Blast from the Past...Mission Local, Betabrand and Women's Initiative nostalgia

TAKE FIVE: Stephanie Marie Echeveste By Laurie Buenafe Krsmanovic Posted April 12, 2010 7:30 am

Three years ago Laurie from Mission Local interviewed me because I was teaching Found Art Classes at Mission Cultural Center. I just remembered this and got really nostalgic. I miss teaching sometimes, but I am so excited about Etxe and I know I'll have the opportunity to teach again in the future when I have decades of experience.

It's strange looking back. Everything has really led me to exactly what I am doing now. Back in 2010 I took the first session at Women's Initiative and had loads of things I knew I needed to learn before I started my own business. In fact, I didn't even really know what I wanted to do as a business. I just knew what I liked to do. But that one session gave me a little road map of what I needed to learn, which is how I started at Betabrand -- I wanted to learn about product development and clothing production.

And I did. I learned so much; I couldn't have even dreamed of the things I would learn. I am terribly thankful for such a great experience, starting up a start-up is hard work, but someone's gotta do it. Now that Betabrand has around 50 employees and an awesome storefront on Valencia, I'm proud to know I was a part of it, even if I am not a part of it anymore.

Things have come full circle as now I am actually in the Simple Steps program at Women's Initiative, but this time I know exactly what my business is and have the skills I need to do it. I'll always be learning along the way, you can never know everything, but I'm thankful that I have a pretty good head start. I've worked at many, many different companies, and it's been those experiences that will make me a better business owner myself.

So thank you universe!

Have you ever looked back and realized it all was adding up to your future perfect? Leave a comment and share your story!

Weekend outing: Le Corbusier at SFMOMA

Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes at MOMA

June 15–September 23, 2013

NY Times Review...Celebrating a Poet of 3 Dimensions by MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

Great piece about modern Brazil architecture and Le Cobusier...

A year later, 1929, Le Corbusier first visited Rio de Janeiro. The conditions he found were not promising. As fascinating as Brazil was for him, it was also at that moment an isolated and provincial culture, only 17 million in population, mostly rural, and socially backward. What high culture existed was imported from Europe. As Lauro Cavalcanti has noted, the fact that Le Corbusier spoke only French on his Rio visits –apparently without interpretation – meant that his audience was limited to a highly educated, middle class. It seems that the audience for his 1929 talks in Rio numbered as few as ten, mostly the architects (Costa,Niemeyer, et al.) with whom he would go on to collaborate. Even then, Costa recalled dropping in on one of the lectures and leaving again, not really having paid much attention. In the mid-1920s there were only eleven subscriptions in the whole of Brazil to L’Esprit nouveau, edited by Le Corbusier and Amedée Ozenfant, a journal usually considered vital for the development of Modernism. The great Brazilian historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda complained that Brazil’s culture was just ‘grafted’ from elsewhere: ‘this means that a false tradition has arisen which doesn’t stop short of prolonging foreign traditions . . . what we need to is to find our own way’. --- Modern Brazil Architecture, read more here

Names before Names...

San Francisco, California. 

My friend gifted me Rebecca Solnit's Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas a few years ago and I often turn to it for a glimpse at my city's past, present and forecasting for the future. The book explores the idea of place and includes several amazing maps by artists and cartographers. I love the way the book is organized, thematically exploring what we call 'San Francisco'.

Excerpt from A Map the Size of the Land -- by Lisa Conrad, in Infinite City...

On a recent drive down the Northern California coast, from Humboldt County toward the Bay Area, I gazed out at the redwoods that reached nearer and farther to the sky and imagined the streams and tributaries that draw their way over the land, down its ridges and into the Eel River. Picture any historical, contemporary, or imagined map of a place as a diaphanous layer upon the landscaped, and you will find that the first layer, that of the indigenous people, is inextricably interlaced with the physical geography. Under, around, and within our beehive infrastructure, you will see the watersheds that were the geographic organizing principle behing the Hupa and Yurok lands, now Humboldt Country, and that of Miwok, Pomo, and Ohlone (Costanoan) speakers, now San Francisco and environs.

Amor de Dios...Flamenco, Fearless

Madrid, Spain.

