I am... Exploring!

The things I do for school!

I had the fantastic opportunity to work on StoryTails, an interactive, electronic garment as part of one of my classes in SIAT called Body Interface. We wanted to see if we could create the experience of touch from a “socially acceptable” distance. So someone can stroke one of the stroke sensors on the ‘tails’ of the garment, and the wearer will feel it around their waist and neck. Tingly!

My main roles were conceptual/visual development and research, but I helped with other stuff like the programming or sewing when needed. Huge kudos to my three other team mates who worked so hard on this!

It was great to get out of my comfort zone with this project, but I still found a way to work drawing into the process. Most of the coursework at SIAT doesn’t involve drawing, unless I can find some way to make it relevant. In this project, I developed the form of the garment through iterative sketching and helped explain the piece with some illustrations.

Here are some of the sketches I made throughout the project!

I also wore/modeled the garment at various points, either to get some first hand experience with what it felt like to wear, to serve as a mannequin while others worked on it, or for photos.

An early prototype! I had way too much fun prancing around wearing these things…

Beep beep boop.

Me with team lead & all around awesome conceptual artist person, Winnie!

And lastly…

While we were taking photos, I noticed that the tripod happened to be wearing pants. … Photo op.

Posted on April 25th, 2012
Filed under: Creating, Exploring, Featuring, Learning, Living (All Posts)
Topics: art, concept art, interactive, photos, project, school, sketches, wearable

1 Comment »

This is something I do all the time now when I doodle. I first started it in late highschool and explored it more in the past four years, and it has really helped me both expand my capabilities and explore my style as an artist and designer.

Everyone has certain biases and preferred ways of doing things that become habit, but it’s always good to expand your visual vocabulary and practice seeing things in different ways!

The idea is to just pick a subject and see how many DIFFERENT ways you can draw it. It doesn’t have to look like what you would normally draw – in fact, try to draw as differently as possible from how you would normally draw it! And it doesn’t have to be good either. Who cares! It’s just for fun! There is absolutely no right or wrong, just variation!

Consider:

• Line thickness
• Line smoothness
• How do the lines connect? At what angle? Do they even connect? Are there even lines?
• Simple or complicated shapes
• Varying levels of realism
• Exaggeration
• How would it look if it were drawn by Disney? If it were in an anime? If it were on Cartoon Network? If it were from the 60s?

Just get as many ideas out as you can. Don’t worry about being too careful and don’t bother erasing if you make a mistake. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t like what you drew. Just draw another one!

Example Time!

How many ways can you draw a heart?

The pink one in the middle is the first one I drew. That’s my “default” heart, what I automatically think to draw when I go to draw a heart. Then around it, I slowly filled up variations trying many different methods and styles and exaggerations. This also made me realise that I don’t know how to draw a real anatomical heart. :P

Anyone can easily get started with drawing a simple shape like that. Next:

How many ways can you draw a face?

Again, the middle is my “default” face, that I immediately think of first. I’ve drawn that exact face hundreds of times. But as you can see, that’s not all I’m capable of! :) Of course some of these are more interesting or more appealing than others, but I wasn’t trying for awesomeness, just variety.

It’s really fun to do this with a friend too because odds are they’ll come up with completely different stuff than you do!! In fact, if you do this I’ll love to see your results!

Other ideas for prompts: Eyes, mouths, hands, monsters, birds, cars, trees, dragons, buildings… just about anything!

Q: But how do you know what to draw?!

A: If you’re really stuck, go to a corner of the internet that you rarely visit and see how different artists do things. Try mimicking them (just for practice!) to see how it is they achieve the style that they have. Do they draw the eyes really high on the head? Maybe their work has no sharp points or angles? Maybe they sneak some shading into their linework? Perhaps they always draw the nose connected to the eyebrows? That should get you rolling, then just try different combinations of things. Don’t be afraid to make your drawing look ugly or weird. You can always scrap what you don’t like later. Loosen up!

Then the next time someone accuses you of being a one-trick pony, you can pull this out and their jaw will drop. ;)

Posted on February 16th, 2012
Filed under: Creating, Exploring, Featuring, Learning, Living (All Posts)
Topics: design, drawing, exercise, faces, practice

4 Comments »

[Image Source - Used under Creative Commons Attribution license. Thanks, edenpictures!]

Over the past year, my perspective has shifted away from valuing/wanting material things towards valuing/wanting experiences. Is it a coincidence that in the past two months I’ve suddenly developed in interest in performing arts?

