it all started seven years ago . . . .

wedding dress (brenda's dress) 

the beginning of the dress project

it all began on wells beach, me. in 2006. i had an idea of an image of a dress and while walking on the beach one morning i picked up a stick to see what this 'dress' would look like.  i drew a sleeveless, life sized dress and  filled it in with the beautiful beach rocks & then proceeded to let the high tide take it away ~ giving me a new, clean canvas on which to make another dress.  the process felt so right and so gratifying that for the rest of the vacation i made a dress!  & each day i would walk the beach with no preconceived idea and would just listen to which material i was to use that day... 

(from www.virginiafitzgerald.com, 

click HERE for photogallery)

It all started, innocently on 

a family vacation, 

in Wells Beach, ME.

A broken glass, 

a sea of drowning ladybugs 

and a nagging thought 

lead me to create 

the DressProject.  

Follow this link to read 

Helen Prunty Krispien's article: 

Drowning ladybugs lead to fascinating art project, 

(for more about ladybugs and dresses)

Since then I have created hundreds of dresses, 

in a myriad of media and materials.

Some in unique locales:

dress #3 from wells beach, me.

new york diner dress (2006)

I have made LARGE dressese

this installation centered around an 8 foot tall dress of eggshells 

'this comes from within' medicine wheel productions (2009)

and I have made small dresses 

abc dress (2006) about 1 inch square

some dresses have a message:

'in memory of  . . . .' (2008) in private collection

made with plaster tape, dog tags and photos of soldiers 

honoring those who died in Iraq.

'ripple' (2010)

a drawing that I contributed to a charity 

raising money to help the gulf after the BP oil spill.

I have made ephemeral dresses and dress sculptures

 which reside in public and private collections.

'lush' (2009) in private collection

And 7 years later, the desire to make dresses is just as unrelenting as it was in Wells Beach.

The dress continues to inspire me to venture into new realms of expression;  performance, installations and collaborative art.

'metamorphosis' (2013) made with the Dana Hall student body

The dress has lead me to

my dresstagging practice

the world of greeting cards and

my daily dress inspiration blog (dressblog).

one of the first dresstags, portsmouth, NH

dresscard  - soon to be for sale on Etsy

I have made dresses out of plaster, plastic bottles, VCR tape, 

fresh pasta, shells, maps, clothes pins, 

fall leaves, dog hair, ribbons, 

even nail polish . . . Nothing is safe!!!

winding roads (2011) paper-mache, paint, marker 

'cicada' (2012) mixed media painting on panel

'time to take flight' (2012) mixed media collage, part of the 'home sweet home' series

With the dress I discovered my voice,
the dress became my soapbox from 
which I could initiate a dialogue,
engage in political debate, 
question social protocol and
excavate my authentic self.

thank you

And I thank you for your continued interest 

in my dress obsession, 

your company and support has made 

this journey all the more gratifying. 

peace

I few updates . . .

I am honored that the Wellesley Weston Magazine picked up my story about my Dana Hall projects and put it on their blog!! Thank you Wellesley Weston magazine!  

http://www.wwmblog.com/news/danahall-virginiafitzgerald

Also for those followers and fans of my dresstags I have started posting daily dress inspirations on my other blog and started a FB group (as a learning experience) 

SO if you would like to get a positive, daily idea or quote or sentiment, with or with out a dress :) check out the blog: http://dailydressproject.blogspot.com/

or the FB group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/379771848806073/

If you can't get onto or even view the group let me know, this is all part of the learning experience :)

"inquiring minds want to know"

Also some news about shows and rejections and my subscription card series ~ 

growth, one: mixed media and beads on transfer

growth, one: detail

Sadly, I learned today that growth, one did n't get into the FSFA's exhibit 'no limit'.  It was  the first times that I submitted a piece based on my obsessively drawn subscription cards.  This call for art was digital and I am not sure if you can get a true sense of this piece via a computer screen, and only one image?!?! It is a small piece: 6.5"x8.5" and one never knows what the juror is looking for or how a show is coming together, alas.  However by the look of the artists who did get in it has promise to be a show not to miss!! 

