Capitalist Guilt

I find a moment of catharsis as my scissors slide through leather. The more cuts the better. As I cut through scraps and jigsaw them together, I slip into a zen state which allows me to channel all my wayward emotions into something greater than me, the birth of a piece of art which creates meaning and a new body for my hurt. For my frailty, for my happiness, for my giddy excitement. For whatever colour I feel at the time. Sometimes this meaning is esoteric even to myself, and I find myself studying the fragments of leather, held together with strong metal links and hand painted clumsily. I try to find hidden messages that I have sent myself, little scraps of information concealed within the scraps. I always end up back at the same place though – bewildered by what has just come out of me and why.

It’s easier for me sometimes to apply greater meaning to my art – understanding global and shared trauma is easier to me than understanding my own. I think about the different stages of humanity that have brought all of us here today, a world that is on the brink of its demise, at the hands of us, a society that values material wealth, societal status and omnipotent power over simple joys that can be found around us every day. Like in the texture of a friend or lover’s skin as we hold their hand or embrace them, or in that cathartic feeling of sharp scissors gliding through leather. I think about all the wars we have fought, deals with the devil that we have made, and I think most of all about the current war we wage against ourselves, against our climate, an issue that we have created for ourselves and that only we can fix. I think about my place in this war. Will I be a passive bystander or will I be able to be a voice that changes things?

Sometimes, I believe that I can. Art inspires revolution which invokes change. I want to be able to create art that does bring change. I work by hand with offcuts and recycled leather because I want to send the message that something meaningful can be made from even the most tired, ugly and unloved little scrap. That not all garments have to be created at the cost of the earth, in factories that spew out poisonous gases, creating pieces that inevitably end up in landfill, or made from animals that have been slaughtered inhumanely to provide us with our fabrics.

I call my clothing label Catholic Guilt because I think the concept of Catholic Guilt has become something new since Catholicism has begun to show the signs of age and deteriorated, and our beliefs and ideals rapidly evolve in the 21st century. Catholic Guilt can’t be applied to a large portion of humanity like it used to be, however a new form of guilt that I like to think of as ‘capitalist guilt’ can be. This new form of guilt is foreign to us and bubbles under the skin of even the firmest denier, and the reality of it is far more fearsome than Dante’s Inferno. Today we face the growing collective knowledge that we no longer must fear going to hell, because the hellish landscapes of Bruegel’s ‘Dulle Griet’ are being brought to us, of our own choice and volition.

I try to send this message through my clothing, not only in the way it is manufactured and the materials it is manufactured from, but in imagery used on the pieces; painting desert-like landscapes on the leather, and in the branding of the label itself, opting for futuristic, Mad-Max-esque photoshoots that offer glimpses into what could, and will be if no change is enacted soon. The pieces are sometimes ugly. I think that art and even fashion is not always supposed to be beautiful. Sometimes the most moving and inspiring art is ugly, wearing the scars and wounds of its creator. Just like skin, and just like our earth as we slip closer to the inferno, art doesn’t lie. Is it fresh and youthful, unmarked and pure? Is it frail and weathered, no longer clinging to the life it holds within? Is it painted? Is it bare? Does it have scars? And if it does, how did it get them? What can we learn from them and how can we ensure it won’t be wounded in the future?

Applying this meaning to my work liberates me from the truth of it, the real thing that drove me to create in the first place. Something that burns and pulsates within me, has a mind and agenda of its own and sometimes becomes too hot and heavy for me to hold onto. As my scissors slide through leather, I find a moment of peace.