First I picked up Astrojax (thanks Jessica!), I’ve tried singing for the first time in years, I’m suddenly practicing dance every day. I was just in a movie as a favor to a friend (and for fun). Earlier this week I even tried hopping on my friend’s rip stick – not with great results, but I tried it! Which is more than I would have done three or four years ago. For a minute I considered acquiring a skateboard.

When I say performance, I don’t necessarily mean “something you do in front of an audience,” since you could practice guitar alone or with a small group of friends if you wanted to. I know that there are tons of writings about the nature of craft and performance, so I might not be using the accepted terminology, but for the purposes of this discussion I would consider a “crafting skill” to be anything where you work towards building an end product which is a thing (drawing, design, sculpture, writing, software), that you can chip away at, erase, and redo in pieces over time. I’m considering a “performance skill” to be something where you have to execute a precise string of actions competently all at once (gymnastics, piano, Ultimate Frisbee, martial arts, competitive gaming, public speaking). Obviously, at some points the line between them is fuzzy (doing live portraits, or acting for film), but it’s a sufficient classification for this article.

I’ve never been that into performance type skills for most of my life – I wasn’t good at sports, I shied away from presentations, I quit all of my performance based lessons when I was a kid and got out of music as soon as I was allowed to in high school. There is this pressure in having to do everything perfectly at this exact moment, on cue – when everybody is watching you – that comes with performance, and that lead me to avoid those types of experiences in favor of craft based skills. If I messed up a drawing, I could redo part of it, or scrap it and do another one – people would only judge the final product, something external from me, and that made it safer. I suspect that many craft based people might know what I’m talking about.

So, what has motivated me to want to practice these types of skills only recently? It’s probably a number of factors. Once you don’t have to worry about acquiring material things, what is there left to do? Well, one area you can explore is training your body, learning skills, expanding your capabilities. Practicing dance isn’t the least healthy hobby I could take up. And I’ve always seen performance type skills as being “cool” (perhaps due to their unattainability for me) – and I’m not immune to wanting to be cool, even if it’s only in my own eyes. ;) There’s also the fact that I’ve pretty much made my hobbies my job – which is awesome, but if I’m doing them for hours professionally, I also want a different type of activity to play with in my down time! The physical nature of performance is a refreshing break from the cerebral nature of academic learning or solving design problems.

As for the ‘material‘ nature of craft vs. the ‘experiential‘ nature of performance – I’m not sure if this is directly related to my shift in attitude away from materialism, but it almost seems like a convenient metaphor. Performance still requires equipment (music instruments, gadgets for maintaining musical instruments, sports equipment, etc) and some craft based activities (like programming) don’t use many physical materials. I still like my material things (have you seen my room?!) and I still like making things (comics in the works)! But I think I’m becoming a more balanced person creatively. I want to have a huge portfolio of projects that says “look at all of the awesome stuff I’ve made”, but I also want to be able to say “look at all of the awesome stuff I can do“. It’s like a whole other world of expression and games to play has opened up for me.

[Image source: 1 and 2.]

How to start with performance skills if you’re a craft based person:

Embrace your learning style.
When I first thought about taking up dance again, I thought about signing up for lessons, but that really turned me off. Maybe it was because of less-than-stellar experiences with lessons in the past, but I’m really not a “must go to this location at this time every week in order to do something” type of person (unless it’s for a fundamental like school or work). I love learning things on my own, it’s how I taught myself drawing and web design/development. (Disclaimer: I have taken a few art classes, as a kid and in high school, but I’m pretty sure that 80% of my skill is from teaching myself and practicing on my own.) While I haven’t mastered either of these skills (yet!), and I might be missing some basic knowledge that everyone who takes lessons knows – I’m good enough at them that people pay me to do them. I want my dance practice to be about playing and exploration rather than someone telling me what to do and evaluating me. I don’t have any aspirations of performing for an audience or dancing professionally, so if that means that I never achieve mastery, then I’m okay with that. It’s better than not doing it at all. If I get stuck or get more serious about developing my skill, or if I find a class that seems to be perfect for me, I’ll consider trying lessons.

Remove the pressure of doing it for an audience (unless you want to).
Remember, you don’t even have to do it in front of anybody if you don’t want to! Learn the skill for fun and personal development. You can do it in front of other people when you get more confident. I’m practicing dance alone in my room for now, and I’ve only sung in front of a couple of other people! You can do your activity alone, jam with a few friends, upload a youtube video, or perform informally on the street. There are tons of ways to have fun with your skill outside of a traditional performance setting.

Remember how long you had to practice your craft based skills.
Remember that just like craft based skills, performance skills need to be built up, developed and practiced over time – when you start learning something, you’re going to suck, and that’s fine! Own your newbie status. :)

There are instructional videos for just about anything online.
Yup! Try YouTube or Google.

