PHOTO BLOG

December 28, 2011 was the first time I had ever seen a snow-storm in my life. I was impressed with the timeless beauty of the snow, but impacted by the aftermath of such a natural catastrophe. Businesses were closed, sidewalks were completely covered in snow and some people were home watching the news while the vast majority acted like nothing had happened. I took this image near Battery Park during the recent snow storm and it brought to my mind the first interaction I had with snow in 2011. The picture was taken fast and in motion, which effectively represents both the weather at the time and the essence of the New Yorker lifestyle. This motion, combined with the content of the picture, is just an allusion to how fast society and the weather change. The individual walking in the picture is a cultural symbol. He or she represents that although there is a natural disaster like a snow-storm, it does not and will not hinder New Yorkers from performing their daily routines. If someone who didn’t have this connection with snow saw this image, I believe he or she would have a completely different perception about the photograph. He or she might assume it is just a regular snow day in the city because based on its content, this image could have been taken anywhere. This photograph has a personal meaning because it recounts a first time experience, when I came to a new city with a tremendous amount of diversity in people and cultures.

Shanique Johnson – 23 years old – Office Assistant “I would describe my style as unpredictable. I have bohemian, preppy and even some vintage pieces in my closet. To be honest, it depends on the day and my emotions. My style is a compilation of the experiences I have gathered throughout the years. It has been inspired by people I see on the streets, on TV and even some of my friends. I wear anything I like, but, unconsciously, I always have my African roots in mind. At my job as an office assistant I have to dress professionally because I am in a work environment that demands that I look presentable. I was born in Africa and came to New York illegally; I have been scared of law enforcement ever since I was evicted from my home. Luckily, I was able to find a new home. My parents live in Africa, I am the youngest of three siblings and I have to work two jobs in order to support them. I haven’t seen them in such a long time, but again, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t because of my legal conditions. They say New York is the land of opportunities; it’s hard for me because as a woman of color I am denied a lot of opportunities. It’s weird but I let my style drive me to be a confident individual and stand out amongst a crowd although I am afraid of being deported.”

Style is defined by the dictionary as, “a particular kind, sort, or type, as with reference to form, appearance, or character.” We develop our style by knowing who we are, looking at inspiration, experimenting and trusting our instincts. Our style is personal and everyone is able to express him or herself to show who they are through what they wear. “It took us a long time to find out who we were, but we are glad we did, some people never find themselves. Our neighbors think we are gay because we consider ourselves to be fashionable and we don’t dress like other people in the neighborhood. They call us gay, I call us different”. (needs citation) The popular culture will describe their style, as “ghetto” because their clothing does not meet the criteria of what society thinks is decent and professional. Their style represents the popular culture in relation to the youth. Most young people dress like them because that is what they feel identifies them. Due to the way they dress these men represent a “cultural myth” without being aware of it. This myth is ignorant and close minded because it degrades male minorities that live in the “hood” by attributing them a style that is used by people of all social classes.

The gaps between social classes are getting bigger as the years pass. College graduates are without an occupation in their specialized fields or are working more than 8 hours in jobs that don’t require any degree. An increase in taxes makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Immigrants are suddenly realizing the “American dream” is just an illusion, and a fantasy, they would never have even if they worked their entire lives. The government’s obstinate desire to get money and obtain power despite the consequences is a sinking ship. The nation that was said to be ruled under the sovereignty of the people is now being controlled by the greed of the few. The government, or should I call it the oligarchy, is said to be a democratic republic, but where have we lost the principles of democracy under which “we the people” had a say in the government. Despite this, do people believe the government is perverse? Some do, others just don’t care and the great masses are blind to reality. The government has us tightly gripped in their claws; we are part of their collection of toys.

Throughout our lives we experience a journey of self-discovery. We discover who we are or at least try to do so by experimenting with our surroundings and exploring our past. Since I was around ten years old I would ask myself “who am I?” and “what is my purpose in life?” all if the time. I sat in my room brainstorming these questions but I never came to a conclusion. In a moment of desperation I decided to asked my grandmother and she said, “who you are is something you should find out yourself, why are you asking me such things?” I replied that all my friends knew what they wanted to be when they grew up and I did not, I felt like an outsider. Believe it or not we all have a purpose in life, but in order to discover it we must see things from a different perspective. We must take into consideration our childhood and our past. Most of us are ignorant to our true selves and walk the path of life without questioning things around us. Growing up, I demonstrated artistic skills that went beyond the other children in my family. To an extent I knew I wanted to study a career related to the arts. I did not know on what end of the large spectrum I was going dive into in the wide range of art studies. In my eighth grade art class, I drew a figure and my teacher suggested I look into fashion design. I did not pay too much attention to her suggestion until I saw a collection design by Elie Saab. Ever since that moment, I wanted to study fashion and discovered that it was my calling. I knew I was meant to be a fashion designer.