I remember getting lost in La Latina searching for Flamenco shoes. Finding a small shop and being fitted with these black leather, heeled works of art that looked like artifacts compared to the costume shoes I used to wear in dance performances growing up. I splurged for a skirt. I went back to my place in Salamanca and tried it all on, with a black leotard, put my hair in a low bun and tried to make my best Flamenco face. I took out my map of Madrid and tried to memorize the way to Amor de Dios, so I wouldn't look like a tourist. A visitor. Someone that doesn't belong.

I wrapped up in layers, it was fall, and walked to the metro. Took the blue line to Antón Martín and took a peak at my map. I wandered the old cobblestone streets, past la Jamonería, past Cine Dore, through a market, up the stairs and stumbled into a bare room. Christián was the teacher. I was never the same.

I've always been inspired by Flamenco -- the passion, the music, the style, the movement, the arms. Even though once my sister and I snuck out of a performance half way through, because we couldn't take any more wailing, I love it.

Here are some photos that inspire me and I hope inspire fearlessness in you!

Here are a song from Christián's flamenco cd that he gifted me when I left Madrid: Flamenco de Christián uno

What your dad really wants for Father's Day...

San Francisco.

Last Friday my friend Tom and I stopped by the product release for Boombot Rex at Dijitalfix on Valencia. Ben Radler, one of the co-founders (and fellow elementary schooler with Tom, crazy!), told us how Lief Storer, CEO of Boombotix, was inspired by Japanese vinyl toys and wanted to design speakers could wear on your body, no matter how active you are.

The new Rex is water resistant, comes in fun colors, and enables you to ski, snowboard, surf, and travel with them without worry. You can connect wirelessly to your iphone or other device, and even take calls on it. Perfect for a picnic in Dolores or in the backyard by the pool for a family barbecue. There are lots of technical specs that your dad would probably want to read about, but I just know they look good, sound awesome and would be hard to lose as you can literally clip them on you (or your bag, or belt, or whatever). Dad can publicly blast the latest Daft Punk + Pharrell (or Paul -- depending on your dad's type) and be really, really 'cool' -- give him the tools to get a little street cred.

The company is locally based in San Francisco and they produce in a low emission facility in Guangdong province of China. They are currently using 25% post consumer materials and hope to use 50% by 2015.

BOOMBOTIX, INC. 3224 B 23rd Street San Francisco, CA 94110 P: (650) 204-7900 Follow them: @boombotix on Twitter | boombotix on Facebook

on the road with Evo

https://vimeo.com/39814734#at=214

Produced by Gabriel Dvoskin and Tupac Saavedra

from Prana Eyes...

"On The Road With Evo is an intimate portrait of indigenous leader Evo Morales as he runs for president of Bolivia in 2005. Like any good campaign story, On The Road With Evo combines public performance with intimate moments behind the scenes, revealing a political maverick that seems both confident and disarmingly relaxed. The result is a film that helps us understand the populist appeal of Evo Morales, while revealing rare glimpses of the private man behind the popular icon. The 30 minutes documentary frames Morales’ candidacy within its broader social context, from the historic coca-growing region where he grew up and began his rise as a leader, to the soccer fields and racquetball court where he blows off steam from the pressures of the presidential race. An effective if long-winded orator, Morales thrives in the spotlight and loves crowds. At the same time, he travels light and without entourage on the campaign trail, booking his own flights on small planes, with little or no security. That, no doubt, has changed now that he is President Morales. The 46-year-old former coca grower is still a leader of the Coca Growers Union, and he has alarmed Washington with a campaign promise to legalize the traditional Indian cultivation of coca for medicinal and religious purposes while insisting that he has "zero tolerance" for the production and marketing of cocaine. For narco-traffickers reaping the benefits of a billion dollar drug trade, and U.S. DEA agents determined to eradicate Bolivia’s coca fields, Evo's policy—coca yes/cocaine no—may be a distinction too fine to preserve. As Morales positions himself as the latest Latin American leader to defy Washington, we can't predict what he might do next. But wherever his presidency leads, On the Road With Evo provides a keen sense of who Evo Morales is and why Bolivia elected him."

To learn more go here