SeeingSquared

It was time for something new. More than a slight adjustment, or an alteration, this was a complete gutting and rebuilding with restoration as the goal. Instead of reworking what was visible, I wanted (needed) to return to the original purpose and let it shine. No more patches or ad hoc “enhancements.” The core had to be revealed.

This wasn’t a garment, or a piece of furniture I was working with. This was my business and, although it was growing, it didn’t fit properly. It chafed, and the rough spots were wearing my insides raw.

I am a Maker to my core – always have been and probably always will be. Making is how I express myself, how I play, and how I work through concepts whether silly, deep, or just plain hard.

My style is very improvisational, both in materials and techniques. I use what I have on hand or what I can gather for free. Repurposing is the way I live.

Redesigning cast off clothes and accessories seemed like an ideal business for me. But it was a sales-based business and that didn’t fit well at all. I like to share and teach and explore and inspire. I also like to encourage/equip people to consume less so why was I pushing them to buy more, just because it was from me?

Besides, by focusing on rebuilt clothing, there was no time left to play with all the other lovely stuff that accumulates around us. I hadn’t used my table saw in years and I missed it!

So I took advantage of some event cancellations and spent that newly-freed time on a complete renovation/restoration of my business.

“Reduce, re-use, repair, re-purpose” is still my motto, but it’s not restricted to clothes, or even just textiles anymore. I’m Making, but thinking of the projects as experiments and samples rather than production units. The “product,” if you want to call it that, is the ideas, designs, and techniques that I develop along the way, and the encouragement for change that I want to share through visuals and their stories.

“How do I consume less?” “How do I stretch my budget when inflation is shrinking my spending power?” “What can I do when a favourite thing is damaged?” “What do I do with all this stuff?” Those are basic questions I want to tackle in this new version of SeeingSquared.