Black Friday Gross Out - Buy Fair Trade for the Holidays!

I read an article yesterday which mentioned that lots of online stores are helping consumers get a 'head start' on their Black Friday shopping by offering deals online starting on Thursday... On Thanksgiving. I understand that Thanksgiving is ideologically a complicated holiday, but in my life it has always been a time for my family and friends to get together, eat, drink, and have an all around great (community focused) time. I am pretty grossed out by the idea that Black Friday is slowly eating away at the community aspect of Thanksgiving by encouraging people to spend Thanksgiving day shopping online instead of hanging out with their family and friends. I propose an alternative idea... make your first stop for gifts this year FAIR TRADE! There are lots of online stores that sell fair trade items and plenty of stores around the country to visit as well. See what you can knock of gift you list by shopping at these places before you headed to Wal Mart, Macy's, or the mall. I know some people say that Fair Trade is too expensive, but check out these prices before you pass judgment - for the list below I picked stores that actually that sell things I can afford.
Here are a few shopping suggestions:

Mercado Global
http://mercadoglobal.org/ sells beautiful cloth purses and beaded jewelry from Guatemala (online)
Top picks: Ikat Texture Purse & Peacock Feather Mugs

Ten Thousand Villages
http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/ has an online store with products from around the world- they also have a store on Roosevelt ave. in Seattle
Top picks: Lotus and Fern Bowl & Tuareg Etched Earrings

Sustainable NYC
http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/SustainableNYC/StoreFront.bok A cute little general store in the East Village (New York City) which has an amazing collection of sustainable and fair trade products many of which are not available online or at any other stores!
Top picks (from the store): Divine Chocolate (yum) & reclaimed wooden picture frames

Theo Chocolate
http://www.theochocolate.com/ Theo makes the best chocolate IN THE WHOLE WORLD and their factory in Seattle is a magical place, factory tours are $6 and I would highly recommend them to anyone visiting Seattle. The shop at their factory sells not only bars but confections (truffles) and all sorts of fun products like chocolate body lotion and lip balm. If you are not in Seattle you can find their bars of chocolate at Whole Foods, you can also order many of their products online.
Top Picks: Holiday Confection Collection & Nutcracker Toffee chocolate bar

Chika Nakamura

 

Chika is a Japanese (internationally famous) female boxer who recently converted to Islam, I joined her for services at a Mosque in upper Manhattan.  These are a few photos from an unpubished photo shoot I did for an article which was going to be in the Huffington Post, the article never came to fruition, but I wanted to share the photos.

NYC 2010

Greetings! After a long hiatus I am returning to The Path and breathing new life in to this here blog. First, just a little update... I am currently living in Brooklyn, New York with my lovely boyfriend Noah, and working as a freelance photographer with a day job. Receptionist by day, freelance photographer by night... I am just thankful that after a year of nannying, waitressing, and working on contract projects I am finally settling in to some kind of structure. Although it amazes me that in New York it feels almost impossilble to ever really create a balance, its either too much work and not enough free time, or too much free time and no money. My goal in the next six months or so is to get my working life settled enough that I can return to doing some of the things I want to do in my free time... Like work on my photography, ceramics and this blog...

For the last year or so I have been involved as an advisor/ editor with a really cool literary and photographic magazine called Cousin Corinne, publised through BookCourt, a fantastic community book store in Brooklyn. We are working on putting issue two together right now and I am in the process of editing a Guatemala portfolio from my trip there in April.
Today, I will just be posting text, but when I have time I will put up some of the photos we are thinking about using for the publication to share a little preview with whoever out there is interested. www.cousincorinne.com

The Whole (Foods) Story

Early September 2009 Whole Foods launched a limited edition t-shirt produced by Hessnatur, proceeds from sales are going to Grameen Shikka, an education program run through Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The t-shirt will be carried in 125 Whole Foods locations around the country. The text on the t-shirt reads ‘World in Your Hand.’ The night of September 10^th 2009 the t-shirts were set into the window display of Whole Foods in Union Square. That same night I walked though Union Square on my way home, passing the display, as thousands of people do every day.