Pick something simple and fun that doesn’t require a huge time/money commitment.
I can pick up and play Astrojax five minutes at a time as a break from my regular activities. I don’t have to schedule practice, I do it anyway because it’s fun and I can see myself getting better!

Start with something quirky.
In fact, Astrojax is a great way to get started because, 1. many people haven’t heard of so nobody expects you to be good at it, and 2. the learning curve on it is great and it will help build your confidence! It’s been amazing to see my muscle memory slowly and steadily pick up things.

Then, pick an activity you always wished you could do!
Have you always wanted to play a rock song, run away and join the circus, or become a Street Fighter champion? Choose an activity you’re inspired by, even if you don’t currently see it as “something you could/would do”. That way, if you practice consistently enough, it WILL become something you do, become a part of you, and you will accomplish a life dream and feel AWESOME!

Additional Resources

If you don’t think you could learn a performance skill, maybe you need to remove some limiting beliefs?

David Seah‘s Piano Karaoke Blog Night – I found this reflective article by David super interesting – a communication designer/analytical thinker’s perspective on music and how musicians/singers think. I totally identify with him in that my interest in dance may have been rekindled by certain videogames. ;)

“Right now, she’s working out how to sing Bonnie Raitt’s Give Them Something to Talk About with Elise, who is improvising and transposing the song on-the-fly as they look up lyrics on her iPad. They’re both having a good time, and as a result I’m having a good time too. There are a lot of goofs and hitches, but no one minds at all…it’s part of the process, and it strikes me that the people here are actually playing with music. They’re not fixated on correct performance or proper technique. Instead, they are part of the experience of music. This is a bit different from how I’m used to thinking about music. My mom was an organist, played hymns at church, and taught piano lessons to seminary students. I grew up surrounded by church music of the traditional variety, everything in the key of C major. Musically, I think of C major is being the equivalent of the “Times New Roman” font in graphic design, and it doesn’t exactly move me.”

“The seasoned musicians sometimes stop and wax enthusiastically over a particular arrangement of notes…”it’s a weird transition that happens right in the middle! The whole song is C major, and then it goes into D minor; what you’d expect is it to do THIS instead. Wow. It’s genius!” This is followed by a cheerful wave of acknowledgement from the others in the room. It’s a kind of awareness that mirrors some aspects of graphic design: the suspension of completion, the playing against expected patterns, and the use of our ability to discern the direction of a change to guide our emotions. Pretty darn cool stuff.”

If Tim Ferriss is good at one thing, it’s learning how to be good at many things. (Haxx!!) See his How To Breakdance 101: Unleash Your Inner B-boy, and How to Feel Like The Incredible Hulk (swimming, tango, language learning).

Gala Darling‘s The Daring Young Girl – My First Trapeze Lesson! A writer turned high-flying circus performer, wow!

Jessica Mullen‘s Astrojax and the Meaning of Life. Hooray for Astrojax!

Check out this TED video: The LXD: In the Internet age, dance evolves… “The LXD (the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) electrify the TED2010 stage with an emerging global street-dance culture, revved up by the Internet. In a preview of Jon Chu’s upcoming Web series, this astonishing troupe show off their superpowers.”

Lastly, a selection of articles by the ever-fabulous Steve Pavlina. Most of these are more oriented to hardcore rapid skill development, if you really want to kill it with your new skill:

• Branching Out
• Master the Basics
• Rapid Improvement
• Progressive Training
• Overcoming Fear of Public Speaking
• Videotape Your Performance

—

If this article inspired or helped you, please consider clicking the ‘Like’ button!

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Posted on June 19th, 2011
Filed under: Being Healthy, Exploring, Featuring, Feeling Awesome, Learning, Living (All Posts)
Topics: dance, performance, toys

2 Comments »

[So, this is what happens when Allison feels like her life is too easy and she's not growing fast enough. Experiment time!]

What would your life be like if you had infinite money?

No, seriously. In your day to day life, what would you do differently?

Being rich is a common fantasy for many people, but what is being rich really like? In other words, what is it that we really want when we think we want to be rich?

To me, being rich means:

• You don’t have to worry about having enough money, or where your next paycheck is going to come from.
• You can be yourself and do whatever you want. (Since you don’t need to worry about getting fired or anything. You’ve got it made already!)
• You can buy whatever you want whenever you want without thinking about the cost.
• You can spend all day doing what you want to do. Time affluence.
• You’ve solved one of the main puzzles in the game of life.
• You can focus on quality over quantity/hoarding/buying stuff just because it’s cheap.
• You don’t have to worry about planning as much in order to feel secure (if you forget to pack something on a trip, you can buy it en route).

