Inconceivable Style: Condom Jewelry & Fashion

Sarah Hoffert and Angie Hilow are tackling the inconceivable: Creating jewelry that’s fun, fashionable and prevents teen pregnancy.

They’ve created a line of condom-centered styles, which includes earrings, necklaces, boutonnieres, headbands and even a condom dress that is fashionable and 100% usable.

“We wanted to make it as easy as possible for someone to go out and feel great and to put on a splashy piece of jewelry that is different and fun and at the same time gives them easy access to condoms,” says Hoffert, the Teen Pregnancy and Outreach Specialist for Lund Family Center in Burlington, VT.

Hoffert says the condom creations are a way to celebrate Vermont teens making great decisions around safer sex. In fact, Vermont has the second lowest teen pregnancy rate in the entire country, and of the 40% of Vermont teens that have had sex, 65% use condoms.

“There are not a lot of opportunities to celebrate when it comes to teen pregnancy prevention, but we have this great local arts festival and part of it is a fashion show. We thought what a better way to promote how well Vermont is doing and to talk about the great decisions teens are making,” says Hoffert.

29-year-old Hoffert and 16-year-old Hilow, who is the Outreach Assistant, consider themselves the dream team fusing a multi-generational fashion viewpoint into each accessory.

“I am so lucky to have a 16-year-old perspective,” says Hoffert. “(Angie) is the height of cool so I always know if I’m going in the wrong direction she will bring me back. We’re really a dream team because we represent two women but different age groups and different populations that use condoms and we’re really have a fun time being creative and taking fashion risks with condoms,” says Hoffert.

Hilow says its been a lesson in thinking outside-the-box, “Nobody wears condoms but why not,” she says.

And as for the future, Hoffert and Hilow are hoping the Art Hop debut of their outside-the-box thinking will generate much more than a fashion trend.

“People (often) have this idea that teens are acting crazy and they don’t have an accurate idea of how great teens are doing in Vermont,” says Hoffert. “We’re trying to present a more accurate perception because we’re on the right track.”

 

Come see it at the Art Hop Strut Fashion Show:

Saturday, September 10^th 2011

Under the SEABA tent

Behind the Maltex Building

431 Pine Street, Burlington, VT

SHOWTIMES 6:30 & 8:30 PM

$12 admission or $5 with an Art Hop Hero Button

A Good Buzz

Beekeeping has some sweet benefits—the most obvious being honey and then there’s the pollination perks of a plentiful garden.  In fact, bees help grow a third of our food, so when you keep them near your plants, you’re bound to see the payoffs in fruits and vegetables.  And beekeepers say the hobby nourishes them in other ways as well by relieving stress and triggering creativity.

Some of that creativity has even spilled over into the beekeeping itself.

Multimedia Producer Eva Sollberger captured a group of beekeepers in Shelburn, Vermont, who have been harvesting bees for more than 3 years.  What’s surprising is where these folks are living: A retirement community.  Eva’s video shows how both residents and visitors are getting much more than a sweet fix from this community beekeeping project. Check out her Stuck in Vermont video here.

And some beekeepers are taking the hobby to new heights, raising bees in locations that guarantee great views; that is Rooftop Beekeeping.  Last spring I produced a video on Urban Beekeeper Cameo Wood who opened up Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper in San Francisco, which Cameo said was the only Urban Beekeeping store in the world. The store closed last summer, but the swarm of Urban Beekeepers continues buzzing in cities around the world.  Check out the video “Buzz Kill” below.

And some beekeepers have even found a very entertaining way to wear their bees.

During The annual Clovermead Bee Beard Competition in Ontario, Canada, beekeepers compete for the “Best Bee Beard.”  This is a beard competition that might even scare the heavyweight beard builders from the Petaluma Whiskerino, which I posted about last October.

This year’s winner, Tibor Szabo, had 22,500 bees covering his entire face, neck, shoulders and hands.  Talk about a bee in his bonnet, It’s unclear how this man was even breathing.  See photos here.

“Buzz Kill” video produced last May on Urban Beekeeping in San Francisco

I Hate to Burst Your Bubble

Jamie Marraccini must be a teacher’s worst nightmare.  Not only does he chomp gum regularly, he’s always sticking it to inanimate objects. But he has a good excuse; he’s a professional Gum Artist.  The Virginia native does things to Bubbalicious that would make even the strictest of disciplinarians soften.  Check out his work here.

