The Museum of Contemporary Craft is doing a bang-up job of keeping attention trained on its ongoing Fashioning Cascadia exhibit, maintaining activity with artist residencies and lectures throughout its run (it's set to close Oct 11). Mag-Big's Cassie Ridgway took up the residency mantle this week (a dispatch from which you can read on MOD, where she is also a regular contributor), where she is working on the foundation pieces of a new collection based on the idea of a uniform, called ""In the Working Woman's Uniform," which exhibit curator Sarah Margolis-Pineo says is, "a way to bring visibility to—and, in a way, to valorize—the women who have a hand in PDX's grassroots garment industry."

This evening Ridgway, along with her Mag-Big design partner Becca Price, is giving a free lecture at the museum at 6:30 about the history and relevance of uniforms as well as the process of designing a collection. Check out my article on it here before ya go! Also mentioned there is the launch of the Explorers Club, an ADX collaboration with Stargazer Farm, a series of meals and conversations centered around Portland's (and its surrounding area) manufacturing "ecosystem." The first weekly lunch is tomorrow (noon-2 pm) at ADX, and will be followed by dinners/brunches out at the farm. It's an exciting time for discussions of local product, from the city as well as its farmland outskirts, and increasingly the focus is becoming larger than just the food or fashion and craft scenes. Get in on it!

The new uniform.
  • Cassie Ridgway via Instagram
  • The new uniform.