Notice that those things don’t have to do with specific numbers or possessions, they’re more like attitudes, or ways of approaching life. Technically, it’s possible that someone could possess all of these attitudes without actually having millions in the bank. It’s about not letting negative beliefs about money affect how you live your life when, in reality, they could just be self imposed limitations.

—

My system – until now

Lately I’ve been thinking about my relationship to money and how I feel about the system I’ve been using up until now. For the past few years I’ve done a lot of accounting and tracking. I have a spreadsheet that I fill out yearly and adjust throughout the year that calculates all of my savings, what I expect to earn, what I expect to spend, and calculates how much money I would have left over for spending money. I have another spreadsheet (spreadsheets for everything YAY!) where I note down everything I spend, and I give myself a weekly “allowance” in order to pace myself so that I don’t burn through my extra cash before the end of the year.

This method has been working pretty well in terms of causing me to not spend too much money. But it does have some downsides.

It’s focused on the future rather than the present. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I can’t predict the future with a high amount of accuracy, but still I try to budget as if my predictions were accurate. My system is vulnerable to fluctuations, and large fluctuations can break it. I remember last year there was an error in my spreadsheet which lead me to think I had about $2000 more than I did, and when I fixed the error I found that I was supposed to be spending -$3.45 a week. (Yeah, negative.) Even small negative fluctuations could lead to me having to go a few weeks without spending anything in order to ‘catch up’. And then later, I would unexpectedly come into some more money (like a scholarship or a contest or a new gig), which would make the whole thing moot. In retrospect, it seems like a lot of hoops to put myself through, since all of these rules are self imposed. It’s like adding layers of mindgames on top of something that could be as simple as “I have $x. … now what?”

Overall, the system doesn’t make me feel the way I want to feel about money. Two weeks ago I wrote this in my Evernote:

How does my current method of tracking money make me feel?

• restricted/limited
• like I have to micromanage/control it
• losses hurt me
• like I HAVE to make X amount or I’ll be behind
• not expecting good things to happen later on
• like I know everything that’s going on – I have a clear picture (positive, but not true)
• makes me think about the future a lot and try to predict the future
• like I don’t have enough
• money is complicated

What do I want to feel?

• good!
• unlimited
• in the moment
• trusting the universe, everything will work out
• like I have enough
• like I can buy whatever I want, when I want
• like I have more money than I can spend
• money is simple

So I thought about it. What would be a better method that would get me those results?

A while ago, I lightened up in terms of trying to track and obsess about what I eat, and so I decided to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and just trust that it will work out. Well, I’m not dead yet. I haven’t gained weight either. (Sidenote: I’m vegan! Not sure if that’s a factor.) So it appears that trying to have strict control over my actions wasn’t really doing me any good. My body just processes what it wants to process automagically.

If letting go works with my diet, why can’t it also work with money? This thought lead me to create the framework for my current experiment.

The Experiment

Rules/Specifications

• The trial is to last 3 months. Starting date: May 22. End date: July 22. (I’m already a week into it.)
• I’m not allowed to consider cost as a factor when deciding whether or not to do something. (The most challenging part.)
• Buy everything possible with my credit card so that tracking is automated. (Obviously, I pay off my credit card every month and never carry a balance.)
• I’ll check into my online banking every 2 weeks like I normally do just to make sure nothing fishy or apocalyptic is happening.
• If I have to buy things in cash or with paypal, I’ll only record it if it’s over $50.

Predictions
I expect the amount I spend to go up a little, but not by a whole lot. I think that for day to day spending, I will just spend more on food and snacks while out of the house.

The biggest expenses I could expect to incur over the course of this experiment would be: 1) deciding to go on a random trip somewhere, 2) getting a smartphone, or 3) moving out (I currently am living with my parents while I’m in school). But I don’t know if any of these will happen.

I’ll also be curious to see exactly how much spending money I would use per month under optimal circumstances, and how difficult it will be to change my thought patterns.

I’ll be more free in my business to try and target the kind of work that I really most want to do, since I won’t have to worry about just doing what’s profitable. I’m curious to see whether my attitude towards work will shift more towards being a service to others, rather than making money for myself.

Are you crazy?! What if you permanently screw up your finances?

I’m aware that this experiment goes counter to the conventional wisdom about how you’re supposed to deal with money, but I’ve really thought about it, and I don’t think I’ll burn through my savings or go into debt by the time the 3 month period is over. Here’s why:

Having infinite money =/= spending infinite money
There are valid reasons to not buy stuff even if money is no object, like ethical reasons, quality of life reasons, personal preference, not having the space/time to use or appreciate the thing at the moment, not wanting to put effort into acquiring something, or just not feeling like you need something.