My name is Daiana De Los Santos. Here in my country, back in the day, we had a calendar with names all over it and my parents named me Daiana because that is the name written in November 5, 1978. I was born In San Juan De La Maguana, a Province in the Dominican Republic. The environment I was born in was sane and I was constantly surrounded by people that loved me. My dad was one of the most successful farmers in the country and my mother dedicated her life to taking care of me and my five siblings. When I was 15, I left my house looking for freedom and more opportunities. I was always protected by my parents and, therefore, faced a harsh reality when I left my home in the spring of 1995. My country was facing one of the most important presidential elections in its history, we were moving forward as a sovereign nation. Sovereignty was not what I expected. When I moved to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, I had only one place to go, my brother’s house. I stayed there for a month without a job. Later, when I found a job as a babysitter, I moved into my bosses’ house but after several months, I had to leave. The workload was incredible and the payment was miserable. At that point I was filled with regret about leaving my house where I had a pretty decent life but I didn’t want to go back home. I wanted to show my parents I could be independent. While looking for a job I met a woman that needed a person to take care of her house. I had to wake up at four in the morning to make tea and coffee. After that I had to clean the entire house and pick up after the messes everyone had made earlier that day. My boss was violent, he abused his wife both verbally and physically. Once he hit me it was over. We began fighting and I drew a knife and cut his hands. I was tired of the abuse, I picked up my bag and left. I decided to go back home to my family where I should have never left. Daiana represents many women in the Dominican Republic that are abused by their employers.They are exposed to inhumane working conditions and low wages. They live in rural areas where everyone is united and considerate to the city where life is utterly different and they come across a crude reality. One of the most heart breaking aspects of interviewing Daiana was when she said, “I was a blooming tree before I left my house, but these people [employers] stopped me from dreaming, they killed my innocence. I was never the same person again.”

Unfair is “not based on or behaving according to the principles of equality and justice.” These principles of equality and justice vary depending on the individual. An action that might seem unfair to me might be fair to others. The use of fur by fashion designers is one of the biggest concerns in the fashion industry. Is it unfair for animals to be killed for our vanity? In my opinion, it is. I believe that animals are innocent and it is cruel for us to kill them or strip them of their skin alive in order to make a bag or any other piece of clothing. By killing these animals we are upsetting ecosystems and reducing the fauna of the world. Some say that getting rid of the fur industry would be leaving families in Denmark, and other fur producing countries, without food and jobs but this is a problem that can be resolved because these people can learn how to produce synthetic fur in order to make a living. This process will be a radical change for the world and for these families. A way to accomplish this is if the government buys the specialized machines for these furriers to make the synthetic fur. By doing so we would be getting rid of many environmental problems and the cruelty towards innocent animals.Working with Oscar De La Renta, I became familiar with the fur industry and the process of making these pieces come to life. It was a great experience because I was able to learn another aspect of the fashion industry but I realized I do not support the use of fur. We have no right to kill animals for their fur.

Growing up I thought I was going to become an architect. Every time my nana took me out to the park or around the colonial zone in Santo Domingo I was attracted to the old structures of the buildings and their elaborate designs. There weren’t many modern buildings in my country, many structures had architecture that was simple and straight forward with the exception of the pavements, churches, and monuments constructed during the colonial era. I dreamed of introducing a new style to architecture by designing buildings that were interesting and had personality. In school I was good at math, a skill that is vital for architects, I saw angles everywhere they inspired me to play with different shapes and put them together like a puzzle. Everything I saw, I turned into a building or a living space. I had good drawing skills compared to the other kids in my class and I always drew weird shapes that no one understood, to them, they might have been amorphous figures, but, in my mind they were masterpieces. Everyone had plans for me, my grandmother said I was going to be the best doctor in the country, my uncle said I was going to be a business man, and most of my teachers wanted me to teach the subjects they taught. It was interesting how everyone had a plan and didn’t take into consideration what I liked or what I wanted to do. I never felt like a normal kid. When you are a child, you what to be a million things, a fireman, police officer, pilot or even a super hero. I didn’t, all I wanted to do was draw architectural shapes and imagine them in a space. Everything changed when I came across fashion design. It was love at first sight, I was just captivated by fabrics and being able to manipulate them, transforming a simple planar material in a three-dimensional, wearable structure. Although I changed my mind about becoming an architect, I am always inspired by architecture. I have found the way to combine these two fields in a way that I am able to take the best from both worlds which has allowed me to create new, intriguing concepts.

