We Are All Connected
Cashmere sweaters, fresh from the thrift store, ready to be felted.
I just learned of the factory
fire in Bangladesh, where so many women perished. They were working for
just over a dollar a day to produce the clothes that we wear, name brand
clothes that pull good prices here. The
columnist I read likened it to slavery, the way those women worked to give us
the lifestyle we want.
I often say that my work –
repurposing old clothing into new – is my way to fight this system. A very tiny way, but I hope to be a voice
calling for sanity in the way we consume goods.
And yet, I am complicit in
the slave labor of those women, and the creation of more desert in Mongolia. The ability to buy cheap goods means the devaluing
of those goods, and of the lives that went into the making of them. If we didn’t live in a throw-away society, I
wouldn’t have those Gap sweaters, or the lovely cashmeres I adore to work with.
I love going to the thrift store and coming away with good finds – but that often
means someone else didn’t care enough to mend a small hole, or try to remove
that small spot. Did I make them get rid
of that sweater? No. But we are all connected, our actions are
interwoven.
My work is my prayer that in
some small way I can re-value those lives.
My work is to help others to see the connections. May my work bring healing.
