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This is a look book / brand book for DESOTO clothes. DESOTO clothes is a concept clothing and accessories company that I created for my MFA thesis at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland.
Citation preview
Startled by the sound of Pooh bear
screaming, “Wake up,” he rolled over and
slapped at his alarm clock, which looked
like a big jar of honey. The blurry red
numbers on the clock told him that it was
already 4:30 in the morning and time to get
up. He was sleeping so well, wrapped up
in two blankets, that it was hard for him to
muster the energy to get up. But once he
had his long johns and camo on, he was
more than excited for the early morning that
he had planned with his dad. Out of the
house and headed to the deer stand, they
had to use flashlights to see where to go,
because of the darkness and fog along the
river. They sat with their rifles, anxiously
The Huntwaiting for a big buck to walk out in the
clearing. Dressed in Mosey Oak camouflage,
“Even with two pairs of thermal long johns on, his teeth still chattered.”
they blended into the woods. Only their neon
orange vests were visible to each other. He
was glad that his mom told them to bundle
up before they left home. Even with two
pairs of thermal long johns on, his teeth still
chattered.
His mind wandered as he patiently sat
there. He was scared that he would mess
everything up by being too noisy and scare
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away all of the deer. He kept trying keep
his eyes wide open and on the look-out, but
they slowly closed as he dreamt about his
trophy buck. With 30 points on its antlers
and hooves the size of mason jars, his vision
of the buck was a little larger than life. He
began to snap out of it as everything around
them came to life. The dew slowly settled on
the long needles of the towering pine trees.
Birds and squirrels tapped and hunted in the
brush. And then, suddenly, his dad punched
him in the shoulder softly to tell him to raise
up his gun. The time had come. As if still in
his dream, a big, 12-point buck stood right in
front of him.
He slowly focused the scope on his rifle,
over the deer’s shoulder. The buck, unaware,
nibbled on rye grass. A loud thunder raked
through the woods as the bullet sped towards
the deer. The big buck fell. His dad grabbed
him up and gave him a big hug.
He had done it.
Last summer, we had a party that went down
in local history. It was the peak of watermelon
season and hot as hell. Roughly 100 degrees
outside, even in the middle of the night, with
humidity at around 150 percent, everyone
was sweating. Everyone back home was
excited for the local Watermelon Festival
in Mize, Mississippi, despite the heat. The
festival ran for two days straight. Full of
activities like watermelon races, watermelon
eating contests, and a contest in which
people guessed the weight of a watermelon,
the festival had something for everyone.
They even had over twenty different types of
watermelons at the festival, and you could
try every single one. Everyone at the festival
Festivalhad a good time until a giant thunderstorm
flooded the festival grounds. But that didn’t
end the party early for us. We just gathered
up some friends and moved the party to our
house.
Once we got home, we cut corks out of
the stems of several watermelons, poured
a mixture of white rum, vodka, and peach
schnapps into each of them, re-corked them
with the stems, and placed them in the
freezer. While the drunken melons chilled in
the freezer, Mom made a Watermelon Boat
for us to nibble on. She cut a big juicy melon
carefully into the shape of a basket with a
handle, gutted the rind with a melon-ball
utensil, and refilled the empty rind with small
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balls of watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries
and grapes. A couple of hours later, she had
gathered a whole spread of food and laid it all
out on a table on our back porch.
By the time it got dark, the rain stopped and
the night was salvaged. We had ourselves a
throw-down. Everyone decided to jump into
the pool and party. We had
“Once they were off-duty, they got just as drunk as the rest of us...”
stereotypical southern tunes, like “Sweet
Home Alabama,” blasting in the background.
And we had plenty of food and booze to have
a good time. More and more people showed
up to the party, and before we knew it, over
a hundred people were drinking by the
pool and eating tons of Crimson Sweet and
Jubilee watermelons. We got so loud that our
neighbor, who lived a quarter of a mile away,
called the sheriff’s office to come break up
the party. She said that she couldn’t sleep
because of the noise. When the sheriff’s
deputies came in to break up the party, they
decided to stay for a little while, because their
shift ended in thirty minutes anyway. Once
they were off-duty, they got just as drunk as
the rest of us and continued to party with us
till 4 o’clock in the morning.