Check out Fountain Street's site for the names:

http://www.fountainstreetfineart.com/exhibits.html

But I am not discouraged (or maybe I am a glutton for punishment?!) I submitted 'spinning I' to the Attleboro Arts Museum's show, 'what goes around'.  They jury is still out about if this piece is in or not.  

'spinning I' is another mixed media piece based on my subscription cards ~

'spinning I' drawing and sewing on transfer

this is the backside of spinning, the sewing tracks

Dana's 'giving and receiving' dress is in the works

This week I have started another collaborative 'dress' with the Dana Hall Students, this time exclusively with the middle school.  And I am so excited because I am finally going to be able to create the 'giving and receiving' dress.

This dress is based on my dresstag practice, how I leave small, origami dresses, with good intentions or fortunes on them, in random places. If you follow me on instagram or Facebook you might have seen one or two pictures of these 'dresstags'.

For the 'giving and receiving' dress I am teaching the students how to make their own origami dresses and asking them to write their own fortune/intention on the back.  The response has been wonderful.  I am leaving extra origami paper in the art room so students can come in and make more dresses.  

I am hoping for a great number because I am going to use the small origami dresses that the students make to construct a large dress form on a wall in the school.  Once the dress is created on the wall, then the students will be invited to take a dresstag, which will deconstruct the large wall dress.  Also each student will get a dress with a good fortune on it ~ giving and receiving.

So my collection of dresses is growing and the fortunes that I have seen are priceless.  This is what I love about collaborative projects ~ everyone comes to the project with their own, unique gifts, opinions, thoughts and ideas.  Some of these fortunes I would never have thought of and I love them!!! 

A particular favorite is "may this dress keep the monsters in their own closet!" ~ priceless.

The dresstag story, installment #2

the dresstag story continues . . .

the first official dresstag, made at Me & Ollie's cafe, Portsmouth, NH

from my daily dress journal
click here to see more

first dresstag placed

4. when did you start dresstagging?

it was Labor Day of 2011. I was in Portsmouth, NJ with my daughter, Maya when we had stumbled upon a package of charming origami paper. In the past months I had mastered the act of making an origami dress, using the folded dresses in collages.   I was also had been intensely working with different size origami dresses with my daily dress journals.  It seemed a natural step to start leaving them in different places!!

as i folded a dress Maya made this lovely cicada

some i hide in books . . .

When I started ‘the dress project’ back in 2006, I saw the dress as the mark of Virginia, like the mark of Zorro.  I built dresses to celebrate something beauty or protest an injustice. Years later the origami dress was a smaller, more manageable dress to leave behind.  But as i played with the origami paper in Portsmouth I liked the idea of using the dresstag as a vehicle of good fortune.

i made this dress in protest
for  the crazy amount of fencing
and 'stay down' signs

while visiting my hometown I came across an old path thru a ravine that I took many times as a kid, to get to the beach.

the idea that they needed to put up this many fences, creating such an eye sore, really irked me. 

5. why are they called ‘dresstag’s??

From the first dress that I left behind I was hooked. I felt that this new endeavor needed a name.   

may this dress bring u a smile

hope this dress keeps you warm ~ put on a car with the bumper sticker saying, "hate is not a family value"

may this dress bring u ur dreams come true ~ placed in an ice cream shop in the bershires

There was a street art/ graffiti aspect to this act of dropping dresses, even though they were small and carried good fortune.  Looking to the jargon from the graffiti world I considered dressbombs/ dressbombing. However I didn’t like a violent, destructive word attached to these dresses.  There is much literature about how using violent language adds to the negativity and violence in our lives.  My aim was to add positive energy, so with the aid of many friends I decided on dresstag.  This name alluded to street art as well as to the dresses that are made, sold and worn. 

dresstagging makes it to the MOMA!!!!

