Filed under: A little bit o'everythang
This blog is to cronicle my journey to Ireland where I will be interning for Edun-Live. Edun is a socially conscious clothing company based in Ireland. Edun-Live is the brand of blank shirts they produce for retail and use in the screen printing industry. The company works to create ecomomically and ecologically sustainable communities in Africa. They do this by working with the communities the shirts are produced in and with Wildlife Conservation Society. They are dedicated to teaching all of the skills required to produce a teeshirt (all the way from growing to sewing) thus keeping the production profits and jobs in Africa (Yay fair trade!!). They even help teach about ecologically sound farming practices through the Conservation Cotton Initiative they developed with the Wildlife Conservation Society…Before I get too much more ahead of myself (I haven’t even left yet and I can’t stop talking about how great I think they are!)…
I found out about Edun-Live through my work at Mirror Image the screen printing company. I was a Printmaking Major in College and ended up landing a job at Mirror Image only shortly after graduating. For those of you unfamiliar with my work at Mirror Image I was one of the Accounts Mangers (aka Customer Service). Having always been passionate about human rights and the environment, it was only natural that my specialty at the shop became socially responsible printing. I worked with customers interested it “doing the right thing” when it comes to producing their apparel. This meant anything from Union made shirts to Non-Pvc inks (and perhaps someday even an organic ink made of edible materials?). Edun-Live quickly became a favorite vendor since they both had fairly made shirts and even some organic styles. Then last summer I started to do some freelance designing for them during which I developed an even bigger crush on Edun. This crush has lead me to want to dedicate more time to such a great cause/company, hence the internship, which will finally combine my passion and talent for art with my love and desire to make the world a better place! So please enjoy this blog and this exploration of how to be responsible in a time of outsourcing, slave labor, pesticides, and economic woes!! Feel free to ask me questions, send me interesting/fun links, I can even work do some freelance design work for you!
