A yellow prom dress. It’s handmade, with buttons covered in satin to match the avocado sash.
The Ghosttown Clothing Exchange is one element of a project by the Red76 Arts Group spearheaded by Khris Soden and Sam Gould. At the clothing exchange, all clothing and accessories are free in exchange for another piece of clothing. But you’re swapping more than just your knit beanie for that killer red, white, and blue vinyl handbag. You’re swapping stories, the stories attached to the shirt you bought for the job interview you blew off, the shoes you swiped from your daughter’s closet so she wouldn’t look like Marilyn Manson, the sportcoat you wore when you married your ex-wife.
photo: lori lucas for the Mercury. ultra adores Khris Soden.
Ghosttown is about stories, conversation, and heightened awareness of the minutae that add up to life. Last couple of weekends, we hosted Ghosttown Memory Dinners in which the memories/stories were attached to the food we served. One of the dinners was all hors d’oeuvres; at the other we served cheese fondue and weiners from Eidelweiss to new friends and old like Andy Blubaugh whose film “Hello,Thanks” is screening at Sundance next week (Yeah, Andy! see his Sundance blog here) and Katie Asher, member with Soden of the M.O.S.T., whose Mostlandian Embassy that debuted at PICA’s TBA fest is in all likelihood, headed to Australia for another run! Among many others, Reed’s Stephanie Snyder, musician McCloud Zicmuse, artist Paige Saez, conceptual artist Jon Brumit, designer Richard Schemmerer ate, drank and were art for an eve.
McCloud Zicmuse
Other aspects of the project include food (an Open Kitchen), music (DJ Parasite), and tales of debauchery, everyday magic, and violence (Incident Reports). See more, here.
Read this by Lee Williams in the Oregonian, this by John Motley in the Merc’ and this by Isaac Peterson in PORT for more on Ghosttown.
updated Monday January 16 2006 16:14
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