual, a lot of artists got extremely creative with their materials. this is "better than chocolate," a bra cake by amanda peña.

^"white orchid acrylic dimples," by ashley kennedy, made out of the dry paint from a tray liner.

^"growth" by paige weber. when i first caught a glimpse of this one at the women's center i thought it was made out of wood, but it's actually a pair of painted ribbon spools. very clever.

^"straining out breast cancer" by alan beckett.

^"it's not all black and white" by julie gerrard. the artist wove this fabric herself.

^"fischertechnic" by richard mussler-wright, made out of "a common children's manipulative found in germany" called fischertechnic. in the artist statement he writes:

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Fischertechnik is a hobbyist manipulative used to design manufacturing and robotic systems. It tends to be very functional in form. Most Fischertechnik components are limited to red and black colors, and there are few decorative components. The bra calls attention to the sometimes indifferent and mechanical ways we look at breast cancer, forgetting the person inside.

^another of my favorites, "wooden this be luverly" by sandra schow. the artist statement is very clever as well, advertising the features:

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Hefty wooden half-cup assures great support for the full-figured woman. Rigid material will not sag or slip. Wooden band definitely will not roll. Eliminates embarassing nipple show-through. Promotes excellent posture. Not least, a bra should be beautiful. What better than a lovely natural wood-grain finish, with delightfully feminine scalloped trim on the front of the cup and attractive brass detailing.

^"mardi party" by chris zahn. intentional avoidance of obvious pun "mardi bra"?

^"support" by rita abraham.

^"women of hope, courage and strength" by sarah crawford.

^"boise state broncos" by sarah crawford. i thought this one was truly hideous. it looks like it should be hanging in someone's RV at a tailgating party.

^"unyielding construction" by kyla heller.

^"american beauty" by the prolific brandi benson. i think she made a total of five bras. most of her artist statements have to do with something awfully depressing, like having cancer twice, her daughter dying at three months old, fighting in iraq... intense.

^"beauty" by adriane bang. she's the current director of the women's center, and she made a bunch of bras--seven total. most of them were little polymer clay pieces.

^"cowgirl up" by bonnie patrick.

^"groovy for your boobie" by lindsey evans and katherine mills.

basking in doneness

i have so many pictures to post from the last two weeks...

on sunday the 11th i went to a matthew shepard memorial service at the anne frank memorial downtown. one of the speeches was so moving i actually started crying...until the speaker brought jesus into it. that killed the whole thing for me, it was pretty rude. also, we made a chain link of glow bracelets, which i thought was kind of tacky.

last wednesday i met a wild mouse friend. my dad rescued it out of a sprinkler pipe in the front yard, and it must have been down there for a while because it was not doing so well. i fed it a flake of cereal. such an adorable little mousey-bundle. i hope it survived.

the mouse made me slightly late for a very long and awesome interview with toni at shangri-la tea room. the article assignment was only 600 words, but we ended up talking for over an hour, so i had an extreme overabundance of material to work with. i also shot a few more pictures.

thursday i (was) volunteered to shoot photos at ex libris, a fundraising event my mom put together for the log cabin literary center. i had no idea how beautiful the view is from the stueckle sky center. it was a lovely, clear fall day and the sunset was spectacular. i think this b&w shot of the bar is my favorite picture of the night:

on saturday i did portraits of amber and chris and their family. we met up at the train depot, where every photographer in boise happened to be at that very time. the light was perfect, the weather was incredibly pleasant for a change, the whole city was popping with autumn color...also, there must have been some kind of junior high or high school dance about to happen, because a lot of scantily-dressed little girls and awkward-looking boys in formal wear kept showing up with their parents to have pictures taken. the crowdedness aspect was annoying, but i had a great time anyway, and the portraits turned out wonderful. also i collected a ton of “conkers” that fell from horse-chestnut trees. not sure what to do with them yet, but they definitely have crafty potential.

after the portrait session i went over to a church and shot photos of a classical concert/emergency fundraiser for TCC, which was quite successful, raising over $500--hopefully enough to keep the doors open a while longer. a lot of people played at the concert, and many of them were quite good, to my surprise. there was an awesome cellist who got so vigorous at one point that he dropped his bow in the middle of “death and the maiden.”

on sunday i went back to the train depot to take more engagement photos for laura and shawn. it was a similarly beautiful day but thankfully not quite as crowded.

monday i met up with jason at alia’s and we sat on a couch and knitted for a while. he just got back from california, where he went to the hardly strictly bluegrass festival and sold some knit goodies and had an all-around awesome experience. he brought me back neat stuff: prayer flags, incense, a little pouch, a cool pendant and a button. after coffee and knitting we went to view all the bras at art source gallery. my sock monkey bra had the best seat in the display. i was so happy to see it again.

after the gallery i went to parkcenter pond to wander around and take pictures, and bethany called me out of the blue to say she and her sister and daughter were all in town. so i got to hang out with them for a while and meet her sister, who i sort of knew a little bit from her blog but had never met in person before. it was a fun surprise.

tuesday my mom found a giant, possibly pregnant praying mantis on the composter. i hand-fed the mantis friend some bugs and she hung out in my house for a while. her name is delila. she continues to hang around the backyard, making herself visible from time to time. i’m hoping she’ll lay an ootheca somewhere.

on wednesday reed finished an intense, wonderful poem he wrote about our relationship. i asked him to go through it line-by-line with me and he did, explaining everything, so i got the full understanding, and i ultra-swooned. he’s performing it at a poetry slam on saturday night (oct. 24).

tuesday, wednesday, thursday and most of friday were spent stressing out about, researching, then finally writing the three articles i had due on the 23rd. on thursday i made around 30 phone calls to various mccall businesses, conducting a whole slew of little mini-interviews. almost nothing stresses me out more than making a ton of phone calls to people i don’t know, trying to get information and quotes out of them on subjects i’m not familiar with and care nothing for (weddings and winter sports gear, ugh). i guess public speaking when i don’t know what i’m talking about is a little worse in the uncomfortableness spectrum, but just barely.

sleep-deprived, anxious and somewhat pissed off, i finally finished those two last miserable articles at around 5:30pm on friday, just in time to get dressed and head out to the bra project auction. the auction went spectacularly well and will get its own special blog post as soon as i finish editing the photos.

now i relax! the weight of the world is lifted off my shoulders now that i’ve turned everything in. tomorrow i’m going to shangri-la with amber and chris, so i’ll probably bring toni a copy of the article and some prints of the pictures i took. i’m also totally looking forward to a world market shopping trip with laura on monday. i feel like it’s ok for me to start having fun again! i don’t have to constantly chastise myself for procrastinating! i feel so accomplished! i cannot let myself be talked into doing another article where i have to make eight million phone calls and then write a whole bunch of what basically amounts to lame-ass advertising copy. it’s not worth the grief. not even close.