Tribal beauty: Omo Valley's botanical fashion show

There is a fashion show each year that makes New York and Milan's Fashion Week look mild. Held in a remote location, without stylists or designers, the models don't even use mirrors-- as a matter of fact, there is only one designer featured: Mother Nature.


This organic parade of texture and color has been a cultural celebration of several tribes in the Omo Valley of Ethiopia for generations, in particular, the Surma and Mursi people.


These two tribes have deep-seated roots in ancient traditions and rituals, but have been at odds with the local government and neighboring groups for decades. Access to natural resources and agricultural land is a never-ending part of their daily life, with the region acting as a hub for arms and ivory trade.


Yet despite the hostile daily life, the tribes continue to pay homage to nature's ephemeral resources by adorning themselves in vibrant colors, flowers, pigments and plant parts.


German photographer, Hans Silvester, documents the two tribes in his book, "Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration From Africa," which has powerful, colorful images of the Omo Valley 'natural fashion show', as well as other regions of Africa.


For more information on Hans Silvester's photos and work, visit Story Culture blog, or read about him in the UK Daily Mail.

Ready-to-wear beauty: Weedrobes

Weedrobes wardrobe

A friend sent me a link to some of the most fantastic clothes I have ever seen. I'm ready to wear them all, but I lean towards the invasive species ensemble. Invasive species ensemble?

Invasive Species

You heard right. Multi-media artist, Nicole Dextras, from Vancouver, BC, has managed to create some of the worlds most beautiful and natural garments made entirely out of plants and flowers. Invasive weeds included. She calls them Weedrobes.

Camellia Countessa

The idea for came out of Dextras's passion for environmental art and her work in the theater as a clothes designer.

Hydrangea Dubutante

She began her Weedrobes series in 2005 as an experiment. Her objective was to create art that in turn created a dialogue for people to become interested in the environment, while being made aware of the impact of consumerism.

Eco-Man

Her wearable sculptures are literally green--they are made from local, sustainable plant materials she finds in her garden and community. She then photographs her models in their organic outfits in urban landscapes to illustrate the interaction between humans and the plant world.


Weedrobes Accessories

After the photo shoot, Dextras places her living sculpture in a garden or park setting and allows it to decompose over time.


Aside from her blooming frocks, Dextras is an accomplished artist, writer and photographer. A visit to her website may make you swoon, but will also most assuredly make you think about the wonders of our environment.

Balancing beauty: Herbalist Doug Simons

New Mexico may be famous for its vast desert and mountain ranges, but there is an underworld of beauty waiting to sprout. In reality, most of us would be surprised at the abundance of vegetation that flourishes in many parts of this arid state.


Doug Simons knows this fact better than anyone. Owner of Chanchka Remedios in Gila, NM for more than 20 years, Simons combines his passion for healing plants and people through herbal remedies. Chanchka is a Lakota word meaning “red-tailed hawk,” a sacred bird in many Native American cultures that can acclimate to all the biomes in his region. Remedios is a Spanish word for remedies or cures. As Simons states, “An imbalance in people can be healed or cured when they learn to harmonize their relationships within the plant kingdom.” http://www.blohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgger.com/img/blank.gif


After taking an humblecha, a ceremonial vision quest, at the age of 17, Simons knew he had a calling--to help connect people with the earth through the healing potential of plants.


Growing up in Colorado, Simon spent most of his childhood discovering and identifying plants with his mother and sister, who is also an herbalist. Years later, he moved to Gila, where he found an enormous selection of plants and herbs to use for his work, such as pinon, sage brush (along with other artemesias), juniper, and chaparral. It may come as a surprise that the majority of the plants Simon uses come from this southwestern region of the state, or as Simons refers to, “his backyard.”


Simons’ priority when working with plants is to leave them intact, using only what he needs, which is typically about 10%. In his workshops, he emphasizes this and educates his students to always ask the plants’ permission before taking them apart. This spirituality, coupled by a strong botanical knowledge, has made Simons a popular lecturer on the subject of plants.


Most of his clients come to him due to health and lifestyle concerns. Simons’ objective is not to replace Western medicine through his remedios, but rather to gently integrate components of plants into their daily routine. Simons believes that his clients can achieve balance once the healing power has shifted into a state of equilibrium.


Simons is available for consultations and gives workshops within the state and throughout the southwest. You may contact him at his website, Chanchka Remedios.

