As a musician, clothing designer and artist, everything Barbara Schauwecker creates blends an acute understanding of folk aesthetics, themes of sustainability and innovation. When I talked to one of her band mates about the "conscious creation" philosophy of Mother Kultur and the direction of the magazine, her response was, "no wonder you're interviewing Barbara."

The first time we met, she was performing with her band, Animental, with Meghan Eckman and Sara Shapouri and touring with The USA is a Monster. They each wore intricate bird costumes of Barbara's own creation and played from the perspective of post-apocalyptic animals. Their band shirts, which I later found out had been ordered from Japan, were tie-dyed and screen-printed by Barbara with owls, skulls and their project name.

Even with the occasional touring and amount of work that goes into it, Animental is actually just a secondary project to Barbara's main focus of textile arts. Her handmade clothing line, Bobbi Clothes, which sells in retail stores on both coasts and Japan, consists of wearable art rich in concept and design. Her beautifully sewn and screen-printed pieces made from found materials are inspired each season by a central theme involving the environmental and social issues on her mind. Regardless of their lofty conception, the accessibility of Bobbi Clothes is proven by the fact that Barbara's friends model and wear all her designs.

For the interview, she was happy to invite me into the large, open space she, her partner and a rotating cast of housemates have build up over the years. They have enough space to live, work and make noise, which is rare in a city where most people are lucky to find rent in a closet. That evening I came for a party celebrating new and old friends from out of town, and the next day we spoke about her work amidst her colorful textiles, half-finished pieces and scavenged buttons.

Mother Kultur: Let's talk about where you get your inspiration and concepts for your artwork and your music. Your work builds upon a lot of layering. Where does that aesthetic come from?
Barbara Schwaucker: A lot of people say that about my work, the layering thing. I was a painter originally. I started with this feisty French lady named FranÁois in Tallahassee, Florida. She was an abstract painter. She would really push color and form and really work on something. I was lost in my life then when I found her, so I was really psyched. She taught at the Community College in Tallahassee and then, even though I only had one class with her, I started staying in her classroom and painting all day long. That's when I started thinking about going to art school. I never knew that you could go to art school! I was flopping around at community college trying to figure out what I was going to do. I did two years after community college at Florida State in the Fine Arts program. Towards the end of the time I was there I painted a lot with dirt and anything that would attach. I wouldn't prime canvas, I just used anything that would stay into the canvas. Then I really started playing around with fabric, dye and canvas. That's how I actually started making clothes.

MK: When did you start screen-printing?
BS: When I went to college I actually did a lot of printmaking, but I never did screen-printing. I did lithography and monoprints. I fooled around with a lot of that. I really didn't do screenmaking. I'm 37, so it was a long journey. I moved to New York when I was 30, and I thought I was going to be a professional person, working in a museum or something. I actually wrote a letter to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I told them I wanted to come and that I had been working with a lot of kids in Tallahassee doing mural programs and community service work with runaways. So I wrote this idea I had that I wanted to come up and work with an artist and kids for the summer. They said yes. It was like an internship, free. So I came up and I was blown away by New York City. I went to all these high schools and recruit kids to come do this program. It was really weird because they hired [another} artist to work with the kids. I worked with her and then realized I was administrating instead of being an artist. That was a little bit hard for me, but I still got a lot out of it. At the end of the program they gave all the credit to the artist and to the lady who runs the education department at the museum. They didn't cite my work at all, and I had done the whole program so I was like, "Fuck! What is going on?" It wasn't that I needed the recognition for anybody else except for me because I worked really hard on it. Then I got a full time job at a museum in Jersey City. I would commute from Queens to Jersey City everyday. That was my first two years in New York City. That's what I did, and on the weekends I would just paint.

MK: What were you doing at the museum?
BS: I ran an education program there. The museum was under weird political stuff. I ended up leaving and I realized that all I wanted to do was make art. I didn't come to New York City to do that. I didn't know how to do it because I didn't have any money, so I looked on the internet and I found the FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) website. They had a thing where if you were a New York resident and didn't make very much money, they would give you a scholarship. It's called a TAP program, a tuition assistance program. They lent me a small loan, so I just quit my job. I took sewing class and sales.

MK: You were already making clothing at this point?
BS: Not really,. I only had home [economics] when I was in school . and I made pillows! That was the only thing I'd sewn. I saw my mom sew a lot; she does embroidery. But I wasn't sewing anything. I was just painting. The only fabric work I had done was teaching staining. I taught before I left what I had learned, a lot of painting classes and what I was doing on the canvas with the fabric dye. But I wasn't making clothes. So I took a sewing class and took a screen-printing class at FIT and then I decided to make my own shit, I couldn't wait around in school because I didn't have any money. I didn't care about finishing the program, I just needed some skills like how to work the sewing machine properly and they taught us on the industrial machines. I had a lot of vintage clothing, so I started reconstructing it. I was dying it and tearing it up, cutting it and sewing it. I had a couple screens from my class and I would just use those and suck it up. That was really big, that was like five years ago. I think I just happened to be there at the right time, because people started buying it. I was like, "whoa I can make money this way!" But, it was really, really hard. You don't make that much money.

