Sure, Tacoma celebrates its status as an arts community. Sure, Tacoma loves to band together for a good cause. With the YWCA RAGS Guild Wearable Art Sale and Juried Gallery, continuing for its 13th year, it does both.
RAGS started as a fun way to raise money for the YWCA, whose mission statement is all about honoring diversity and creating opportunities for women’s growth, leadership, and power in order to attain a common vision: peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all people.
Back in 1994, when YWCA board members were brainstorming ways to raise funds for the organization, they came upon an “aha!” moment when they realized that they could support local fiber artists and the YWCA. It has evolved into a popular event, earning $80,000 last year that was earmarked to fund YWCA programs that specifically address domestic violence in the community.
Funds are earned both through ticket sales to the gala, happening Thursday, March 8, and through the sales of the artists displaying and selling their work through Sunday, March 11. Both events occur at the Mercedes-Benz of Tacoma in Fife.
By now, I suspect you’re thinking “wearable art” and envisioning the caftan your great-aunt wore or the macramé vest that your mom made you wear in the ’70s.
That’s not the tone of this year’s RAGS, nor does that generalization encompass the genre of art that is wearable.
A lesson in wearable art was taught recently at the Tacoma School of the Arts Theater when India Owen presented a slide show and lecture that outlined the works of a group of artists, calling themselves “Friends of the Rag,” who were active in creating and performing art in the ’80s. Their medium was clothing, and their original intent was to create wearable fashion. They evolved in intent and produced elaborate events similar to Loyalty Clothing designer Daniel Blue’s “Threshold” and “The House of Kubla Khan — Tacoma’s Indie Fashion Showcase” seen in Tacoma earlier this winter.
At the Friends of the Rag lecture, Corky Brown, a 30-year Friend of the Rag member who co-owns and operates BKB & Company in downtown Tacoma, had multiple pieces, whimsical costumes and functional wear on display.
Brown explains that wearable art is an established art form with collectors and galleries committed to it.
Brown points out that the juried show portion of RAGS is a way that the cream of the crop can be rewarded for what they do. At RAGS, that crop is a vast entity.
Technically, wearable art can be haute couture or a one-of-a-kind high fashion item created by hand, from showy fashion to costuming. Jewelry and other accessories created as one-of-a-kinds can fall into wearable art as well.
Expanding the notion of wearable art, you’d have to add recycled fashion or utilitarian items of clothing put together in new and exciting ways.
It could be, then, that you’ll see items like those by local designer Lisa Fruichantie coming to RAGS in years to come and possibly other sorts of things, the likes of which Tacoma’s urbanXchange owner Julie Bennett saw recently at an Urban Craft Uprising event in Seattle.
One item especially caught her attention: a denim jacket with a dandelion painted on it. On the dandelion were LED lights. “It was exciting, groundbreaking,” says Bennett of the item, hoping the evolution of wearable art could be inclusive of that type of “hippie meets high-tech” innovation.
Fruichantie, whose wearable art is more primal than high-tech, as evidenced in the hawklike headdress worn by Selfick Ng-Simancas during the recent MOVE! Dance presentation at the SOTA theater, says of her motivation behind creating her wearable art, “It makes me happy.” She also derives great satisfaction from seeing her items worn by others.
Happiness motivated Marty Kneeland and Brit-Simone Sutter, who will be at RAGS representing their company, Vinosus. They gave up their day jobs in 2002 and moved to Tacoma to enjoy a lifestyle that emphasizes togetherness and creativity.
“We wanted to create a lifestyle together,” Sutter states, explaining that in their family unit, “this business is our baby.”
Kathy Dorr, a RAGS Guild member, explains that items within the show will include jewelry such as that of Vinosus and range the gamut from baby wear — felted slippers made by Diane Vermalen as she convalesced from a surgery — to recycled sweaters by Barbara De Pirro that look like they come out of the pages of an Anthropologie catalog, along with one-of-a-kind handbags Jan Reingold creates from cowboy boots. Maureen Gallegos, whose embellished, vintage handbags will be on display and for sale at RAGS, shares Fruichantie’s satisfaction of seeing others enjoying her work. This is joined by the hope that those who purchase one of her purses will enjoy its history, too. She learns the histories of the purses she buys and then embellishes and is happy to share their stories with those who buy them.
But for Gallegos, past work at a domestic violence program prior to her move to Olympia with her boss makes her doubly appreciate what RAGS stands for.
“RAGS is such a wonderful place to be,” she says, adding. “It melds support for women’s programs with art.”
RAGS 2007 Wearable Art Sale and Juried Gallery
Gala and Preview: Thursday, March 8, 6-9 p.m., $70
Wearable Art Sale: Friday, March 9, and Saturday, March 10, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday, March 11, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., no charge
Location: Mercedes-Benz of Tacoma, 4001 S. 20th, Fife
RAGS Hotline: 253.272.4181, extension 352