And right up his alley would be Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo, California.  Equally interesting as it is gross, this has to be of the most chewed over passageways on the planet. Forty years worth of cold gum layer the walls of this alleyway saturating it with both color and saliva.

Some believe the gum-sticking started in the late 1950’s as a rivalry between San Luis Obispo High School and Cal Poly students while others say the tradition traces back to after WWII.  It even survived two cleanings in the 70′s.

But this landmark has stuck and paved the way for more recent gum attractions like The Gum Wall in downtown Seattle.  This conglomeration of used gum began around 1993 and was named one of the top 5 germiest tourist attractions in 2009, second to the Blarney Stone.

Now there’s some eye candy that won’t lose its flavor anytime soon.

Bubblegum Alley

Bubblegum Alley

Thunder Mountain Monument, Imlay, NV

(Editor’s Note: Story compiled from a 2008 interview with Daniel Van Zant)

Thunder Mountain Monument rises like a bizarre mirage in the middle of silence and desert, 2 hours east of Reno in the land where they say VW vans come to die.
The 80-foot petrified carcass of rusty cars and eroding statues has survived alongside Highway 80 for more than 40 years.

It’s easy to blow by this roadside monstrosity, but difficult to forget you saw it.

The man behind the Monument was a former police officer and WWII vet named Frank Van Zant who reinvented himself in his latter years. Renaming himself Chief Rolling Thunder, he moved his wife and 3 young children to the side of the highway in Imlay, NV, to spend his retirement scavenging the desert and building Thunder Mountain out of man’s trash.

He began constructing the junk-art monument in 1968 with two goals in mind: to illustrate the plight of the Native Americans and to make an ecological statement about man’s wastefulness.

Eldest son Daniel Van Zant, a man of 22 at the time, recalled in a 2008 interview that his father would work from daylight till dark to construct the monument.

“I thought he’d slipped a cog for sure. I’d say, Why do you want to do this? This is a lot of work. Most people retire and play golf, go fishing,” said Daniel , caretaker and owner of Thunder Mountain since his father’s 1989 death.

Daniel said his father had no more than a quarter of Creek ancestry but had always been passionate for Native American culture. He told some that an old medicine woman predicted he would build Thunder Mountain. To others, he said an eagle had instructed him to “build a nest” in a dream.

“He was a pretty good story-teller. I never know how much to believe. I don’t know how much he believed,” said Daniel in 2008, and admitted he didn’t initially share his father’s enthusiasm for the monument.

But many hippies did share that enthusiasm and gravitated to Thunder Mountain in the 60’s and 70’s to help with the construction. Some stayed years building the monument by day and huddled around Chief Rolling Thunder’s storytelling by night.

But by the late 80’s, Chief Rolling Thunder was battling poor health and depression. He had gone as far as he could go. January 5, 1989 he wrote a letter to Daniel before he turned a gun on himself.

After his father’s death, many encouraged Daniel to maintain the property. Despite the 5-hour commute, Daniel and his wife Margie have spent the better part of the last 20 years cleaning and repairing the property with their own blood, sweat, and tears.

“Its hard for me to believe its been 20 years since my father passed away. Its quite a milestone that I will have owned the property as long as he had owned it,” said Daniel in 2008.

And although Thunder Mountain might be in the land where VW vans come to die, nothing about this monument is dead. Instead, it’s a pulsing reminder that everything can be salvaged and anything can be saved. Every discard here has purpose in this enormous mosaic-like mystery that pulls people in off the highway everyday and sticks with them long after they go.

And like a telepathic hitchhiker, Thunder Mountain Monument has found a way to get its messages out without ever leaving I-80.

Still, spending weekends and nearly every vacation in a camper beside it might seem unnerving to some people, but Daniel said in 2008 that he enjoys the diversion from his desk job as an account executive and he appreciates his father’s messages more than ever now.

“I understand [now] what he was trying to do,” explained Daniel. “It was definitely a Holocaust. There was a deliberate attempt to wipe out the Indian culture. He wanted to build something that people could be reminded.”

Contortionist Fleeky Flanco, San Francisco

Shapeshifting is a longstanding theme in Greek mythology, folklore, fantasy, and to some extent, even childhood. Its cute to see little Billy acting like the house pet—society calls it healthy, says it builds imagination. But at a certain age, barking like a dog is no longer considered beneficial for Billy. It’s considered symptomatic.

“People are so wrapped up in being people that they forget they can be so many other things. Being human doesn’t mean anything. Think of how much more interesting it would be if people sometimes saw themselves as unicorns,” says Fleeky Flanco who makes a living transforming himself into other shapes. Literally.

