the dresses/objects project

Sunday afternoon after my DJ shift I BARTed into the city and walked out to Z Space for the closing of Katrina Rodabaugh's The Dresses/Objects Project.  Inspired by Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons, Rodabaugh printed poems from that anthology onto sheets of fabric and then handed them out to female artists and designers to do with them what they willed.  The resulting articles of clothing (mostly dresses) were on display in the gallery interspersed with photographs of dancers actually decked out in said wearable art, with a sewing station tucked into a corner at which Rodabaugh had been constructing one last garment over the course of the show.  I'm bummed I missed the opening weekend when there were dance performances set to live music in the gallery, but for the closing party Rodabaugh brought things full circle by inviting three female poets - Lara Durback, Erika Staiti, and Jennifer Manzano - to read their work.  Stein's lasting influence ran through the trio's poetry as they wove together images pertaining to women's bodies, women's clothing, and the idea of women's work.  And if you looked carefully at the suite of inspriration images Rodabaugh had clothespinned to lines of string on one wall of the gallery you found a small black-and-white postcard of Ms Stein herself.