First of all – we acknowledge World Aids Day and pay tribute to those who have lost loved ones or are otherwise affected by the disease. Today, Twitter will contribute towards medical research for everyone who mentions #red in a tweet – which will also turn the tweet bright red!

Also, for those in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dave Eggers’ literary organization, 826 Valencia, hosts a workshop and networking event this week for aspiring children’s authors. Relatively reasonable cost, speakers designed to help improve one’s craft and help one locate markets and become published. I’ve found there’s not as much professional support for children’s writing as for other types of work – not sure why, but here is something aimed at those who write for young people (and some of my current favorite books are children’s books!) http://www.826valencia.org/workshops/adult/007461

Also – Amnesty International hosts its international Write-A-Thon December 12th at locations around the world. Designed to coincide with the United Nations’ International Human Rights Day on December 10, the Write-A-Thon is a free event offering participants the chance to write and sign letters on behalf of nonviolent political prisoners around the world incarcerated or discriminated against for any cultural, political, or religious positions. Sample text, addresses, snacks and usually stamps are provided – drop in and stay as long as you like…click here to find a Write-A-Thon in your area: http://www.amnestyusa.org/writeathon/

Positive news concerning our contributors and featured artists…first, from jazz musician Augusta Collins, featured in June:

Welcome to December’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine, and happy December holidays for all who celebrate – Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, the Solstice, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve. Inviting everyone to savor the change of seasons, the variety of scenery and the chance to celebrate and honor family, faith, and love.

This month brought in a balance of various artistic media: essays, poetry, photography, paintings, books and music for review and discussion – all exploring our theme of Reinterpretation. This concept involves bringing some project or idea into a different setting, changing some aspects of it while leaving others as they are.

Photographer Tom Heinz visually reinterprets reflections of rocks and trees in water as totem poles or faces, metaphorically showing us the ‘face’ of Mother Nature and the power of imagination and the mind to locate orderly images in the wild. Acrylic painter Priyanka also draws upon the mind and spirit, as she takes some of her cultural iconography, scrolls and spirals, and depicts devotion to her Lord Shiva, but also presents a personal quest for identity, represented by the images of a transcendent ‘core.’ She finds herself through finding her faith, and discovers the two are inseparable.

Continuing her Happy Armageddon series, Lisa Demb sets some of her signature designs into new color schemes, evoking a new atmosphere and inspiring another look at her work. The intense shading draws viewers in and makes each sketch unique, striking, although vaguely familiar. In the same way, organists at Berkeley’s Community Theater take old instruments and musical styles and bring them forward into a new, modern setting. The older images and instruments stand out in their new arrangements, making a statement precisely because they themselves remain unchanged.

Sometimes facts and physical details stay the same, but change nonetheless when we consider them in a new light. Sarah’s essay explains how she continues to faithfully love her children, despite the mental and physical illnesses which prevent her from raising them herself. At first glance some might think she does not care for her two teens, but through her writing she attempts to convey her side of the story, to fully explain why and how things happened. As with Demb’s work, we have the same foreground event/image, but set against a different background, that of a parent struggling against illness and poverty rather than an inexplicably inattentive mother.

Sarah’s essay takes intimate and personal material and revisits it from a new point of view, and painter Andrew Ek carries out a similar process visually, re-examining the same models and subjects in different colors and at different angles. In a way reminiscent of Demb’s Armageddon and Margarita series, although more geometric and stylized, his work draws viewers to examine the subtle effects of each variation in shape and color.

His fellow painter Stephen Williams re-interprets scenes less literally and directly, exploring the combined effects of dreams and memory. Where and when exactly do our crystal-clear, specific memories mutate into vague nostalgia? Is nostalgia any more or less ‘real’ than the events it represents? Williams conveys the fuzzy boundaries surrounding what we remember through gauzy soft-edged watercolor, expressing emotion as well as place and time.

Sometimes what we remember and reinterpret comes from the broader context of our cultures, the outside world which informs our personal memories. Matthew Felix Sun finds philosophical and cultural relevance for modern feelings of alienation and the fear of losing control of our lives within Greek and Chinese mythology. Although his art positions the creatures and characters within their traditional settings and renders them in a fairly classical manner, his choice of subject matter and his descriptions of each scene highlight the struggle against confusing external forces. Even Felix Sun’s Minotaur is not a heartless monster, but a creature doomed to eternal violence against humanity and thus accepting of the peace brought through his death.

Illustrator Spencer Hallam openly acknowledges and pays homage to the concept of creating and abstracting myth through the process of developing work in close collaboration with a writer. Some of his art directly portrays personal re-interpretations of mythology – i.e. his renderings of Aesop’s Fables – but Hallam views everything he creates as an opportunity to look for and uncover the underlying philosophical concept behind the writer’s idea.

Global Exchange’s Reverse Trick-Or-Treating reportage and Patsy Ledbetter’s poetry also represent various ways to engage personally with cultural and philosophical traditions. They take the Western celebrations of Halloween and Thanksgiving and incorporate personal, spiritual, and/or international elements. Global Exchange combines consciousness of Central American and African cacao bean farmers into an American holiday involving prepackaged chocolate, bringing the international and socioeconomic into the personal, while Ledbetter does the reverse, offering a specific personal look at an abstract United States holiday.

Business consultant and writer Otto Thav takes specific examples of corporate malpractice and inefficiency he has observed and turns them into parables for effective, moral management techniques. Like Aesop or Marcus Aurelius, Thav abstracts and reinterprets our contemporary culture into a modern mythology.

