I walked around Beebe lake on a very windy day. Earlier in the day it was 28 degrees and I got snowed on, by the time I got to Beebe lake, it was nice and sunny, but still cold. I typically see the waterfall when I cross the footbridge. This is a great natural landmark…
Tag: outside
Developing Narratives with Clothing and Connections to Place
I first met Audrey Acosta, one of the kindest designers ever, in Spring 2009 at the Whole Earth Festival in Davis California. I was charmed by all of her colorful one-of-a-kind dresses. In an internship with her, she explained that she traveled to India once a year and hand-picked recycled silks to use for her…
Bridging Branches with Crochet
When I look up, I see branches that fill the sky and see changes in the background of the branches. It is amazing to imagine that everyday we are exposed to these changes. Even as I stand watching the branches, blue sky, and clouds, I see nuanced changes as the wind causes the clouds to…
Plastic bags, bags, bags…
I was happily surprised to learn that I saved 5 cents at Target for using my re-useable bag instead of plastic. I think incentives can help reduce the amount of plastic bags that people use, but it will take some time for people to fully convert to re-useable bags in place of double bags for…
Ithaca’s hilly landscape
Walking in a graveyard can be intimidating, but it can lead to valuable reflections of the past for new insights. I visited a graveyard West of the Cornell campus and most of the tombstones dated back to the 1800s. I began to imagine what it must have been like to live in Ithaca at that…
Winter “tabula rasa”
The glistening white snow in Ithaca inspires me to think of Winter as a season that encourages us to begin our days as “tabula rasa,” as blank slates. Every day we have an opportunity to start over. If we did not like aspects of the day before, we have the chance to make the next…
Commonality between people and nature
Youth advocate and social entrepreneur Wes Moore visited Cornell to commemorate Martin Luther King. He conveyed how we can contribute to our community by envisioning equality as a person’s potential rather their physical or socio-economic characteristics. This relates to nature because nature also has equal potential; however, anthropocentric ideologies of people’s power over nature have…
Inspired by nature in the town
I was walking down Buffalo St. on Sunday. The snow was melting and it was very wet and slushy outside. I looked up and saw how beautiful the leafless trees looked with the snow propped on top of them. The hues of browns, greens, and grays was really inspirational and led me to create this…
Shared experiences in nature
Comparing the appearances of different places at different times can inspire an awareness of unity and equality. This image reflects sunrise. I was among thousands of people at Obama’s second inaugural address on January 21, 2013 and we all saw the same vision of the sun rising over the capitol at about 7am. It was…
Knitting local!
I created my first hand-knitted seamless sweater as another approach to zero-waste fashion design! I learned how to knit when I was 18 from a book, how to do purl, stockinette, and ribbing stitches while I was at UC Davis, but I only knew how to do simple scarves. I considered myself a beginner knitter…
HELEN TREJO 