Growing up in the country was so much
fun, but often lonely. I lived out in the middle
of nowhere in South Mississippi. During
summer breaks from school, I would spend
as much time as possible outside, playing in
the fields and woods, all by myself. With the
closest neighbor a quarter of a mile away and
nearing 80 years old, and being an only child,
I did not have any friends to play with.
The family house was in the middle of 40
acres of land that was covered with hills,
plains, bogs, forest, and fishing ponds.
Behind our house, a large pine forest went
on forever and was the perfect place for
imagining a battle of the civil war happening.
My imagination occasionally went wild as
BattleI pretended that the forest was a hide-out
for Confederate soldiers. When standing on
top of the big hill, at the edge of the forest,
I had a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding
area. This vantage point was a great look-
out point to make sure that Union soldiers
did not invade the family plot of land. Fallen
limbs from the towering pine trees made ideal
shotguns to tote around. And clumps of red
clay, from our pond, made for impressive
explosions when thrown at Union troops.
Luckily, since the Union soldiers didn’t really
exist because the Civil War happened over a
century ago, no one ever clobbered me with
red clay or pretend bullets. Only I had those
ammunitions and ability to see the pretend
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soldiers. The fun often lasted for hours,
usually until it was too dark to see. Eventually
Mom would call for me to come eat supper.
“...clumps of red clay, from our pond, made for impressive explosions...”
She kept me well fed so that I could keep on
protecting the property. She always played
along. Once inside our house, my fantasy
world would end but I continued to brag for
hours about my adventures with the troops.
Thank God, it is Sunday. After last week’s
stress of final exams, Mom agreed to cook
a big family “dinner” on Sunday. At home,
we tend to call lunch “dinner” and dinner
“supper.” It gets a little confusing, but one
thing is for sure; everyone is anxious for
“dinner” when Mom cooks. She put a roast
on to cook in the crock-pot on Saturday
to have for dinner after church. The whole
house smelled of pork roast with potatoes,
carrots, and brown gravy as we grabbed
our Bibles and headed to the car. When we
got back from hearing the preacher ramble
on and on about fire and brimstone, she
whipped up a pawn of corn bread to go with
fresh black-eyed peas, and sliced a fresh
tomato and iceberg lettuce to go with her
homemade mayo salad dressing. To top it all
off she pulled a giant banana pudding out of
Dinner Timethe fridge that defies what bananas should be
able to do.
Soon after getting home from church,
everyone arrived. Aunt Patty, Cousin
Houston, Uncle Ben, and Mamaw and Papaw
all gathered in the kitchen with Mom and
Dad. Everyone grabbed a plate and dug in.
Finally everyone sat down to eat after fixing
their plates. The house went from being
super loud, with chatter and fussing, to total
silence. Everyone stuffed their faces and
didn’t peeping a word. You could hear a
pin drop, it was so quiet. Occasionally Dad
would grunt as he ate. He really enjoyed
the meal and made some of the strangest
sounds while chewing. He sounded like an
old hog slopping up food from the trough
as he snorted and grunted. Mom and Aunt
Patty, completely silent, took their time and
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ate each part of the meal very systematically.
They both ate all of their potatoes before
moving on to the carrots and then the roast.
You could definitely tell that they are sisters.
The rest of us all mixed things together as
we ate. A little bit of salad, then a little bit of
roast, then the vegetables all mixed together
with gravy smothered on top. As usual, Ben
piled his plate so high with food that you
couldn’t even see his face when sitting at the
table. Mom had to yell at him and tell him to
save some food for the rest of us. You would
think that he had not eaten for days, but that
was not the case. He has always eaten like
that. Only seven years older than me, Ben
tries his best to piss me off. And it works.
So we usually don’t get along too well.
Once everyone finished their plates, Mom
served the banana pudding in little glass
bowls. She even served an extra bowl of
pudding to our cocker spaniel Lady-Belle.
Lady had sat very patiently at the base of
the table, looking for scraps to fall off of all
of our plates. So Mom decided to reward
her with a bowl of her favorite dessert all
of her own.
“He sounded like an old hog slopping up food from the trough as he snorted and grunted.”
The ExhibitionTo wrap up my year of DESOTO, I installed this exhbition at the Maryland Institue College of Art’s Fox 3 Gallery. The exhibition was open to the public from April 22 till May 1, 2011.
You can find more about DESOTO on the web.www.desotoclothes.comwww.thesis.desotoclothes.com