Creativity and a learning mindset are essential to succeed. Learn how these innovators put
these skills to use to become the best in their fields. Welcome to Innovators
to Know. Brought to you by Idemics today. I'm thrilled to introduce to
you Deborah Rappaport. Deborah, Welcome to the Idemics podcast. Thank you,
delighted to be here. Deborah Rappaport is a visual artist working with non traditional
and repurposed materials to create wearables that she often supports herself as Today, her
hats start with what she's called the ABC system, and I really want Debora
to explain that acronym to us as we go along here. But in every
way, she's been a visionary ahead of her time years ago, embracing the
idea that frugality is fun and constantly reinventing and curating her closet without being a
conspicuous consumer. Deborah was trendy and sustainable before it was trendy to be sustainable.
Her work is in a variety of museum collections, including the met in
New York, law Nelle, the Ilias Slalonis Museum in Athens, and the
Hermitage in Saint Petersburg among others. Deborah, we're so thrilled to have you
with us today. Thank you. Delighted. So, Deborah, I want
to take a quick look at this short clip which really talks about how you
got started doing what you do. Let's take a quick listen. This was
an old soul that was in the street, so I picked that up and
then I came back and in five minutes I made the halt. And again
it's just debris, Deborah, debris residuap before the floral embellishment in this is
just cut up toilet paper rolls. It would naturally curls and so it becomes
like a blossom. I just love it in the good garbage over there,
I want that piece of metal. I love that recycled materials speak to me
because they just show up in my life and it's like we have a relationship.
So something happens and they become like a friend, and it's like I
can't walk away from me. I can't let you go in the landfill.
I need to take you home and befriend you. Debra. How did you
begin creating style items from pieces that you found? And you've done this now
for so long. How has your process changed over time? Well, I
guess it really comes from curiosity and experimentation. And my mother was very creative
and she allowed us to make things, stay home and be creative, dress
up and none of that was considered frivolous because it was a creative act and
self expression and that was the most important thing. So I think it started
at age three, and then when I went to art school, I was
really interested in materials that I found that were available even before recycle and sustainability
mattered. And you know part of it. When you're in school, you
don't have a huge budget, so you can't go out, and you know,
unless you're a goldsmith, you're gonna get gold. And I just started
too. I went down to the local television station and they had old,
thick videotape then, and I asked for reels of that and I started crocheting
with that because I come from a textile background. Yeah, so I did
weaving and crocheting and knitting in macromay and other forms of nodding. And you
not thought from your mother and grandmother, well a little bit and Nana Tortois
knitting, okay, you know, And even though I was left handed.
Nana said, I can't teach you knitting your left handed. I said,
but Nana, you knit were two hey hands. Yeah. So I picked
up my sisters and I said, okay, Nana helped me. So it
just went off from there. Yeah, you know, some materials was part
of it. Process was part of it. Hands on was always part of
it. We loved being in the kitchen and cooking, so we loved washing
vegetables and cleaning them. Yeah, and so it was all It's all about
the hands, you know. Yeah, and being left handed. My hands
were important to me. Yeah, sort of the tactile experience of working with
materials of different kinds totally, totally. And how did that evolve for you
over time? You talked about while being in art school using the sold videotape
that really you started to crochet and kind of make materials. Whiz. How
has that evolved over time for you? Well, I still am attracted to
unusual things that are just showing up. Like in the seventies, I came
back to New York. I was living in California. I came back for
a visit and I stayed a few months, and I started finding found metal
in the streets, and I started putting that together into wearables, just like
what I'm wearing here, only this is a current one. Yeah, And
I did that all through the nineties, and then cars been made out of
plastics, so there was very little metal to be found. Lately, I'm
finding more, and I'm trained by partner and he comes home every day with
at least two pieces. And then you know, it was just other things,
just old textiles, old rope, paper chord. I love paper chord
because I couldn't unply it and make it flat, keep it, keep it
a linear element, and anything else that just seems to show up for some
reason. I find things and they speak to me. So it's about the
relationship. It's not forcing it. It's like I can't walk by and not
pick that up and take it home and have some kind of an agreement and
arrangement with it. Enough what you said in terms of that these materials speak
to you because on the one hand, they're a symbol of our society right
at any given time, like what are we throwing away as a society and
a community. And at the same time, there's this really personal affinity and
connection that you develop with these objects. That really give them the life and
meaning that they then go on to have. Whether it's in the form of
a necklace or a work of art that you may create, it's fantastic,
fantastic. I want to take a quick look at this clip from a Ted
talk that Deborah did. Let's take a quick listen. Allow me to introduce
one of the first women that I ever photographed, Deba Rappaport. She is
a perfect example of someone who is aging with vitality. I was a very
creative child. My sister and I love to dress up. Instead of dolls,
we would dress ourselves up. This was encouraged by my mother and my
grandmother because they could see us develop and discover an experiment finding creative solutions throughout
life. I used that still today as a way of solving issues. As
a child, I was a very intense, shy, an extremely big warrior,
so much so that my father would say to me, I think I
will hire you to worry for me. Creativity was my way out. I
felt that with creativity there are no rules, and without rules, there is
no fear. We felt safe and we felt that there was no judgment.