Novelist Ashley Boettcher works with currently popular themes and motifs in Western culture – apocalyptic suspense and the paranormal. She takes our modern mythologies and reinterprets them to incorporate real people and families, real life and specific events. And that slice-of-life, human interest approach to Armageddon and political assassinations becomes the novel’s greatest strength – that life, in its complex, hilarious, confusing, frustrating glory becomes posited against death, fear, and monomaniacal obsession with power.

On a less somber note than Armageddon, fashion industry leader Owen Geronimo seeks to revive the business and art of apparel in San Francisco. In a discussion with Synchronized Chaos Magazine, Geronimo wonders whether the city’s unique artistic heritage and cultural histories can be distilled into a ‘San Francisco Aesthetic.’ What makes San Francisco fashion distinct from that of other places, and what and how does that reflect on our broader cultural values? In a sense we participate in enacting a societal pageant every day when we choose our clothes and our activities – we take part in a broad interpretation of cultural mythology and values every time we choose to follow fashion (or not!)

Celebrating December’s holidays represents our opportunity to engage with and reinterpret cultural mythologies to our tastes and values – and we at Synchronized Chaos wish you a beautiful season and a wonderful time reading this issue! Please feel welcome to leave comments for and to contact and network with artists and writers whom you admire.

Half an hour left, then just fifteen minutes. Two of San Francisco’s aspiring fashion designers, Lauren Mendoza and Gail B. Shrive, cut, tucked, and stitched onstage at The Mighty this November as hundreds watched the busy makeup artists and sewing machines, drank, and perused vendors’ booths.

Finally, Mendoza and Shrive showcased their work for the judges and the audience: two gentle, flattering evening gowns, each receiving high praise. One outfit’s natural curves melded with its brown, green, and neutral earth tones, while the other’s neat, classy look highlighted its warm red and burnt cinnamon hues. (pictures available at Fashion Feud’s website: http://www.fashionfeud.net/)

Intended to help introduce up and coming designers to the larger clothing and apparel world, the Scion-sponsored monthly series of Fashion Feud competitions pit people against each other in friendly contests. Each of a pair of designers receives a solid color and a print fabric, supplied by New York’s Mood Fabrics, and must create a complete outfit within one hour for a model to wear onstage. Audience applause helps guide the judges’ decisions, and Fashion Feud’s organizers open the doors for free to the general public.

As November’s Fashion Feud concluded, I pulled organizer and publicist Owen Geronimo aside for a preliminary interview.

“We have a goal to put San Francisco on the map in the fashion scene,” Geronimo said. “We’re in the midst of a cultural renaissance.”

San Francisco’s history lends itself to an aesthetic all its own, distinct from Los Angeles and even the European capitals. As Geronimo explained, the artistic and literary movements of the last half of the past century still influence various aspects of the city’s culture, including fashion.

“There’s a whole seventies, flower-child, natural and artsy sensibility here,” said Geronimo. Less dependent on the labels and reputations of established designers, San Francisco fashion represents the potential for clothing styles which emerge organically from local culture, heritage, and taste. Successful apparel lines need not sport Versace or Ralph Lauren insignia, but will likely reflect aspects of our Beat, modern, postmodern, hippie, rock and roll, artistic, and environmental movements – along with multicultural and immigrant influences.

While we talked, Geronimo said goodbye to and connected with a variety of his friends and professional contacts. Building community among designers, artists, and businesspeople remains crucial to building and reviving Northern California’s fashion world.

This connection-building takes place online through blogging and other social media, and offline, with the San Francisco Fashion and Merchants’ Alliance, a ‘go-to place’ and professional organization for designers and businesspeople. Creating clothing and apparel involves good networking and other business skills along with artistic sense, and Geronimo considered this when offering advice for aspiring designers.

Heartily endorsing people to go out and connect with other talented designers, as he himself does through Fashion Feud and Werkstatte, a monthly networking event for fashion professionals, Geronimo encouraged others, “If this is your passion, then go for it. But you’ll make some mistakes along the way, so learn from them and don’t be afraid to totally reinvent your line.”

A former designer himself, Geronimo promoted his Firestarter clothing line directly online and marketed it to retail stores. He now returns to the fashion industry after journeying through the real estate and art worlds.

“After the bottom fell out of the real estate market, I thought I’d go back to my first love,” said Geronimo.

People may ask him and his colleagues why anyone should pay attention to clothing in this era of foreclosure, job loss, and increasing poverty in the developed world, and continual disease and starvation elsewhere. Certainly, one cannot ignore many other pressing concerns, but, as I mentioned and he agreed, people continue pursuing beauty through other arts, such as music, painting, and sculpture.

And,  as San Francisco Fashion and Merchants Alliance’s Scherry Momin pointed out, compared to other art forms, clothing design seems relatively practical and accessible. Most people must choose and wear clothes, and thus engage with fashion at some level. Clothes become part of a person’s wardrobe and life, making anyone who purchases a tee shirt or pair of jeans a kind of art collector.

Through Fashion Feud and Werkstatte, Geronimo, Momin and their colleagues seek to nurture San Francisco’s emerging professional talent, and make the market for apparel designers a more welcoming, accessible place.

Link to the San Francisco Fashion and Merchants Alliance, with information on Werkstatte and Fashion Feud events: http://sffama.ning.com/