thinking about my costume...

I designed this for my 1st (virgin) year at Burning Man. I’d seen a Reno friend’s photos and heard his stories and wanted to do something special. Not up for a big art installation (yet!). I thought I could manage a special costume. I started thinking about a Mother-Nature-Meets-the-Desert look but it evolved (this year’s theme) into a Post-Apocalyptic-Wandering-in-the-Desert look. The underlying principles of this design are that it’s recycled, that it’s made to look like it evolved over a long period of time, and that the attachments are designed to be representative of “MOOP” (Material Out of Place – anything that doesn’t belong on the playa and BM participants are encouraged to pick up. The organizers must remove all such material in order to continue having the event.) Inspired by the Burning Man credo of self-reliance, recycling, and no exchange of money on the playa--no $$'s were spent in the making of this. I did clean out my basement and hauled a carload of china, kitchenware, and books to Reno’s monthly Really Really Free Market. There, my treasures disappeared whilst I snagged an assortment of used tee shirts in various sizes and shades of white. As soon as I saw this kid’s tee shirt in the pile, I knew I would make it into a mock-up. As a seamstress I know things can go wrong between the idea and final product. I didn’t want to waste my time and materials on a full-sized failure!

Attached to the torn tee shirts are items from my newly cleaned basement: beads, buttons, shells, silk leaves/flowers, ribbon scraps, torn strips of fabric/drapery samples and rubber gaskets. Of course, they are securely sewn on to prevent them from becoming real MOOP.

I'm too old to be a virgin!

My Reno friend Bill Kositzky talks a lot about his interesting visits to Burning Man. In fact, he gives slide shows of his great photos. Living at Lake Tahoe, I've seen Burners coming and going to Black Rock at the end of the summer. Kept putting it off. Now that I'm seriously thinking about moving to Boulder, CO, it seems sensible to go to BM now while it's realitively easy. If anything about Burning Man could ever be called sensible! I'll be leaving my husband at home since he wants no part of the heat & dirt. It turns out that a group of Mensa Burners have an established camp (Camp of Sit) inside Snowflake Village, so I won't be camping alone.