Illuminated beauty: The electric world of David Wiles

I was invited to a party at the home of David Wiles, a local Santa Fe artist known for his fetes of fantasy and fun. To find his place, you don’t really need a house number, you just turn onto his street and follow the path of neon and LED lights. Pass through a lush garden brimming with cactus, snapdragons and waterfalls, and you have entered a Southwest version of A Garden of Earthly Delights, also known as David Wiles’s world.


Step inside, and you are instantly immersed into a multi-sensory experience... your eyes immediately zoom in on cow skulls with blazing neon eyes and guests that are bathed in a phosphorescent green glow. Smells of Asian delicacies mixed with cinnamon and incense lead you into the kitchen where more light installations frame the walls and corners.


It’s almost a sensory overload, and if you aren’t careful, you may miss something. While illuminating and fantastical, Wiles’s house also has a very relaxing, Zen-like effect. Wiles says he likes to design and create vignettes that also serve as shrines, which have symbolic importance. A world traveler, Wiles claims influence by recent treks to India and to Burning Man, an annual arts event held in Nevada. “There is nothing is better to find then a place for something that’s been out of place,” says Wiles.


A classically trained, well-respected timpanist who has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts and symphonies around the world, Wiles discovered two decades ago that he had a passion for light structures and neon. He became a licensed electrician and started creating illuminated pieces (his neon cow skulls were a big hit in Santa Fe galleries) that he also uses to decorate his home.

Wiles calls his place a three-dimensional Garden of Eden, while many party-goers refer to it as “Club Oasis.” Planted in his backyard, much of his entertaining set-up is surrounded by trees and gardens, reminiscent of World Party’s 1986 album Private Revolution, where a living room scene thrives beneath shaggy branches in the woods.

There is a converted separate garage that serves as his bedroom, and is adorned with hanging gongs, Asian inspired linens and, of course, more techno-colored neon. Wiles continues his inside-outside theme with additional comfortable seating, like the bedlike section complete with big cushions, pillows and blankets. Planters of cacti dot the corners as he “never met a cactus that didn’t become a friend.”

Adjacent to the garage is his office space and hallway which both have custom made light structures and an impressive blown glass collection. Sprinkled throughout are framed pictures of Burning Man highlights, an event Wiles has attended for the past nine years.


It's clear Wiles's design sensibility is heavily influenced by music and light with the numerous drums and percussion instruments he has strategically placed around his house. "Hearing and seeing are really the same thing, but in different languages," says Wiles.


By the time you are ready to leave, your senses should be in tip top shape. But don’t forget to look down--Wiles’s final surprise is an array of illuminated glass blocks that he created with LED lights.

Thank you David, for your vision and willingness to share your “electrifying vision” with the world.

Roadside beauty: Embudo, NM Gas Station Museum

If you take the low road to Taos, NM you'll discover all sorts of unusual of things you usually only read about or see in movies. Sure the views are spectacular (and often overwhelming), but there are actually people and businesses who live in these lush and untamed parts. Take the gas station in Embudo we found last week. We stopped when we saw they sold Nehi's.


We bumped into the owner and asked if we could take some pictures. Well, hell yeah, he said, so we did.


The first thing you notice is the extensive collection of gasoline memorabilia, from pumps to oil cans to well preserved vintage signage, he had it all. Only thing is, it's a museum, not an actual gas station.


Looking at a row of rusted pumps reminded us of another lifetime when odd and even license plates dictated how long we waited in our parent's station wagons for gas.


We never did catch the museum/collector's name, but he was nice enough to let us roam free around the property. After spying around back, we discovered he was also an outsider artist.


We're not sure if which made us smile more...the vintage sewing machines lined up on top of weird old metal signs or the tin can robot riding the John Deere mini tractor.


In any case, stopping off to see this road side attraction is highly recommended.


Make sure you thank the nice man who created all this beautiful madness. The dog is friendly, by the way.


If you're in the 'hood, check them out:
1819 Highway 68
Embudo, NM 87531
505.852.2995

Bull beauty

After I grabbed a copy of the Santa Fe Reporter today, I immediately turned to Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology horoscopes (I have my priorities straight, ok?) and although I sometimes get disappointed by the fact that the Taurus 'scope is often smaller in content than the other ones, this time it didn't matter. The reason is simple, while Mr. Brezsny is usually spot on with his magical metaphorical messages (regardless of the size his predictions), this week it really hit the mark.

Taurus, Week of September 22:
A guy on Reddit.com posted a photo that made me think of you. He had been out walking in the wilds of Ontario, and found a single ripe peach growing on a scraggly, skinny tree in the middle of an abandoned quarry. There were no other peach trees in sight, let alone peaches. I suspect that when you find beauty and sustenance in the coming days, Taurus, they will be in similar situations: unexpected and unlikely. That doesn't mean they'll be any less sweet.

