so many creative ways to recycle, might as well blog about it!

Some answers from the artist behind "sonic fabric"...

Sonic fabric emits sound when you run a tape head (the little thingy inside thetape deck that touches the tape) over it. Because the tape retains its magneticquality through the weaving process, it acts as a big wide band of tape.

I had no idea when I first conceived of this project that the fabric would be"listenable"... the point for me was just to get as many of my all-time favorite sounds onto the recording. So I made a collage of layered samples from my collection using ananalog 4-track recorder.

When you run the tape head over the fabric you are reading 4 or 5 strands of tape at once ... in other words, 16 or 20 tracks all mixed together. It sounds kind of like scratching a record backwards or radio static.

In order for the sounds to be perfectly audible, though, the head would have to be swiped across the fabric at the same speed itwas recorded at. So it's a challenge to make that happen.

To me it's the concept that makes it meaningful ... all those sounds mixed together to form a totally unique new sound. Things I've collected throughout my whole life. Music and sounds that had agreat influence on me ... everything from my high-school punk band, Jack Kerouac,ocean surf, shamanic medicine songs recorded in the Peruvian jungle, ambient citystreet noise, the improvisational/experimental ensembles of myself and my friends,the Beatles (especially Revolution #9 ... my earliest influence), and Pachelbel'scanon in D (my earliest musical memory)

On my father's boat (a 19' Lightning class sailboat) his tell-tailof choice was made from a small strand of cassette tape because it's a light,wind-sensitive, and durable material. When I was a kid I used to imagine that Icould hear Cat Stevens or Beethoven's 6th or whatever had been recorded ontothe tape wafting out into the air if the wind hit the tell-tail just the right way.Years later, I learned about Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags.

These limited-edition ties are made in collaboration with designer Julio Cesar.

They are intended to impart the wearer with special, subtle powers of perception and attunement

and to emit an intangible sense of the miraculous.

SONIC FABRIC NECKTIES $140

Inspired by evidence that the flying reindeer/Santa Claus myth comes from Siberians hamans

eating Amanita muscaria mushrooms(google it if you don't believe me).

Papier-mâché and plastic holiday lights, two pieces approx. 28" tall x 26" wide each.2004

EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST: Alyce Santoro

As our society collectively awakens to the realization that it must devise ways to stem the hemorrhaging caused by years of denial and excess, and as the DIY (do-it-yourself) movement becomes proportionally more popular, I am constantly reminded of Joseph Beuys’ words “Everyone Is An Artist”.

Beuys believed strongly, not that everyone should make (so-called) fine art, but that everyone can live a richer and more meaningful life by infusing any vocation or action with his or her own personal creativity. Beuys believed that personal creativity could be cultivated and honed by reconnecting with nature, and by developing a more intimate relationship with it.

He believed that individuals, as well as our entire culture could be healed by returning to a simpler way of life, and by becoming more attuned to the subtle, ineffable forces of the ecosystem we inhabit

EVERYONE IS A SHAMAN

Some call one who consciously connects to, communicates with, and elaborates on the intangible a shaman. Some called Joseph Beuys that. Most just called him an artist. Shamans, artists, cooks, gardeners, scientists, inventors and all others who bring imaginary things out of the realm of the intangible to help give them form could benefit from enhanced access to the mysterious force of inspiration. In this sense, everyone is a shaman as well. And as people begin to seek ways to “do it themselves” they are exercising a form of personal creativity that has been largely neglected in our culture for far too long.

A basic fact of existence that has been all but forgotten is that human happiness and the sense of freedom (the pursuits of which are among our so-called inalienable rights) depend largely on the ability to express personal creativity.

“To make people free is the aim of art. Therefore art for me is the science of freedom”

Islandis VI $25.00

Number 6 of our popular Islandis series - this bracelet made with reclaimed wooden ball

and beehive shape charms on sturdy goldplated chain.