Bustleworship

Reflecting on our season's theme of PLAY, Sharifa Lafon sat down with Jensina Endresen to talk about how PLAY is central to her practice.

Sharifa: It’s so great to have you in conversation today! To begin, I’d love for you to introduce yourself and share a little about your background.

Jensina: My name is Jensina Endresen, and my project is called bustleworship. I have always had an interest in stories and the way that objects and material culture create a non-verbal language to tell us about people, places, times, and underlying cultural context. When I first started getting into this type of work, the 2008 recession had hit and there weren’t any work opportunities post-college. At the time, I was thrifting coats and furs and things that I thought were interesting, and that contrasted with the homogenized suburban environment I grew up in. I was especially interested in the objects that had history, or a story, told through rips and tears. These items felt precious to me. I started buying coats to reline and make into different types of garments. I noticed that when they were put on there was a moment of transmutation for me and my friends. These moments allowed me to see the transformative power of clothing as an adult after having a childhood full of dress up boxes and play clothes. Later, I decided to go back to school to research how the Anthropocene and fast fashion were related. Although recycling and upcycling have long been a part of conversations, they’re often devalued or regulated to the realm of kitsch, craft, or “women’s work.” By changing the conversation to include necessity in the face of climate change, I was interested in exploring how we've shifted towards extreme consumption and a desire for something new, instead of a reverence for what we already have.

Sharifa: You know, I’ve never asked you this question before, but how did you select bustleworship as the name of your project?

Jensina: I was living in Lawrence, Kansas, for just a year. I moved there for someone and because I had a lack of direction, I ended up taking a community college course about historical garments. I loved bustles because unlike so many other Victorian garments, that were about construction and constriction, a bustle is about plumage and a voluminous expanse. During my time there, I met some wonderful, interesting people and we had a conversation one night about the overlap between punk and body culture. Specifically as it tied into straight edge movements and weight lifting, and how gaining strength, for some, became a way to fortify against institutional systems of power. And one of my friends said something about it being like muscle worship for this type of person. To which I was like—I love that—but for me it's bustle worship.

Sharifa: You've described bustleworship as being a persona, not just as the name of your company, but as an embodiment of you. I’d like to hear more about that.

Jensina: A lot happened in my early 30s when I decided to stop drinking. I noticed that I missed the social aspect and performance of getting ready to go out. I realized that I was more introverted, quiet, and shy than I had allowed myself to be. By leaning into the dress up factor, it was a way to access the physical transformation needed to be in a space with other people. Clothing was a way to elevate and change how I was perceived. It was an acknowledgement that to go out, I needed to armor myself as a newly sober person. The armor both protects me and projects a version of myself that is more comfortable in social situations.

Sharifa: I can relate to what you’ve said on several different levels about being introverted and with social interaction. With this in mind, I want to hear more about the role of play in adulthood and how adornment can provide a vehicle for experimentation.

Jensina: So much of normal adulthood is training us away from individuality to be a good citizen, or a good worker, or to fit in and be a “normal” adult. Through this process there’s a suppression that’s like pulling the air out of the room. So many people may say, “I love that, but I could never wear it.” If we allow ourselves to play, we allow a revolutionary act against homogenization. To play is to combat perfectionism in a way that can be healing and life changing.

Fabric also has a way of revealing itself. After a pattern piece has been cut out of fabric that tells a visual story, there is sometimes a floating leg or another strange, jarring image that remains. I like the optical play of misreading a piece of clothing, like if you look quickly at a person across the street and it looks like there is an animal on their back, or another limb coming out of their silhouette. These things make us question the analog reality in a way that I think is interesting. I’m not a classically trained seamstress, where the ethos is to “measure twice, cut once.” Instead, I lean into play. I’m more of a never measure- throw fabric in the air to slice up with scissors. I’m an extremely perfectionistic person, and this practice helps me break those tendencies. I always create for me first and then for other people second. If you don’t like it, then it's not for you, and that's okay.

Sharifa: One of the most important aspects of any practice is the willingness to experiment, play, and to fail. Perfectionism prevents a lot of people from getting started because waiting for everything to be a certain way means that nothing will ever happen.

Jensina: That's so interesting. It made me think of when I first started working in museums on fashion exhibitions. I was so anxious because I'm not a sewist or a pattern maker. Then I looked at the garments. All the couture garments are made by hand. On the inside the stitches are uneven and they have faults. I like the idea that the reverence of handwork should be felt and seen.

Sharifa: It’s true when the fit is about how it looks on an actual body and all bodies are different. Couture items are not cookie cutter garments without variation.

Jensina: It’s the sign of a handmade item and why would we want to distance ourselves from the reality of production? I think of Diana Vreeland and how she said she wanted her living room to look like a garden in hell. I want my clothes to look like they’re for a band conductor for the circus of hell.

Sharifa: I agree, and I love this sentiment. Expressions of individuality are subversions of conformity. This is a good segue into sustainability and your work with fur, which I think combines all these aspects of your work together.

Jensina: When I first started buying and restoring garments after college, I was seeing a lot of fur coats and jackets. Some of these garments had major damage and some of them just had lining problems. Taking them apart was interesting to me because it helped me to see how they were produced. For example, mink has very structured, intense, linear seams, while rabbit has insane patchwork on the inside that looks like bursts of color where nothing is uniform. I started to think about the idea of the fur as an object that is biodegradable and by wearing it, you're honoring the animal, but also about the level of handiwork that went into it when it was made.

