Home Decor for the Anthropocene

Eking beauty out of the apocalypse

We have entered the Anthropocene, an epoch in which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment — leading to the Sixth Extinction,  a sudden and dramatic decline of diversity of life on earth due to those same humans. Thus this addition to home decor, a reflection on our current plight.

This project began with a delicious poke bowl (pronounced po-kay), the Hawaiian food trend sweeping the mainland. I was sitting at home enjoying my to-go order of salmon and tuna poke when I began eyeing the bowl. Here is a food container that would never fly in Berkeley, but is somehow still okay in Oakland — a surprisingly sturdy plastic bowl.

Garbage? Discarded take-out bowl

One thing was instantly clear to me: this bowl should not be discarded. I use bowls as organizing vessels, and this looked like a prime candidate.

Organizing bowls

I scrounged through my supply closet until I came up with my personalized bible, awarded upon graduation from primary Sunday school at the Shrewsbury Presbyterian church. It has been a stand-by for years when I need thin, biblically-themed paper for decoupage or, in a pinch, when I need makeshift rolling papers. The passage I decided to use was apt: the story of Noah from Genesis.

Decoupaging with glue stick and strips of Genesis

Looking down on creation

As an embellishment I added a few gingko leaf prints in copper paint as a complimentary nod to an ancient tree with incredible survival skills that has, so far, managed to survive anything man throws at it. In fact, it is being increasingly used in urban settings because it thrives in polluted conditions. For how-to tips on printing with gingko leaves see an earlier post, Inside-Out Boxes.

Copper gingko print embellishments

Look inside the rim of the bowl in the photo above, and you will see the words "Surviving the Anthropocene" added to the decoupage, printed onto the margins of bible paper using my handy vintage typesetting kit.

Intriguing attitude on the part of god towards creation

And here is the finished piece. 

Embroidered Dinoflagellate

Just because...

A winsome one-celled creature

I was attracted to images of dinoflagellates that I found in the Biodiversity Heritage Library and decided to try embroidering one of the over 2,500 different dinoflagellate species. Then I got curious, started investigating, and learned that these single-celled creatures, found in both sea and fresh water, have more DNA content than the human genome. There are also bioluminescent species, and you can keep them as pets (http://biolum.eemb.ucsb.edu/organism/dinohome.html).

You never know where that first stitch is going to take you.

Exotic Upcycling: Indigo Dreams

Shirt front

I have a friend who lives in London and travels around the world, and she periodically brings me some of her wonderful finds from thrift stores and local markets. This time around she brought me a gorgeous piece of West African indigo-dyed cloth comprised of many individual strips of cloth stitched together to form a checkerboard pattern. The challenge was that there wasn't enough of the indigo fabric on its own to make a garment. The solution? The addition of a man's pajama top from a local thrift store and a tricky process of blending the two together with a relaxed frame of mind so that quirks like ending up with a portion of a pocket on one sleeve caused delight rather than consternation.

Shirt Back

And here is how it all came together...

The how (click on image to enlarge)

More of the how - right sleeve

Left sleeve

And there you have it.

Found: Wandering Rabbit in Search of a Purpose

The amazing flying rabbit chewing gum jar

Here is a quickie, throw-away piece, but an important reminder to keep your eyes open as you roam around the world; you never know what you might find. This rabbit was lying on the floor near the driver on an AC Transit bus in Oakland. I had my eye on it for a couple of stops, and it had clearly been dropped and left behind by someone who was no longer on the bus. As we reached my stop I headed up front, picked it up, showed it to the driver,  and said, "I'm going to take this home and make something out of it." He said, "Great!"

And here it is.

And a final aerial view just because.