I’ve already acquired the attitude of quality over quantity, and since I’m actually trying to get RID of stuff, I’m really selective about adding new objects into my life. I still think that buying things secondhand is preferable to buying them new for environmental reasons (energy spent to make them, transport them, produce the materials). I don’t have or want a car because I don’t like driving and don’t need the added complexity in my life. I’ve never been much of a traveler (that may change in the future!), and since I quite like how my life is set up right now, I don’t feel any particular urge to go on a vacation. Most of my hobbies are free, or close to free (drawing, reading, blogging, taking photos, geocaching, Astrojax, working on my business, walking, surfing the internet).

Money is for Making
I want my primary relation to money to be about making it, not about spending it. Making money is fun. Landing gigs is fun. Completing projects that people appreciate is fun. Creating neat things that people want to buy is fun. Pushing my limits in this area is fun. (It’s kind of like playing those iPhone or Facebook games where you manage a restaurant or a hotel or what have you – work can be fun if you enjoy the process and are not too attached to the outcome.)

Spending money? Well, acquiring a shiny new object is cool I guess, but I’d rather the whole spending part be automated rather than spending time tracking or worrying about whether I can afford something. So if I spend less energy worrying about acquiring objects/being able to afford stuff, and more energy on having fun making money, wouldn’t that result in me actually having more funds overall? It seems plausible. We shall see!

Safety net
I’ll have some fail-safes. If I notice that I’m about to go into debt, I’ll call off the experiment, since I hate the thought of being in debt. (I’m paying for school without loans, and am currently ahead with my savings.) Also, I’ll stop myself from doing anything stupid like buying a house (though I don’t even know if I’d want that).

I’m pretty sure that in the absolute worst case scenario, like if I somehow didn’t realize that I was burning through thousands upon thousands of dollars, if I ate all of my savings I would just get a couple thousand dollars under, and I could just pay that off by working for a few months while living cheaply with my parents. Even from a blank slate, if I worked full time I could build up my savings to where they currently are within a year, max. But for the reasons mentioned above, this situation is really unlikely, especially since I don’t plan to stop making money during the experiment.

—–

Risk

I realize that some people are in situations where they would feel like they couldn’t take a risk like this (maybe they have children, or are already deep in debt, or they don’t have a family to fall back on if things get out of hand), and so I count myself fortunate that I’m able to run this experiment. Maybe what I learn could benefit somebody that wants to try this but is unable to.

It also helps that I’ve acquired the attitude of not caring so much about money, since I’ve seen how little my happiness depends on it.

See, life is a game. It’s about the experience. If you’re playing a videogame and you lose some of your points, do you become terrified? No, if you need more you just make more. You trust that just around the corner there will be opportunities to collect more. Not really big deal. And since it’s a game, making more should be fun. If it’s not fun, you’re doing something wrong. (Spending too much time grinding at your job? ;) So, can you understand how I don’t see this experiment as a big risk?

And what do I have to gain? Infinite money, for all intents and purposes. A major puzzle of life solved. I think it’s probably worth it. Even if I fail, at least I’ll learn something.

—–

Observations so far

I’m already a week into this experiment, and so far so good. I think I might be spending a bit more than usual, but not orders of magnitude more. As expected, mostly snacks.

The most difficult thing is trying to circumvent my normal thought flow of immediately considering what things cost. This is challenging since it’s such an integrated part of my thought process, my brain automatically leaps to it before I even realize I’m doing it.

For example, I was in Chapters yesterday while waiting to see a play (Hairspray! <3), and a book on a table caught my eye.

Ooh, that looks cool. What is it?
Oh, short story comics from different artists, neat.
Wow, it’s just $5.99.
Wait, I’m not supposed to consider price. Right.
Hmm. Do I want this? It’s cheap. Wait, I’m not supposed to consider price. Uhh. It does look like something I’d be interested in reading.
I know I’m trying to get rid of books, but this doesn’t look like something that would likely be at the library.
Could I go without this? Well, sure. There are probably tons of other comics at the library or online that I could read instead, and that wouldn’t involve me taking on a new possession/consuming resources. I wouldn’t have to lug this book home with me.
But I probably can’t find this exact one online. And shiny full-coloured pages. And maybe it will give me inspiration for the short comic that I want to write.
And if it turns out that it’s not worth keeping, I can just give it away. It wouldn’t be a big loss anyway since it’s cheap. I mean-

And so on. The monetary cost of the object just kept sneaking back in. I’m hoping that with time and practice this will get easier.

(FYI, I bought it!)