Fleeky is a professional contortionist. He first fell in love with the art of contorting when he was 16, living near D.C., and his name was still Paul Flink. Fleeky saw a picture of a contortionist on his friend’s wall.

“It was love at first sight,” says Fleeky. “I just thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. You could change yourself so much. You could look so much not like a human anymore,” he says.

For the next year he trained on his own in contortion and adopted the name Fleeky after a musician commented that he sounded like a Fleeky.

“It took me by surprise because no one had ever said I sounded like something. It really stuck with me. Basically, it’s an anamanapia name,” he says.

His self-taught training included practicing yoga to try to learn more about stretching. He admits trying to learn contortion on his own was risky.

“I had no idea what I was doing,” says Fleeky. “Its dangerous if you do it wrong. If you do it right you can still get hurt,” he explains.

He eventually enrolled in contortion classes at the San Francisco Circus Center, although building strength was difficult at the beginning.

“They called me noodle boy for the first 5 years because I was just so disconnected in my body, and I would just flop around like a noodle,” he remembers.

Some people are naturally built for contortion, but Fleeky says he is not one of them.

“A body with looser connected tissue is good. I wasn’t particularly flexible. I really had to work for what I have,” says Fleeky who presently trains 5 days a week for 4-5 hours per day.

And despite his professional instruction, Fleeky has sustained many injuries in his 12 years of training, including busting his knee and dislodging his Adam’s apple to the point where he couldn’t swallow for two minutes.

But his most severe injury was breaking his back after he twisted 180 degrees and snapped his vertebrae. He had to stop practicing for a year.

“I definitely enjoy pain, but at the same time, you have to really listen to your pain because there’s all different types of pain. And you have to be able to relax while you’re in pain,” Fleeky explains.

Fleeky currently performs in Germany, Canada, and America. He also works with his San Francisco-based group Circus Flim Flam.

“We’re trying to create our own thing. We want to do rated R circus shows. We want to make something we haven’t seen before–something a little more dark,” he says.

And as for the future of this 29-year-old, he plans to practice until his body gives out.  He says he admires contortionists like Natalia Vasylyuk who have tested the limits of physical transformation.

“In a lot of ways you get very addicted to performing. Its something you’ll just keep dong compulsively until you can’t. My act is always as hard as possible because I want the audience to feel something really intense. If I’m not sweating after my act I’ve done something wrong,” says Fleeky.

And he believes staying alive in contortion takes a lot more than physical strength.

“There’s so many days that I’m like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ Basically, in the circus, if you can just survive, you’ll do great.”

Podcast on Ross I. Sheehan’s Copper Sculpture

On the Detour talks with sculptor Ross I. Sheehan about his latest body of copper sculptures and his recent open studio.

Sheehan takes us inside his cavernous garage studio and fills us in on everything from constructing the pieces to where he gets his ideas.

To learn more about Ross I. Sheehan’s sculptures visit:
www.sheehanfineart.com

“Farmer Mike,” Pumpkin Carver of Half Moon Bay, CA

You probably won’t find professional pumpkin carving at a booth on career day. But for Mike Valladao, better known as “Farmer Mike,” carving pumpkins has become an unlikely second profession.

Farmer Mike started growing giant pumpkins 25 years ago on his Uncle’s land in Half Moon Bay, “Pumpkin Capital of the World.” He is now the official pumpkin carver of Half Moon Bay.

“Farmer Mike is my alter ego. It allows me to make people smile. It’s a kick,” says Mike who works for a software company during the week and lives in San Jose.

Mike carves with a buck knife and chisel and says it takes him 3 hours, on average, to carve a pumpkin.

Just over a year ago he published his book “Farmer Mike Grows Giant Pumpkins” which takes kids through the seasons from seed to harvest of giant pumpkins. But he says pumpkin loving is ageless.

“The pumpkin applies to a lot of ages. I think some of it is childhood memories. It’s a time when everyone gets to be creative and use imagination,” says Mike.

And, perhaps, the fruits of his labor also remind us of something else: That even the largest masterpieces start from a tiny seed.

ArtCar Fest 2010, Berkeley to Sacramento

Every fall, Emily Duffy leads a caravan of drivers who are quite literally taking their art to the streets for ArtCar Fest.  Cars decorated with butterfly wings, doll heads, skulls, Mardi Gras beads, and a slew of other whimsical materials caravanned through downtown Berkeley on Friday before hitting the road for the 10-10-10 weekend in Sacramento.

