If I wear it every day, does that make it art?

One of my loyal readers, understanding my love of wearing the same thing every day, sent me a link to this website all about this woman in Seattle who's doing a year-long performance project by wearing the same brown dress every day for a year.

I was intrigued enough to spend the better part of a morning reading every page of the site. Because it's late and I have work to do, or maybe just as a special treat for those who've been missing the long, convoluted and seemingly meaningless entries I used to write on my earlier blogs, today I present – in lieu of an actual entry – the complete and only lightly edited notes I wrote to myself while devouring the Brown Dress Project website.

Notes on the Brown Dress Project website

So this woman wears the same brown dress every day for a year, and makes business cards and puts up a website and calls it a "project" - well, it actually IS a project, but still - and takes a photo every day and posts about the experience ... and it's called art.

At first I thought she was going to wear ONLY the dress, but looking at the photos it's clear she mixes it up A LOT. Even more than I do!

I've been living like this for YEARS! Nobody's ever thought of it as art but me. I always thought I was the only one who thought of myself as an artist. Other people think I'm just lacking fashion imagination.

She was worrying about a stain on the pocket - I would suggest she embroider something on top of it.

She talks about how this project started out in part as an exploration of the way other people live, the poor people in the world who truly have Only One Thing To Wear, and how she's now embarrassed she thought she could make any real comment on that. That seems wise, to recognize that. She also mentions people seen on the street in Seattle or Mexico or in National Geographic, the way they wear the same thing every day ... I've always thought those multi-layered outfits worn by poor people in the high mountains in Asia or South America (for example) were totally cool. So many shapes, colors, textures ... and no pressure to change it up just to entertain or appease the people around you.

She also mentions the idea of wearing the same thing until it falls apart and can no longer be repaired, like during the Great Depression. I love this. I've done this since I was a little kid. I remember my favorite red t-shirt with the white stars. A certain pair of denim shorts I held onto until they fell off my body. A levi jacket I picked up at DI that I repaired and embellished with square chrome studs. A long wool coat, also from DI, that had a huge rip up the back (which I repaired flawlessly) and that I finally got rid of just a few years ago – a mistake I regret to this day. All those old army fatigues I just sent to the dump. I hate letting them go.

She mentions, "I saw a great book recently with photos of babies from traditional cultures around the world and the amazing traditional magical garments they wear, with bells and animal horns to disguise them from evil spirits, and tiny makeup designs painted on their faces to enhance their health and beauty." I need to find out what book that is, and take a look at it. I love magical garments too, and symbols and designs etc. painted on the body (like tattoos!). Maybe my love of this kind of thing at least partly grew out of the fact that I grew up in a religion where in order to be considered full members of the community, adults must wear a sort of magical garment every single day, during pretty much every activity that is done wearing clothes. They wear it under their clothes, so it's more private than this project, and the culture carries many legends of how its use has prevented harm and injury to the wearer under seemingly impossible circumstances, or has in some other way brought protection and good luck. The most recent story I know comes from my mom, whose friend's son was killed in the Pentagon on September 11, and who says they were able to identify his body only because of his garment. I have also read that the wearing of "magical garments" - and the recognition of them as such - was much more commonplace during the early 19th century, when Joseph Smith was putting together the new religion. Hmm.

This happens to me a lot - I hear someone talking about some insight or idea or practice they've just had or thought about or started doing or whatever - and people start talking about it as if it's important and fabulous and totally amazing - and I think to myself, "Hmm. I've been doing that or thinking that or living that way for a very long time now, and nobody ever made a big fuss over ME." A little jealousy ensues. The difference is that I never make a point of getting out there to tell everyone what I've discovered or thought or done. I don't like people looking at me and bugging me and calling me all the time .... so I specifically try to stay out of the spotlight, for the most part. But I do like the IDEA of people flocking to me to praise my ideas.

She talks about mending, and how she never used to mend things until now, and how sewing on a new button feels like a chore ... I love mending. I love patching things, especially. With embroidery, too. I love the idea of something that is loved or needed so deeply that you will make a special effort to take care of it and help it last as long as it possibly can.

I know it's just stuff. It isn't who you are. But it seems important, or at least I find it very satisfying, to take my stuff personally. Not to have a lot of stuff, but to really enjoy the stuff I have. To be responsible for it. To also be very strict about not allowing anything into my life that I don't really, really love. This is a source of some stress in my life with Mr. A because I don't always love all of his stuff, and he doesn't always love all of mine.

I felt inferior to her because she was wearing the exact same dress for a year, and while I wear the exact same shirt all the time, I do have a few copies of it that I rotate through, so my experience seemed to me somehow less pure. Then I found out she actually had TWO of the dress. Harrumph!

Why do I always feel like other people's efforts and ideas are somehow more "valid" than mine? Not that exactly - I feel like they're SEEN as more valid, by other people. Like if I called myself an artist in public I would be attacked as a poser, because I've never shown anything in a gallery. Bleah.

Why do I feel like her project somehow validates me as an artist? I didn't do a project. I only wore the same clothes every day.

She says wearing the same thing every day pushes people's buttons: "By calling into question the wisdom of following the rules (the basic societal rule I am breaking is "thou shalt not wear what you wore yesterday"), eventually the doors fly wide open and all rules can potentially be broken." That basically hits the nail on the head. I've had that experience too. It's a wonderful feeling to live from your own heart, but it does seem to piss certain people off, in direct proportion to how much of themselves they're suppressing in order to live by rules they don't really believe in. It always amazes me how many people seem to feel like, "Well, if I have to suffer (wear a necktie, pantyhose, whatever), then so should everyone else."

She asks, "How would you dress if you'd never heard of fashion?" That is my ultimate goal: to dress as if I've never heard of fashion, just wearing what I'm drawn to, what feels good, what I like. I actually kind of already do that, come to think of it.