 6. how do you come up with the ‘fortune’??

I usually don’t have any preconceived idea about what I am going to write.  By the time I finish folding the dress I have an idea of what fortunes I will write.  I have noticed that many times I make a dress with the intention that I myself might need at that moment., like courage, clarity, strength.  Interestingly those dresstags usually get the most responses on FB?!?!?  maybe on those day there is a more universal need for a certain intention?!?!?

may this dress bring u satisfaction 

Next installment will be about the places that the dresstags have gone and the directions that these treasures have lead me.  Also if you have any questions about this practice , or any questions about my art either leave them below in the comment area, or on facebook or email me . . .

thanks for reading!! 

peace

The dresstag story, first installment

The dresstag story 

(a blog post that has been a long time coming)  

a dresstag recently given to a friend on her way to NJ.
She put on the intention and left it somewhere in NJ :)

Many people have asked me about the whys and hows behind my dresstags, so I felt the best approach to the dresstag's story would be in an answer and question format.

There is a lot to the story of the dresstag, so I have broken it down into a few installments – with LOTS of visuals!!!!

let's begin . . .

 1. what is a dresstag???

A dresstag is a small origami dress, onto which I write a fortune, sentiment, intention or wish.  I then place them in random public places ~ such as on  a bus seat, in a payphone or at a Starbucks.  

Then I walk away.

My hope is that someone will see this little dress and pick it up, read it and either replace it for someone else to find or take it home.  Dresstagging is a way for me to spread some good vibes and positive energy in this sometimes cynical world.

the back of one of the first dresstags

2. do you know what happens to your dresstags??

No, I don’t know what happens to the dresstag after I leave it.  Every so often I see that the dress is gone from the place I put it, but I have never seen a dresstag picked up.  In fact there is a bit of a sociological study in this dresstag practice – what causes people to pick something up or to just leave it???

may this dress bring u on a magical, mysterious journey
(the dresstag from the book reading)

Example: I was at a book reading at a  local library and I left a dresstag on the chairs of two girls who had gone up to get their book signed.  I did a quick pass by their chairs once the girls returned to their get their coats and then left and the dress was still there?!?!?  

There is a lot of fear around unknown objects, ‘you don’t know where that has been’?!?!? 'Report any thing suspicious to the police' There is the fear of germs or of getting involved, even though my dresstags are small, colorful and basically benign.

encouraging people to take the dresstag

dresstag at the Fort Point Arts Community Gallery

3. would you like to know where the dresstags go??

YES!! but I don’t know how ~  I experimented with putting on my name or my website/email on the dresstags, but adding my information never fit the spirit of the project.  I would LOVE to know if someone finds the dress, however adding my email seemed to add a commercial element to my dresstags, which belied my original intention.

experimenting with tagging the dresstag . . .

i love instragram!

However, thanks to cell phones with cameras, many times I am able to photograph the dresstag in its public locale and post it on FB, Twitter and especially Instragram, along with the dress’s fortune.  These postings have surprisingly become a significant element to my dresstag practice.  

Although I have no idea the fate of the physical dress, via these social media sites I learn that many of my dresstags have reached people.  I get ‘likes’ and even comments on different dress, some people saying that the photo brightened their day, which is my intent – be it in person or online.

I have dropped MANY dresstags in the past year and a half, and some of the photos of these dresstags I have collected in an album on FB.  Here is a link to this album that can be used by anyone!! no need to belong to Facebook and I quote'

"You can use this link to share this photo album with anyone, even if they don't have a Facebook account. Anyone with the link will be able to see your photo album." Facebook

\https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4348174912506.179601.1531585372&type=1&l=1c2c3f3300

(if you are not on FB and try this  link ,  please let me know if it works - I am so hot-wired into FB I am not sure I can really test the link:)

In this album you can see the many versions of my dresstags as well as the variety of places that they end up.

may this dress bring you peace . . 

So this was a beginning of the story, more to come . . .