2023 and the Soiree...

Refinement and form is important for art. They're also (were) a mark of grace and etiquette for people in a social setting. Soiree isn't a party its a way to put practice to etiquette and form. The tea ceremony in Japan is often thought of as a social sort of sword play. There are many rules and refinement in form, these all come together into a sort of play. I really wanted to create a bandanna that was as elegant as it was cool. This all started with the idea of a pearl necklace spider web. I really love photos of dew drops on spider webs and spider webs after rain. They look really beautiful and this sort of beauty in death or danger is something quite enrapturing. It is easy for my art-mind to make the assimilation to a pearl necklace, this sort of weaponized-beauty is exactly the type of feeling we want to create through our medium of bandannas.

From here spiders become the background rhythm to the social structure of this bandanna art. There is a short story call "The Spiders Thread" in Japanese literature that is a Buddhist-moral parable about selfishness. One that I quite like. The hands in this piece are from Mudras, each has its own symbolic meaning and they look like sign language without communicating literally but symbolically.

The real curve ball here are the Odd Fellows symbols. My mind is always in a east-meets-west (wayousechu) frame so I often am thinking about similar things, perhaps unrelated, that are equally interesting (to me). The Odd Fellows are a interesting social group with a long history. Their use of symbolism is both cool and very eye-catching. Their messages and purpose are very positive and supportive. Albeit a bit similar to Buddhism... this is why they mesh into the design so well.

The color palette is the real mystery though I believe. I am not sure why but Channel make-up in their trademark glossy black containers always looks so incredible. Thus this bandanna encapsulates that femme fatale type that ends up making the soiree one to remember.