Reader of the Week: Jodi Bates
She spins old LPs into eco-friendly totes.
By Kirsten Kilponen
Published: February 2nd, 2009 | 12:00am
It’s not unusual to see native New Yorker Jodi Bates rolling around Portland on her skates with her Polaroid “Cool Cam” in one hand and one of her trademark record bags in the other. This 28-year-old incorporates her love for music, fashion, and recycling into badass re-purposed record bags and spends the rest of her time trying to capture life’s fleeting moments with pre-digital technology.
Your record bags have gotten some buzz in the “green” fashion scene. Where did you get the idea to mix music, fashion, and recycling?
I started producing the record bags in 2005. I had come across a bunch of records getting tossed and I thought to myself that it was a complete shame these were going to a landfill. They represent not only a time period when music was a tangible thing we could hold in our hands, but also a certain love for obsolete technologies. I gathered up the records and mapped out in my brain a way I could incorporate them with fashion. I think fashion is often directly influenced by music, so it was a natural marriage to make these pieces wearable. My totes will be featured in a book about eco-friendly bags this year!
People often abuse the kitschy-ness of Polaroids to make instant, hip-looking photographs. Can you explain why you use Polaroids as a medium, and what sets your pictures apart from the rest?
I've been experimenting with Polaroids for a few years now, but I've collected cameras since the sixth grade. I got my degree in photography prior to the digital age, and my heart still belongs to film. I shoot mostly with a 1980's pink and grey Polaroid "Cool Cam." Polaroids have this certain aura about them. There is something so intimate about capturing a memory, just once, without the ability to reproduce it exactly as it was. I capture moments that are ephemeral, like the brilliant yellow rays that pour from the sky after it rains or bunny tracks left in the snow. People tend to take Polaroids of themselves and their friends, but my work tends to lean more towards the company you keep when you are alone.
You also combine your knack for recycled crafts and your love of photography by taking old photograph slides and turning them into cool lamps shades. Do your lamps tell a deeper story than what meets the eye?
Trying to find a greater purpose for an object can lead to lots of fun projects! The lamps I fabricate … come from an excess of slides featuring my former work — and a complete lack of need for slides in the digital imaging world we currently occupy. I recently fabricated one from slides belonging to a friend’s deceased father. He was an amazing photographer for several decades and his slides were beautiful glimpses into this family's travels and lives. The lamp was a precious way of holding onto and illuminating someone’s past.
How have you been enjoying your move from New York to Portland? Has the new atmosphere stirred up some ideas for future projects?
This city is completely new and magical for me! I love to read piles of books; hang out with my tiny little Pomeranian, Apple; roller-skate, and explore this unfamiliar territory with a camera in hand! Portland has this great positive energy about it that makes it hard for me to wipe the smile off my face. I'm currently working on a project that explores the relationship people have with their possessions. It is a photographic exploration about how we create relationships with inanimate objects that are just as important to us emotionally as our human or animal relationships.
www.flickr.com/photos/jodidisaster/
Issue #32
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popandshorty (over 3 years)
What a great idea! I've seen notebooks made out of old LP's but never a tote. Where can I buy one? Your dog is super adorable as well. :) Ashley popandshorty.com