School didn't always feel that way. My mother was a maverick and a seeker,
and we became strict vegetarians in the late nineteen forties, so she would
keep us home for wellness days because we were never sick, and this was
an opportunity to go museuming, go antiquing, and make art. Boy was
she ahead of her time, being so shy and independent. I knew I
had to structure my own life, but how I wanted to stay home while
my older, very beautiful, sophisticated sister was out on the town. I
wanted to stay home, dress up, dress the dog, and invent outfits
that would embellish and camouflage and be tenting over my less than perfect teenage body.
I called this ABC's Assembling, building and Constructing. Debora talked at your
ted talk about how your creativity was fostered as a child. You mentioned it
in terms of your mother and grandmother, and how we need to do the
same for future generations. In some ways, we've failed to do that as
a society, right We I think started with industrialization and this idea that people
had to become quite specialized and sort of get into a track and stay on
that track for their whole careers and minds, and we've almost sort of sucked
the creativity out of work and professional engagement. And it's reflected, I think
in the degree of dissatisfaction that people feel with the work that they do,
that they don't feel they're fulfilling their sense of purpose. Tend us a little
about that. Well, starting with the educational system, I think a lot
of schools are cutting out the art programs and movement. Now they beginning to
come back because they recognize the importance, especially if children are under privileged,
and they can't do that as an after school activity because children have to create.
And I found everything was okay until they went to first grade, and
then suddenly intimidation stepped in and it's like, no, that's not the way
you do that, that's not the way you draw that. All of these
rules and so one of my favorite quotes that I say is, with this
creativity there are no rules. Where there are no rules, there is no
fear. It's the rules that just break you down, freeze you, and
intimidate you. So young children are totally fearless, and we have to keep
that active play and that youthfulness and say, well, you know, it's
not brain surgery. I can't make a mistake, so it's wrong. You
know. Oftentimes when I teach a workshop, we'll start out and make a
very simple collage piece of paper, a couple images past, and then I
say, okay, we're going to tear it in half, tear it and
half. My chef, dever, you're gonna make me destroy it and tear
it in half. Yes, And if you tear it in half, give
half of it to the person sitting next to you, and now take the
other half. Do something with that. And then I say, okay,
now we're warmed up. Now we're ready to start. Because nothing is that
precious. Yes. And when you make a piece of art and you don't
love it, you put it aside for a while, You look at it.
In a few days, it looks different, maybe you take a part
of it, turn it upside down, and suddenly it's a brand new thing.
That that's inspirational. And that's the creative process. It's a process,
and you can't be creative without making a mess. I have another story.
My grandpa, Russian Jews, would come into my sister and I would go
stay over and we'd go to the sewing machine and we take out the button
draw and we dump it in the living room floor and start to play.
And Grandpa would say, oh, all right, they're making a mess,
and Grandma would say, be quiet, they're being creative. And that runs
through every cell in my body, you know, And God bless Grandma,
absolutely, God Fessor. Indeed, how do you feel, Deborah, You've
been doing this for a very long time at this point, how do you
feel your work impacts the next generation? And so many are now present right
and have had experiences of your work or had an opportunity to be in workshops
with you. Tell us how you feel that impacts them. Well, I
have like more twenty five thirty year old friends than I have friends my age,
and I just love that opportunity. And they are now aware of the
state of the planet, so they are into permaculture and recycling and and all
of that. Yes, and then when we meet up, we're on the
same page in a way, and I just encourage them based that I've been
doing this fifty five almost sixty years and it didn't have a title or a
real purpose other than it worked for me. So I am seeing the young
people very very intrigued and very committed to this movement and they're doing great things.
I'm so proud of them. It's here to stay. Yeah, yeah,
and they're taking it to another level totally. Yeah. As you look
back on your career, what were the difficult moments? Well, what were
some of the challenges that you dealt with. Well, there's always a challenge
of how am I going to make a living? Yes, you know.
And I did teach at the University of California, Davis for eight years,
and it was a tenured job and I loved it, and I loved my
faculty. I'm still friends with all of them if they're alive. But there
was something about academia that just didn't resonate with me. It was a little
political, and I found myself having headach and throwing up on my way home,
and I said, there's something wrong with this picture. So I said,
I've got to leave, and of course everybody thought I'd lost my mind.
So I took a year's leave of absence. And at that point I
was collaborating with two other women artists, and we were doing performance art also
around food and healing and textiles and women's issues. It was the middle age
seventies, and then I went back and I asked my chairperson. I said,
well, is it possible for me to come back and teach collaboratively?