“Its borderline illegal,” says Duffy who is the Festival Director.  “Its not a parade because these are street legal vehicles that happen to be going in the same direction.  The surprise is part of it. Its more about everyday being surprised by art,” says Duffy.

Duffy leads the caravan in her autobiographical art car VainVan, a vehicle she designed like a woman’s body.  A bra covers the front of the van and the back is plastered with fattening food.  On the sides are writings that talk of exploitation such as who profits from your self-loathing? And Vanity thy name is woman marketing.

“The VainVan was a way to apologize to all the women in the world who’ve been told they’re not good enough,” explains Duffy who worked in the fashion industry for 13 years and says she was trying to undo that.

“The VainVan is my midlife crisis manifested onto a car,” Duffy says.  She’s noticed the car attracts a deep felt response from women over 40 and under 5 (because they think its Barbie’s car).

“In between are the women who really need to pay attention to it but are not able to yet.  They think it’s garish,” she explains.  Duffy says the number one question people ask her is how long did it take you? Not why did you do it?

“People rarely ask why.  Its so infuriating,” says Duffy.

ArtCar Fest launched in Berkeley in 1996 and was always the grand finale in the How Berkeley Can You Be Parade until last year when that parade was cancelled.  This year, ArtCar Fest had a peak of 42 cars, which was its lowest number ever.

“We’ve basically been shrinking,” says Duffy who explains that there have been up to 100 cars some years.

Still, Duffy believes the success of this year’s fest, which was sponsored by Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum, is a positive sign for the future.

“The art car artist has a way of literally taking their art to the streets. It is really public art—more than murals.  It really breaks you out of your humdrum life. That’s what art is supposed to do,” says Duffy. “It’s not for the rich.  It’s for everyone.”

 

To view art car festivals around the country check out the calendar on www.yarncar.com

 

Metal Sculpture, San Francisco Sunset District

Going into any garage is like going into the bowels of a house–you never know what you’re going to find. And there’s no doubt that some odd stuff is lying behind the closed doors of many San Francisco garages.

But what’s behind Ross Sheehan’s garage door is arguably the oddest.

“People have walked by and said, Wow I never knew this existed on my block. They feel like they’re in some kind of cave,” says Sheehan whose garage has revolutionized the term man-cave with his 9-foot tall floor-to-ceiling copper stalactite.

Sheehan’s art studio/garage also houses a 6-foot tall copper dinosaur and a 6-foot wide copper ram skull wall installation. A total of 30 metal sculptures live in the copper cave.

“They’re built from things I’ve experience in nature. Lately its been the hills of Montara, wild succulents, rocks, windblown plant life, and other gnarled formations,” explains Sheehan. “Some people say they’re robotic or mechanic looking.”

Once Sheehan has finished constructing the sculptures, he leaves them outdoors until they’ve reached the patina he’s looking for because copper oxidizes if exposed to enough natural elements. The sculptures go out shiny and they come back rusty brown with blues and greens. He says that can take 2 weeks to 2 years.

“Its always a surprise to me when I go out and check them. Sometimes they’re not at all what I thought they would look like,” says Sheehan who is usually working on 2 or 3 sculptures at once.

The 30 sculptures have taken 3 years to complete, and Sheehan says many of them he created while working in an entirely outdoor studio space. He admits he prefers his latest unsuspecting retreat in Sunset.

“There’s sometimes a phobia of a garage. Its forgotten space. For me, it’s the ultimate workspace,” says Sheehan. “I can just go there and get away from anything.”

Sheehan’s copper and found-metal sculptures are on show as part of ArtSpan’s Open Studios during Saturday October 23rd and Sunday October 24th in Sheehan’s garage from 11am-6pm, located at 2550 30th Avenue @ Vicente Street. Please visit http://artspan.org/bio/ross-i-sheehan or http://www.sheehanfineart.com for more details.

Click here to see more photos.

Petaluma Whiskerino, SF Bay Area

Yesterday marked one of the best homegrown events around.  The annual Petaluma Whiskerino drew people from all over who came to flash their stache and show their grow while onlookers ate chocolate mustaches.

Its no doubt the contest for the best facial fur got a little hairy, but Tiffany Renee tweets “Jack Passion swept the competition.”

Passion is a long-time beard beauty and acclaimed world beard champion. He is also author of The Facial Hair Handbook which teaches men how to grow and groom facial hair.

One look at this man’s flowing red mane and its apparent beard building is in his blood.

Photo from Passion’s Twitter page