I might even try to develop some external thought direction tools (predefined thought flowcharts or something) to help me arrive at the correct decisions. I might have to resort to listing pros and cons and deliberately crossing out those to do with cost and then trying to make an objective decision that way.

Otherwise, my life is the same as always, since I spend very little time actually dealing with money.

While working on a graphic/web design for a client today, I actually slowed down and took my time trying to get it right, instead of rushing to get it off my plate like I was initially inclined to do. I’m not sure if that was because of this experiment, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I shifted towards caring more about the quality of my work rather than just shipping it. If I’m not doing it for money, and I’m doing it just for the sake of making something, for the sake of exercising and stretching my skills, and for the sake of helping somebody, wouldn’t I care more about quality? Why make mediocre stuff?

—

If you’re interested in following my progress in this experiment, subscribe to my RSS feed. I’ll post any revelations I have, difficulties I encounter, or unexpected happenings. I don’t have a regular schedule for updates in mind at this time.

What do you think will happen over the next 3 months? Will I crash and burn or will I wake up from the Matrix?

Posted on May 29th, 2011
Filed under: Exploring, Featuring, Feeling Awesome, Learning, Living (All Posts), Making Money
Topics: business, experiment, life design, money

7 Comments »

[Note: This isn't my new year's resolution, just a fun experiment I decided to do! The new year's post is coming... eventually!]

From March 24 to April 20th (four weeks), I wore 14 preselected items of clothing. I also didn’t buy any new clothes during the experiment.

Inventory

3 cardigans (grey, royal blue, grey+pink)
3 hoodies (lavender, aqua, pink)
2 shirts (black, pink)
2 dresses (black, striped)
1 pair of pants
1 skirt
2 pairs of tights (black, grey)
————
Total: 14 pieces. (Fun fact: 9 of these were thrifted!)

All of these things are comfortable, they fit my body, I like the styles and colours, and I can wear them to all of the situations I encounter in my everyday life, and I can still throw together a slightly more dressed up/professional looking outfit if the need arises. All in all, these are (most of!) my favourite clothes. My base colour is black, and each piece can be matched with most of the other pieces. I can create over 50 outfit combos with these items.

I did not restrict the use of: undershirts/underwear/socks, shoes, coats, jewelry, hair accessories, bags, other accessories, sleepwear or things for lounging around the house (sweat pants/tshirts). It just so happened that I ended up wearing the same coat, boots and backpack pretty much every day.

But WHY?

Through reading about the minimalist lifestyle, I discovered several minimalist fashion challenges such as Six Items or Less (cool intro video here!) and I was intrigued. I wanted to see what it was like to spend less mental energy on the whole “getting dressed” part of my day. I still love expressing myself through fashion, but I wanted to see what happened when I spent less brain activity trying to decide what to wear and dealing with clothes that aren’t awesome. It’s all about eliminating distractions and focusing on only the best! Yes, environmental/anticonsumerist attitudes play into it, but in this case I have mainly selfish motives: a better, more concentrated wardrobe, more time, less money spent, increased happiness, self discovery, et cetera!

I love the idea of knowing each item you own and having everything serve you well. So, I decided to create my own “minimalist-lite” version of the trial, with 14 items instead of just 6. This was a safe and comfortable way for me to try out a minimal wardrobe; I just sectioned off my closet instead of actually giving everything away, so in a fashion emergency (!!) I could still access all of my clothes. I was still focusing hard on school, so I didn’t want to make it too stressful, and compared to how many clothes I own, 14 things was still a huge reduction.

[My entire wardrobe for the month!]

Before starting the challenge, I outlined my ideal outcome:

• I can get dressed quickly without having to think about it for more than 1 minute.
• I don’t have to worry about coordinating things or hunting through a large amount of stuff to find something passable.
• I can easily find something appropriate for what I’m doing that day/the weather/my mood/etc.
• Outfits are super comfortable and still show my cute, playful, whimsical style. I look and feel great in my clothes.
• Hopefully not too much handwashing needed.
• Greater appreciation for what I already have.

A few particulars on the challenge:

Laundry

I decided to do one load of laundry once a week (tossing everything in) instead of my current practice of doing two loads twice a week (separating colours and blacks). I figured that my clothes have been washed enough that I didn’t have to worry about things bleeding. Most of these things I can wear a couple of times before having to wash them, but if there is a shirt or something I want to wear twice in a week, I was prepared to handwash it. Handwashing a single item only takes about 15 minutes (minus drying time), so no biggie.

