After a fun and fairly meaningless four years of college at a state school in NY, I meandered through various genres of the creative world with stints at book and magazine publishers and in the music business. I held a few creative positions in less than creative companies before feeling in harmony with my work which began when I joined the record label Ellipsis Arts (and The Relaxation Co.) as their Creative Director. For them I produced, Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones, a three-day exhibition and performance at New York's Winter Garden space featuring experimental musical instrument builders from around the world. After many enjoyable years I then joined forces with pop-culture marketing company Green Galactic where I worked to support creativity of all kinds as a partner in this bi-costal firm.
While working in both of these positions, in 1996, I founded 28 Days Records a record label distributed by Polygram/Ryko. I used it to support female artists including my on band Moxie and released on it Moxies music as well as the first LadyFest compilation. A songwriter myself I also wrote for, sang and played bass in Moxie for six years. Many of my songs can be heard on popular TV shows such as Dawson's Creek, Joan of Arcadia and Men in Trees.
In 2002 I contributed to an effort to localize a NY based community of people who participated in Burning Man for the purpose of "playa style" projects in NYC. I produced the communities first two events called Blast Furnace I & II. As a last hoorah before quitting PR, I spent a year donating my PR skills to projects close to my heart like Black Rock City's media team (2003/2003) and The Dali Lama's press team for a 2003 talk in NYC.
Happily out of the 9-5 rut I produced my own creative works and continued producing events, offering freelance publicity to artists and and creating conceptual art works, mostly in New York City. The Vomitorium and No Bush were the most notable.
I began teaching yoga in 2004. And to my own surprise after fulfilling a request to provide NY city's nudist community with a co-ed naked yoga class, I became NYC's first co-ed naked yoga teacher and taught through 2006.
In 2005 I created an event to solve some of the issues that perpetuate consumerism. The project, called Swap-O-Rama-Rama, got off the ground with a grant from Black Rock Arts and now takes place in cities all over the world. It has repurposed hundreds of thousands of pounds of textile waste and transformed thousands of consumers into creators. Because Swap-O-Rama-Rama solves a pressing planetary need I turned it into a non-profit (via New York Foundation for the Arts) and through a Creative Commons license I protect it from misuse while keeping it free.
Swap-O-Rama-Rama's message opened up opportunities for me to give public presentations on the subject of "The Maker is the Revolutionary in Commodified Culture," which concretizes what I've distilled from my explorations around concepts like consumerism and value (link to summary).
In March of 2006, to explore the merits of being a maker of things (instead of a buyer of things) I moved to Truth or Consequences, NM. Here, on an acre of land I am exploring ways to "make" a sustainable and responsible life. Since August 2007 I've used the blog, Holy Scrap, to share my experiences and the knowledge I've acquired on the subjects of building, water, fuel, power and food (to name a few).
I still teach yoga and also now Sufi mysticism which I studied when attending the ( Suluk Academy ). As the Sufi Order International's southern New Mexico representative I sometimes teach and guide others.
I currently write for a variety of publications, most frequently for Make Magazine and Craft where I regularly feature DIY projects related to homesteading and also innovative makers who work with reuse. With a little luck I hope to release a book in 2011.
I believe the universe likes to be poked at by us and by our intention. Sometimes it moves for me and then I know that the smallest who can change the world.
Feel free to get in touch and meanwhile I hope you will do some poking too. - Wendy Jehanara Tremayne
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Blog-Green Building