MK: Did you have to make sacrifices in other areas?
BS: Once I stopped going to FIT, my life changed completely. Probably even before that, once I quit the museum. I had no income coming in New York City and it's a demanding place. It got ugly sometimes. It changes the things that you think about, even if it's good food. Being able to afford good food, you just don't. You don't go out for a while until you can get it together. I didn't have the support group I have now. When I moved to New York City, I didn't know anyone. I met a guy and I started hanging out with him, and I met a few friends. But I didn't have the support group I have now.

MK: How did you build a support group? Is it through people you meet doing art?
BS: There was a major shift and it was probably when I started hanging out with Tom Collins. I met Tom and we started hanging out and then he did the [USA is a] Monster tour. I went on tour with him and I made costumes for them, did makeup and then joined the band. That was the first time that I was introduced to a network of people across the United States trying to do what I was trying to do. I met all these people and then I realized there are a lot of people trying to live in a different way. It was awesome…like, "finally!" I make an effort to try and talk to people wherever I go now. That's a bit difficult when you move fast when you are on tour, but I try to make a connection every place I go. I think it's really important that it continues to expand. It's the only way that any change is going to happen. Hopefully that's what's going to come out of this.

MK: You went from making costumes for Tom to make costumes for Animental. How did Animental come about?
BS: Well, the first tour I did was with Blackout Speaks and made the costumes for that. I definitely think that was a big influence. It was a big inspiration. Afterwards, Tom went back to being in Monster. I didn't have any outlets to express myself musically, but I was already hooked. I was, like, "I want to perform." I didn't really plan after that. I just kept working on my own stuff. I made a lot of clothes in the fall of 2004. We did big paper machÈ heads that year. I had made these really cool clothes that I imagined would be worn in some sort of performance, but they were a fall line. Sounds weird but it's a fashion term. Then Hanna [Fushihara Aron] [who] runs the Little Cakes gallery, said that somebody in Mexico would be into having the performance or the fashion show happen at their art center. So we thought we were all going to go to Mexico and I was really psyched. She said, "you should invite someone that can do sound and lights," so I invited Chiara [Giovando] because she's been doing improv sound and noise sound for a long time and does really beautiful stuff. We all started working together, and then the lady in Mexico said we couldn't' come, they didn't have any money. We had already started the full production. So we were like, "well, we are going to tour anyways." Between the three of us we had some contact places, and we booked a 10-day tour. It was about expression. It was all about being comfortable, being aware of each other. We came up with a story. Animental is very layered with folk tradition. I usually find some story that inspires me. I think about what's happening in my life now, what I'm reading about, what I care about now. Then there's the animal thing. It's pretty layered. That year was just a lot of fun. Then the next year came around and everyone was like, "are you going to do Animental again?" It was only supposed to be a one time a year performance. I modeled it after Blackout Speaks because Tom only did that once a year.

MK: Can you elaborate on the progression of Animental
BS: Right. That year, 2004, was about hope and community. Then in 2005, everybody asked us to do it again and I asked Chiara and Hanna if they wanted to do it and they both were too busy. I never really thought about who would be in the next Animental. I knew that it would be two other women or one other woman, whoever would do it with me. At that time a girl named Sarah Wagner was living here, helping me sew and do some stuff. Then Sara [Shapouri] was around and we all decided to do Animental together. Sarah didn't have any musical experience, but she was a really good dancer. There's always been movement in [Animental], but that year it got really technical because she is a ballet dancer. We actually learned some moves. We did theatrical stuff with fabric that I felt she really pulled together. That year I started drumming, so we took drums, and Sora played bass. She had been in a metal band, so it was starting to get heavy. It was a really weird theatrical mixture of improv. Sara and I were already starting to hear each other through it all. We were playing together the best we knew how at the time. That year, that story, the full part of it, was exploring an issue of hunger—problems with hunger, people not having enough, in a very broad scope. The folk tale came from the Amur River between Mongolia and China. It was about a village that lived on a stream and all the fish disappeared so the people were dying of starvation. They sent this one kid, a warrior guy, down to the bottom of the ocean to find the old man of the sea and figure out why there were no fish. He was just really bored and had fallen asleep and forgot to release the fish. The guy gives him this pipe and says, "if you play this you'll remember." We took a lot of ideas from that story.