After 10 years of doing this on my own in the midwest, I found that there were still nine people in the US working in traditional methods of furrier work. I found a craftsman with 60 years experience in the Denver Metro area, and after meeting him I was offered a job. I literally went home, packed everything in my car, and lived on an air mattress at a friend's house for six months while I started my apprenticeship. It was not without challenges, but I'm super grateful for that experience. I ended up buying one of his machines, which I still use. So, I learned from a master of the craft, which is indispensable knowledge. In today's society, we want things to be fast and easy, and that experience was a laborious, slow, and painful way to learn something that added to my toolkit and supported my reverence for objects.

Sharifa: I appreciate this because it is knowledge that would otherwise be lost. I think it’s important to value items made with a high level of craftmanship rather than in favor of those that just fall apart. You’re doing the work towards keeping these types of practices alive. Not everyone would know that you are working with solely vintage fur. How do you address the anti-fur dialog in favor of the artificial?

Jensina: Well, fake fur is made from petroleum-based fibers that will never biodegrade but are also created through hazardous production methods. Fake furs continuously release microplastics when washed or worn. If anybody threw paint on me for wearing fur, I'd feel like I've made it, and I think it begs the question of where was your clothing made, from what, and by whom? While there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, the privileged hierarchy of assumptions can be damaging.

Sharifa: It’s true, and these items could end up in a landfill anyway, so the level of consciousness regarding what is already all around us is important to take note of. Obviously, all these topics exist on a spectrum in terms of personal beliefs and ideology, but often the arguments are rooted in misinformation, or replace one harmful practice with another.

Jensina: It’s interesting that you bring this up because people will throw away the $1 garment, but to throw away a vintage fur is to throw away the working-class history wrapped up in the production of fur.

Sharifa: There is a significant trajectory there, which extends into the dynamics and problems embedded in the history of the US. Speaking to the historical aspect though, tell me about your master’s degree research which gets into the weeds of this topic.

Jensina: My master's thesis focused on the intersections of sustainability and spirituality, and how those could be relayed through art history. I completed this work as both a project and a thesis. The project took place through a residency with Denver Digerati where I invited my friends and community in for a short interview and then allowed them to play with garments and other items of adornment in the studio, which I photographed.

During the Renaissance, artisanship and craftsmanship were revered and exalted. They used visual language to tell stories. I was thinking about how being an artist or an artisan in those eras was to be noble in its own way. In order to combat the draw of massive consumption, we must have reverence for the things that we already own. There is an obvious connection between fast fashion and climate change, but how do you shift foundational narratives about what is worthy of being saved, what is important, and what is beautiful?

So, for me, thinking about how my clothing, made from landfill fabric, could be portrayed as worthy was the basis for my masters project. I paired my research with the symbolism imbued onto images of saints in the Catholic religion, which is the religion I grew up with. By having the garment worn by someone in a way that emulated sainthood, it gave reverence and exalted the garment in a way that showed it as a thing of beauty. I wanted to subvert the contemporary drive for ubiquitous clothing, homogenization, and the gender binary. To play is to take power back. Play allows a moment of release and excitement.

Sharifa: It’s the idea of play as a reclamation. This connection also reminds me of Orthodox practices with icons, where the object serves as a representation of the person being prayed to. The focus is not on the object itself, but on the spiritual presence it signifies. I appreciate how you are using the act of play to shift embedded symbolism into new meanings. In terms of breaking hierarchies, symbolism is only legible to people who share a common language and by creating a new dialog you are creating inclusivity. I have to say that I love the images of Queen John the most and feel that all these ideas connected through the act of play connects to this season for Tilt West strongly.

Jensina: I think Queen John was integral to getting into the space of play. Before people played “dress up,” I would ask them five questions, to set the intention for their session. The interview with Queen John is beautiful because he talks about how playing dress up provided self-revelation and self-love, and how it was his auntie of his who saw him in one of her 1980s sparkle sequined outfits. He said that when she mentioned it to him his response was, “I just want to shine on the outside, because I feel like I'm shining on the inside.” That's so sweet and speaks to the feeling of something bubbling inside of us that clothing allows to come to the surface.

Sharifa: There's another aspect of this that is coming up for me as we're talking, and that’s where the role of privilege comes in. I feel like clothing marks our position in society in many ways, and so the allowance to be adventurous rejects the status quo, particularly where resourcefulness comes in. By being scrappy a person can push against the demarcation of privilege through individuality in garments. If you're resourceful, then you can create the look for yourself, and if you’re weird, people are usually drawn to it.

Jensina: Everything I make is out of objects that a lot of people would consider trash, but I make them beautiful, and accessible. I believe in the idea of open-source fashion—as in—patterns and material information should be shared. Why gatekeep because two sets of hands making “the same thing” will always produce different unique and creative results, and how you wear it is personal. It is so very important to see the possibility in yourself and others and knowing that transformation is attainable. I want clothing items to mutate my gender, my visual and physical body, to break out of the self-contained, which I think also creates a sense of empathy. When you can see yourself as containing multitudes, you are able to see others in that same light.

Sharifa: I agree completely. Thank you for sharing that. I enjoyed the photos and what they represent. What is next for you in the coming year?

Jensina: I have a new studio space, and I am excited to be able to set up my furrier machine, my 1936 chainstitch machine, and have a location in which to create more transformational work with fur and to expand my art practice. I’m exploring some women's-work, Divine Feminine concepts, by quilting butter wrappers. This project is looking at the macroeconomic theme of guns versus butter— how warfare, which is deemed more masculine, is prided in government systems over what is often considered feminine-based practices of community investment and care.

Sharifa: There is a lot of tension between these topics right now. I look forward to seeing this work develop and I think it’s going to be great. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today.