I clicked onto that little peach tree pic, and all I can say is this week is indeed a Neglected Beauty week, so go out and find some.

Oh, and I hope that guy didn't pick it. You hit the bulls eye again, Mr. Brezsny, well done.

Environmental beauty: Earth Now, American Photographers and the Environment

Ansel Adams

If you haven’t visited the New Mexico Museum of Art in Sante Fe lately, now would be the time as there’s an exhibit you won’t want to miss: EARTH NOW.

Bill Owens

Inspired by Ansel Adams; and Eliot Porter’s landscape photography, Earth Now is a collection of important works by American photographers that tell the story of Mother Earth, from man’s less than gentle influence, to his attempt to repair the damages. The pictures stimulate visitors to think about their personal relationship to the environment and to consider the impact of the choices we make as a society and as individuals.

Bremner Benedict

With a growing concern for the environment in this country, the idealized, unpopulated landscapes of both Adams and Porter set the standard for twentieth-century nature photography. Earth Now begins with a collection of works by these two artists and moves on to a group of landscape photographers who came of age in the 1970s.

Greg Mac Gregor

The exhibition’s primary concentration is on work made after the millennium. The pictures stimulate visitors to think about their personal relationship to the environment and to consider the impact of the choices we make as a society and as individuals.

Brad Moore

The second section of the exhibition presents several emerging artists, while others are more established artists doing new bodies of work, some of which have never been exhibited.

Exhibit Information:

New Mexico Museum of Art
107 West Palace Avenue
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-476-5072

Earth Now Exhibit

Richard Misrach

Seedy beauty: The environmental art of Richard Solomon

Tucked away, far from the beaten track, grows a wild seed. It’s found in a secluded spot near an 8,000 foot mesa, shielded by its natural habitat, invisible to most passersby. Unless you are Richard Solomon, a man who lives to find seeds and plant material.


Also known as the “Seed Shaman,” (www.seedshaman.com), Solomon is a man with a passion for discovering, collecting and working with a variety of plant material including goat’s beard, milkweed, desert marigold and wild sunflowers he uncovers on nature walks near his home in Ilfeld, New Mexico.


Solomon has been collecting and creating seed art for almost two and a half decades. After a successful career as CEO/Founder of a marketing and product development company for Fortune 500 companies and non-profits, including the World Wildlife Fund, he was ready for more natural pursuits. While a resident of upstate New York, he was taking a walk one day and came across an unusual clump of grass. Pulling it up from the ground, he examined the dangling roots and asked the Universe, “How can I make my way in this world with this beauty?”


With that vision, Richard embarked upon a new life making his living as an environmental artist. He believes he may be the first with his particular style of art and hopes his work will spread globally as a part of an emerging environmental arts movement.


Like Solomon himself, his work is multi-dimensional. He creates large Giclee fine art prints, set against a black background which he believes best accentuate the details of the seeds and petals. He also creates smaller, flat-pressed pieces that are multi-layered, usually containing flower petals, grasses, seeds and roots. Each composition tells a story; as Solomon says, it’s like he was on a journey without a map when he designed them.


Aside from his originals and prints, Solomon creates botanical sculptures using branches, twigs, pods, grasses and bark. Each sculpture is sewed and bound with the natural fibers of the yucca plant as he eschews using any unnatural elements such as glue, string or wire. They are completely organic pieces of art that can be hung on walls or doorways. However, like most fine art, they should be kept away from direct sunlight. This goes for all of his work, as the elements are in a natural, dried state.


His current “Seed Orb” project involves creating and marketing glass orbs filled with goat’s beard heads which looks like large, luminous dandelions. The pieces make lovely interior accents that can be used together in clusters or simply by themselves.


Solomon is also in the process of marketing a new global environmental venture called EarthWords™ to be introduced in the spring of 2012. EarthWords™ is a kit containing rye grass seeds, a dispenser and a guide book. The purpose of the kit to write a word in the earth that will grow into a ‘green’ social statement within 10 days. It is a project suited for everyone: consumers, corporate sponsors, nonprofits and schools. Solomon believes EarthWords™ will help bring awareness to global warming by allowing individuals to literally write a “green footprint” on the earth and develop a new sense of reverence for the world around us.


Richard Solomon’s art may be purchased on his web-site, www.seedshaman.com, by email: seedshaman1@aol.com, or by contacting him directly at 575.421.2855.

PHOTOS: C. LANGRALL, RICHARD SOLOMON AND ERIC SANDERS