Strictness

As the experiment went on, if I found that my life would be easier or more enjoyable if I added a couple more items, or if I decided that I didn’t like wearing a particular item as much as I thought I would, I was willing to add or remove as needed. (It turned out that I didn’t need to do this, but I wonder if just having this possibility made the trial easier.)

Results and Other Findings

I achieved everything that I outlined in my ideal outcomes! The only thing was that my personal style was not quite as extravagant as usual, but overall, I think my outfits did reflect my tastes, and I still got to wear things like pink heart shaped pendants that light up from the inside, so yay. And I’m so glad that I chose to include my plaid skirt!! It’s definitely one of my favourite piece of clothing right now – it reminds me of a school uniform so it is cute and whimsical that way, but it’s still grounded in reality (it doesn’t look too out of place on the street!) and it goes with pretty much everything.

Laundry was about the same. Instead of doing two loads twice a week (separating colours and blacks), I did one load once a week (not separating anything). Everything turned out fine. In fact, I probably could have used the same set of items for nearly two weeks at a time if I wanted to stretch it, since most of them didn’t get that dirty. I didn’t have to handwash anything. Awesome!

Limiting my wardrobe to these items was NOT difficult at all, there were zero feelings of deprivation. There were a few times where I thought in passing, “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to wear my X today?” but I quickly forgot about it. A couple times I felt the urge to go shopping to destress, but it wasn’t that hard to avoid doing so. The clothes that I picked MORE than satisfied the different situations and moods I found myself in during the trial period. This was barely even a challenge, more like an easy experiment. If I wanted to really challenge myself, I would try cutting my inventory in half and doing the real “6 items or less” challenge. (What items would I pick? Probably: lavender hoodie, black tights, plaid skirt, black polkadot shirt, black pants, and blue cardigan.)

Nobody noticed that I was wearing the same things over and over (or at least, no one mentioned it). And really, I don’t blame them. With 6 outers, I practically WAS wearing something different everyday. When I think about it, I don’t even usually notice what other people are wearing, unless it’s something particularly memorable. Well, I notice it, but then I promptly forget about it. In most cases I can’t remember what people were wearing the day before, and I’m pretty sure it would take me a long time to notice if someone wore the same thing every day. I actually know a couple people who do this, and they’ve told me that it generally takes people months to notice. Go figure!

The thing you would have to balance is how interesting/remarkable/memorable you want your clothes to be versus how much you care about people knowing that you wear the same thing. If you wear jeans and a black hoodie every day, most people will be totally oblivious to it, but if you wear a hot pink zebra striped dress every day, it’s likely people are going to pick up on it. But hey, if you don’t care if people notice, then what’s the big deal? Even if you had just two outfits that you rotated, that would go a long way to people not noticing or caring. I know that I have fun wearing remarkable things, but I don’t ALWAYS want to draw attention either, which is why the wardrobe I picked for the challenge was kind of … blendy, to be on the safe side. Another thing I like is trying out different styles and looks, but the downside of this is that a lot of the things I have don’t match eachother (maybe there will be a couple things that I wear a particular item with, but that’s it).

I actually still had more than I needed: I didn’t wear the grey cardigan a single time, and I think I only wore the striped dress and pink-sleeved hoodie only once each, and I only wore the grey tights a couple times since I prefer the black ones, so I could have easily done with 10 items. The grey cardigan was mostly included in case I for some reason had to make a more formal outfit (surprise job interview?!), but now that I think about it, the blue cardigan could have worked for that too. It feels so weird that I could be perfectly satisfied with just 10 items. 10! It didn’t feel like I was missing anything at all. This makes sense, though: why would you want to NOT wear your favourite clothes?

After the challenge ended, I did put together a few outfits using some of my other clothes, just for the heck of it. And while I looked cute (if I do say so myself), it didn’t give me the jolt of happiness that I expected it would. So, while I DO feel happy when wearing a cute outfit that I really like, I don’t necessarily feel ‘better’ by wearing a cute outfit that I really like that happens to be different from the previous one. Interesting.
Second Life parallel: When I first joined SL, I changed my outfit a lot. But quite a while ago, I found a skin, hairstyle and outfit that I really love and that I think suits me, and I haven’t changed it for over a year. (No need to do laundry in virtual reality!)

Unexpected benefits: The challenge forced me to wear skirts and dresses more often than I would have otherwise. I feel great when I wear them, so now that I’m in the habit, I’m going to keep wearing them. Also, fewer random clothes laying around my room. Since I was only wearing a few items, I had the motivation to hang them up right away.