Scientists are not the only people trying to come up with ways to protect the environment, artists and creative minds are also coming together to join the conservation movement. Sustainability, has been, and still is, one of the main concerns in current society. As a fashion design student, I am always trying to re-use garments and fabrics that I did not think to utilize in the past. Sometimes we have materials that we think look uninteresting or have no use at the moment, but later some of those materials have the potential to become masterpieces. A month ago, I found copper tubing, I liked the color and saved it thinking it could become an interesting piece later on. A week ago, I decided to cut up the tubing and create an Icosahedron for space and materiality. I was able to recycle a material that was going to be thrown in the garbage, so one might think it was new and in perfect condition. I wonder what will happen to our species if we do not change the way we interact with the environment. Changes do not have to be radical, little by little we can start taking a better approach to sustainability. I am a social optimist and I believe in humankind. In the future, not far away, we will be running a sustainable society. “Sustainable development is the masterful balance of meeting our own needs without jeopardizing future generations ability to do the same” (Light Of Mine).

The process of design and the development of research are challenging and at times complicated. Finding myself lost many times in the process of research and design I realize that research is similar to a puzzle: all the pieces have to fit in order to create a logical explanation. Design is similar to research because every detail of a design has to come together in order to create one harmonious piece. I most recently found my self lost during a seminar and studio conjunctive class. In my mind the concept was clear and made sense but, the challenge was finding the words to explain these concepts to the public in a way they would understand. I knew I wanted to focus on the inhumane treatment of factory workers, but I could not find a direct relation to sustainability although I know they were somehow related. I thought about it throughout the day and wrote on a piece of paper all possible logical explanations. Later, that same day, I realized that there was a slew of topics related to sustainability and decided to change my topic to recycling. With recycling, I came up with a new approach to using fabrics and garments I’d been accumulating from past projects. Although they are the same, it does not have to mean my collection or the textures of the fabrics will remain the same. There are many ways to alter them into something new. I strongly believe if all designers recycled we will exponentially reduce our carbon footprint and relieve the negative impact we have on the environment.

If you are a human you will see pieces of metals coming together in this text. You will see pieces of metals in the air, in the water, in your body and in plants. You would see pieces of metals everywhere even when your eyes are closed. Without atoms there would be no metals. Without stars there would be no atoms. The first metal atoms formed inside stars when they became red giants 12 billion years ago. After this, atoms of copper, tin, gold, aluminum, silver, uranium and iron came to be. These elements traveled through space creating dust clouds, which, later on, formed planets. The center of planet Earth is made of iron, which is the most common metal in the world. Without metals we wouldn’t be alive and the planets would not exist. There would no be trees, animals, or any living thing, just the black and empty infinite space. Gravity would be unimaginable, oxygen a word that no one would ever know. Love, a feeling no one would ever feel, and friendship would be unknown. There would be no worries, death, sadness, or happiness. Liquids wouldn’t be a state of matter, gases wouldn’t even be in our imagination and solids would be invisible. I wouldn’t be in the darkness of my room Wednesday April 20 at 7: 14 pm writing this.

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Picasso. It is human nature to attempt to do things we don’t know, in order to learn from them. These things can sometimes be dangerous, negatively influence our personality, or not have any effect at all. It was the summer of 2006 and I was 10 years old living in the Dominican Republic. I have always been curious and wanted to try everything anyone around me was doing. That afternoon, the sun was hotter than ever before, the trees near my beachside home were rich green and I decided to escape my house to walk alone on the beach. Ever since I could remember, my family had been drinking and eating the coconuts from the trees that scattered the beach from east to west. That day, I looked up at the palm trees surrounding me and I saw an abundance of coconuts. In that moment, I remembered the men who took care of my house climbed the trees in order to get the coconuts down. I would impatiently wait for them to throw them toward me so we could take them home to make flavored water. I took a rock and launched it at the coconuts hoping one of them would fall—nothing happened. The rock was not even close to touching the juicy, brown coconuts that were far from my reach. I wandered around for a few minutes and quickly decided to climb the shortest coconut tree on the beach. I was persistent but, after more than a half hour of struggling to even get close to one, I grew tired. I walked back home and up the stairs to my room; no one noticed I was gone. Looking out the window at the two tall trees that flanked my doorway I wondered what I was thinking trying to grab those impossible fruits.