I looked up and immediately recognized the shirt. The last time I had seen it was in the factory show room of Grameen Knitwear in the Dhaka Export Processing Zone in Bangladesh this past March. I particularly liked that shirt, of all that I saw, and was given one as a gift to bring home from the factory, it’s sitting in my closet now. The moment I saw the shirt in the Whole Foods window I knew I had to find a way to make the connection between my visit to the factory, and the photographs that grew from it, with these shirts and the people who see and buy them here in New York.

The day I visited the Grameen Knitwear factory I knew that the photographs needed to serve not simply as a record of a place and time but as a bridge between worlds. Worlds that I was lucky enough to move between, in an age of globalized production very few people are interested and tenacious enough to witness the global supply chain in action, through tracing a product from its beginning in a factory in the developing world to its end in a window display here in the US. As a t-shirt travels it passes through many hands, in its production and shipping, distribution and sales. This ‘World in Your Hand’ shirt found its way from Bangladesh to New York, and was perched in front of me, drawing for me a clear connection between disparate worlds. The legacy of each pair of hand that touches the shirt is a story that often goes untold.

The men and women I met in the factory were acutely aware of American consumers, as they spend their lives making our clothing. The women in the packing room looked at piles of cardboard advertisements with western women wearing the Grameen Knitwear produced t-shits. They know us. But do we know them? Now, from one storefront in New York to one factory in Bangladesh, we can make that connection. Through this window you can visit the Grameen Knitwear factory and meet some of the people who work there, pick up the t-shirt and know that the world is not only in your hand but in the hands of all those that helped bring the shirt to you. Making that human connection enables us to become more conscious consumers. Every purchase you make effects the lives of the people who produce it, imagine meeting them, looking into their eyes, shaking their hand.

Scarves... Prabartana

note: photos soon to come!!!
So I sent out an e-mail about 2 weeks ago with in simple idea about selling scarves from a fair trade women's organization here in Bangladesh to friends back home. The response has been overwhelming, thank you everyone, thank you!

I quickly realized that I have to come up with a more organized way to do this whole scarf project... and I have spent some time in the last 10 days figuring out the logistics of my new little project. Prabartana keeps such a small and varied stock that it was not even possible for me to fill the exact orders I received by just going in and buying from their retail store, as they only have one or two of each of the designs of silk scarves.... this makes the scarves more special but also makes supplying them a bit more complicated.

Last week I met with the Prabartana designer, Saima, a recent university graduate (who studied fashion) and we came up with a plan and did some test dyes... This is what I have come up with, and of course its flexible, so feel free to ask questions or ask for things I don't offer if you don't see anything here you like. I am happy to take 'special orders' for any type of scarf not pictured here, for example if you would like an all silk scarf in orange or red I can for sure get you one, but the design will depend on what is available in the shop. This way you can look at and then order exactly what you want if that works better for you, or send in a general request that I can fill.

I'm still not sure about shipping costs but the shipping cost will be a maximum of $5 USD, and I will keep you all posted on that when I figure it out!

Here is the breakdown of what I figured out:
I am offering for sale 5 types of scarves and these are the colors, styles available...

1. Cotton Scarves, tell me the color or combo of colors you would like and I will try to get it for you, they have way too many cotton scarves for me to make a catalogue of colors and styles.
USD $15

2. Silk (small size) in natural dyes with zig-zags: Brown, Indigo, Silver/Olive 10 x 55 inches
USD $15

3. Silk/ Cotton Mix in natural dyes: Indigo, Gold, Silver/Black and Pink/Red 26 x 88 inches
USD $35

4. Silk/ Raw Cotton in natural dyes: Light Gold, Dark Gold/ Brown, Indigo 26 x 88 inches
USD $35

5. Pure Silk in natural dyes: Silver, Indigo, Gold (not sure of size yet but probably about 20 x 70 inches I still have to price this one and get a test dye done)
USD $35- $40