Side note: Repairs and Customization

About a week ago I noticed some small tears forming around the cuffs of my favourite hoodie, and I just this morning got around to repairing it. I love my snuggly purple sweater so much that I wouldn’t dream of getting rid of it because of a few holes! Not gonna give up THAT easily! Even though my sewing is, er, unprofessional, it’s barely noticeable and I like doing things myself, who knows why. If for some reason my stitches didn’t work out, I would bring this hoodie in and get it repaired by an actual tailor. Having things repaired is much less wasteful, and the idea of having a few items that you really like, use, and repair for a long time really appeals to me. It’s like you’re building a relationship with your belongings.

Another thing I’m curious to explore is having clothes tailored to fit (whether it’s learning how to do it myself, or having it done for me). I’m not sure why this solution never occurred to me before; I often find clothes that I like but they don’t fit 100%, and I know from experience that if something is even slightly uncomfortable I probably won’t end up wearing it, so I pass on the opportunity. The upside is that it limits the amount of things that you buy, but if you have the buying part under control, tailoring opens up much more choice. Customization will be a helpful superpower to have in my quest for the Ultimate Wardrobe. It’s an added cost, but if your wardrobe has only 10 or so high quality things and you’re not in the habit of impulse buying, it could still end up costing less than a wardrobe of 50+ mediocre things.

What next? Moving forward?

Based on my findings, it makes sense for me to move in the direction of building a super-awesome core wardrobe of maybe 8-12 high quality pieces that I love to death. Even now, I’m still wearing an outfit comprised of my challenge inventory. After all, it’s my favourite outfit! I’m going to keep this core wardrobe sectioned together so that I can easily find my favourite things, and I’m going to work on thinning out the remainder of my clothes and getting rid of things that are not awesome. However, in the mean time, if I want to wear an outfit using one or more of the things not in my core wardrobe, I will. Why not, right? This way, I have the best of both worlds: I have the efficiency and stability of my core wardrobe, but I still have the option of mixing it up a bit while I transition.

Even though I like my current core wardrobe, there is room for improvement. My black dress is not ideal, so I’ll be on the lookout for the perfect replacement! When adding or replacing things, I’m going to set really high standards for looks, quality and matchability. I’m not in a hurry to upgrade everything, but in the long run I think the results will be wonderful.

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I would encourage anyone who is curious about this to try it. It’s so easy and you will learn a lot about yourself! You have nothing to lose (except lame outfits and your shopping addiction). If you try it, link your results in the comments!

Posted on April 26th, 2011
Filed under: Exploring, Featuring, Feeling Awesome, Learning, Living (All Posts)
Topics: experiment, fashion, minimalism

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Took these after getting home from my vaccination appointment Thursday night! I got two in one arm, one in the other, and a take-home oral vaccine to take before I leave. I am now VIRUS-PROOF. Isn’t technology amazing?

I learned something Thursday: An effective way for me to dissipate anxiety is to draw a picture of a character being calm.

Normally, I’m fine with vaccinations, and I don’t have any resistance to getting them – I know it’s something that needs to be done, and I know that it doesn’t even hurt much and it’s over pretty fast, so I don’t fight it. However, having that in combination with some other things (uncertainty about whether I was going to be able to make my appointment because of the road conditions, going out to a new area of town for the first time), I was feeling pretty stressed out.

I tried telling myself to just relax and breathe, I tried reminding myself that even though I feel anxious about these types of things all the time nothing bad ever actually happens, I tried thinking of other unrelated things that would make me feel good, I tried visualizing myself going through the process of finding my way there and getting shots in a serene and unshakeable manner, but nothing really seemed to help. Then, I tried drawing a picture of myself being calm and I instantly calmed down.

Two theories on why this worked:

1. The fact that I was focused on an activity made me not think about the thing I was nervous about. Simple.
2. In order to draw a picture of someone displaying a certain emotion, I have to empathize with the character and imagine how they feel and from that I can determine what position I should draw the character in.

In this respect, being an effective illustrator is kind of like being an effective actor. I need to figure out what I would feel in order to figure out what I would do in terms of physical emotional tells, and I need to figure out what I would do in order to figure out what I should draw.

Back when I was younger (age 11-15?) it was more obvious that I empathized with the characters I was drawing. For example, if I was drawing someone with their tongue sticking out, after a few minutes I would realize that I was actually sticking my own tongue out. :P Now, I don’t even think about it, but I must still do this.  Actually, I don’t think that it mattered that I was the subject of the drawing, it probably could have been any other subject and it would have been just as effective in calming me down. Maybe this is why people tell me that I’m great at drawing expressions in characters – the fact that I do this subconsciously.

Posted on November 27th, 2010
Filed under: Being Healthy, Creating, Exploring, Featuring, Feeling Awesome, Learning, Living (All Posts)
Topics: calm, drawing, emotion, travel

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