MK: What made you decide to only incorporate women in the band?
BS: I never really made the conscious decision, it just happened that way. I don't know if I want you to write this, but I really have to go to a lot of places that I'm uncomfortable with in Animental, and I'm not sure of my capabilities because it's stuff I've never done before. It's uncharted territory for me, not like making a garment. Every night it's something different. I have to deal with electronics, the technical part, and performance, moving my body. It's really demanding, especially in the beginning when I didn't know anything about music. I'm surrounded by a lot of really, really talented men who are musicians, and I think I was afraid. I don't want to be judged, I'm judging myself hard enough. I felt much safer creating with women. A lot of times you're coming to the same place, doing a lot of exploring together. Honestly, there are just not a lot of women in the music scene. Animental is so much more than that to me, but because of my contacts we were performing in that scene. I was vulnerable. I didn't know if I wanted to expose that other thing of being a woman and having to compete with men. There are a lot of really wonderful dudes that I would love to work with, but I don't even know how to go there. I don't feel safe enough or something. Then last year Animental became something different, which kind of blew my mind. We toured almost 80 shows. We went from 2004, 10 days, 2005, a little over 2 weeks, and then we did the entire United States last year plus a lot of other shows, and then we did Europe, and we became a band. We're not a band anymore, Animental will go back to what it was. It was pretty rad. Then performance and music became like almost an equal part of my life last year as visual, I guess. And that was pretty mind blowing.

MK: How did you find places to play on tour?
BS: Well, we did a little Myspace. We booked the US tour ourselves. We had toured the other two years so we had almost to the mid-west. The year before that we had gone all the way to Minneapolis. So we had that covered, it was just the west coast that we needed help on. We knew some people, we wrote random people, and we just pulled it together. We had a show every night. Only one got cancelled. We played over 30-something shows in the US. It was pretty hardcore. I guess because I live in NYC, and I live with Tom, a lot of people come through here which are my friends now but I guess I got introduced through Tom. So I think a lot of those people I feel like I can call and be like, "can you help me or do you know anybody who sets up shows?"

MK: Last night, you mentioned the community here and that sometimes you feel like people will come in and not necessarily be that close, you might know them a little bit, but through other people. Do you find a close community important in order to continue doing what you want to do creatively?
BS: I think that you can't do it unless you have it. I feel that it is essential. You can struggle as hard as you want by yourself, but it's a really lonely and long road to do it that way. I couldn't have done any of this without people helping me. That goes way back, I think when you're a kid you remember certain people in your life who helped you, but now I feel like I have so many people I can count on who would at least give me advice about something, or about things that I want to do and take my ideas seriously.

MK: That's all it is really, people taking you seriously?
BS: Not too seriously I hope, because I don't know if what I do is really good yet. It's interesting to see that happening for me. I've always assumed that smaller communities are easier to get by in. I think NYC's really rad because this network of people exists across the US because people who live here have moved from all those places. I think everyone's searching for someone to identify with on some level. Last night at our party there were a lot of people from Michigan, a lot of people from Boston, a lot of people who we didn't meet here but they live here now. It's definitely not as warm as a smaller town, but it that community exists. There are people that I can call and count on here.
There tends to be a lot more drive towards individualism, especially in the art world, in New York that is really persistent. I think that, like in a lot of places, everyone's just working really hard trying to make their ideas real.

MK: So this place that you live in now, Tom told me last night that you guys moved there four years ago?
BS: Yeah. Some things were in here and some things were built up. The only thing that was here was the kitchen sink and the bathroom. Everything else we built in. After I started hanging out with Tom and he took off to the west coast, they toured around the United States and then he said Colin and him were moving to NYC. I was living in another loft space at that time, so I was like, "okay, we should all live together."

MK: As far as sustainability for yourself, with your clothing and your lifestyle, how do are you able to maintain materials, get materials and get out there with your clothing?
BS: I've been really lucky I think with materials. Everywhere I go I'm always searching and looking at what's in the garbage and what people are throwing away. There's a place called Materials for the Arts. It's a huge warehouse where people donate stuff like fabric and paper, but you can only go if you're connected to a nonprofit. I tried to volunteer there so they would let me take stuff. I thought maybe I could do an exchange, but they wouldn't do it.

MK: Have you looked into applying for your own non-profit?
BS: Yeah, I looked into it. I still do a mobile arts car called Park Arts, but that's a whole other thing. I have the paper work to file. My friend Hannah, who is a school teacher and a photographer, goes there for her school, so in exchange I try to help her do stuff for her school. Sometimes I go with Hanna and that's helped me. I probably wouldn't have been able to make things the past couple of years if I didn't have Materials for the Arts. I really wish that they would let me set up a program so that artists working solo can exchange time there for materials. And, like I said, I found that knitting factory that went out of business. I find stuff off the street. I went to India and found some fabric there, towed it home. That was pretty neat experience. I took a bicycle rickshaw with my fabric and I was sitting on the top of it, holding on. It was a really far out experience.

MK: When was that?
BS: That was last year. No, it was the year before. Wow, it's going fast. My really good friend is Indian and she hadn't been back in a long time so I was her escort. She painted my chickens [on fabric]. I got to meet her family. I was blown away by India and I really want to go back. I was super glad after I went to India that I had done Animental, because I saw a lot of starvation there, people suffering. I've been to Guatemala and Central America, but India is really gives you perspective. When I start to worry about things sometimes because I don't have enough money, I'm like, "you are so dumb, you're fine. Sometimes I feel really privileged or lucky that I get to create as my profession."

Visit Barbara’s website: http://www.bobbiclothes.com
or her and Tom’s Etsy site: http://www.smetmool.etsy.com