And he said, well, we don't do that here, and I said,
well then I have to say farewell. So then I divorced my husband
came back to New York, and I said, what am I going to
do? I was still making artwork, exhibiting, selling some but how was
I going to pay the rent? Yeah, And of course that's always an
issue. And that's one of the reasons I never wanted to have children,
because I knew it would be hard enough to take care of myself, let
alone an additional appendage. And and then my sister and I started a catering
business and we catered the galleries and the craft museum and that circle of friends.
And then shortly after that, I started a flower business with a friend
who happened to also be a weaver, and we did that for sixteen years.
And it was very similar to being a weaver because it was colored texture
placement, and she was very savvy and horticulture, so she taught me that
end. And we were so well known in the flower market and all over
because we were over the top and we were older already. I was in
my fifties, she was almost in her sixties. And we loved it until
we were exhausted and couldn't deal with it anymore. Because everybody thinks it's the
most glamorous business, but it's hard work. It's hard work, very hard
money business is really hard work, yeah, and getting away from and physical
as well, slapping the plants and the water and the buckets and changing and
anyway. So you know, I figured out start a business. I wanted
to be something I can relate to ye and to open a flower shop,
And I said flowers yes, shop no, because I knew how difficult it
would be to have a retail space. You know, then you have to
start selling greening cards and daisiesn't isn't it? So we just kept it.
It was called institute and we worked on site only fantastic. It is sends
you what you've described in terms of leaving U, see Davis, and the
reason you left you, see Davis, purely you were seeking collaboration in the
two things you did after that, both with your sister as well as with
your friend. And collaborations are they fuel our creativity, right, And to
your point earlier in your workshops where you want an interaction and engagement and collaboration
among two participants so that they interact with but also are able to key off
each other's work. How in your creative work with the Rat's majewelry that you
make, has that collaboration piece being a factor or less of a factor there?
Well, collaboration is a great word because you can really learn from each
other. There can be competition, of course, but one aspect I see
as collaboration is when you have things that are wearable. You're walking down the
street and people stop and talk to you, and so it's immediate inspiration on
that level, again without intimidation, or I'm in a workshop, you know
what am I going to do? Am I going to succeed? And all
that? Yeah, And Ari said from Advanced Style years ago, said oh,
well, you really have to do e commerce. This was years ago.
And I said, oh no, Ari, I'm not going to do
e commerce. I'm just going to do me commerce. Walk the streets.
If people stop me, I'll give out cards. Anybody's welcome to come over
and look at what I have or share the process. And I made so
many friends over the years, especially through Facebook and Instagram. Yeah, people
all over the world that I visit, they come, you know, everybody
comes to New York. So the collaboration continues and in workshops again because everything
I teach is so low tech, nobody is panic struck or intimidated by it.
You know, we work with toilet paper rolls, which we make the
cuffs, the earrings are made from toilet paper rolls. You know, other
bracelets that are made from the paper towels, like the hats, which I
didn't bring any And so it's some of the work that the students do because
it's so excited, it just even outshines my work. So again it's a
collaboration where I'm stimulated. I benefit from it as well as you know,
the back of the forth has them. Yeah, what's the most in terms
of demographic that you love working with the most? What is that age group
really, either like twenty thirty or eighty ninety Okay, okay, because again
there's a hunger, yes there, yes, So it seems to be that
they're very, very open, fantastic. Yeah, So let's shift gears a
little bit, Debra, as you look back, what role has coaching at
because we're coaching company ideas and mentorship played in your life. You know,
we're big believers in the importance of and the two are so in our linked
of creativity and learning that as we go through our lives and careers, we're
constantly in a process of learning. And we look actively as individuals for ways
to learn. And some of those are you know, sort of independent ways
through reading and watching and creating. Some of those are collaborative through working with
other people, working with a coach, etc. So what would you say
the role of coaching and mentorship has been for you? I think it's like
everything like life itself. It's like, Um, you're always sharing, you're
always answering questions, you're always asking questions. Um, how else do we
learn? And trial and error, experimentation, Yeah, Um to me that
that's that's the greatest. You know, to try to be fearless and try
on new hats all the time, yes, And a proposed to that.
People say, oh, I can't wear hats. I don't look good in
hats, And I'd say, well, let's just try one on. And
the menu you put a hat on, there's what we call hattitude. Something
changes in the personality and people are suddenly yeah, oh you know, and
it may not be the perfect hat. Say you try a different one,
you try it forward, you try it back, hair out, hair in.
You know again, it's not brain surgery. Let's just get back to
playing. Yes, you know, it's a creative process. And are there
individuals that you field were particularly influential in your revolution? Looking back, there
are a few designers, you know, people say, who's your favorite Hollywood
star? Um, oh god, I just had her name earlier. Now
god, it'll come, no worries. She's one of the voice that was
in the New Pinocchia. Oh good, all right, she's Scottish. Okay,
it'll come to me. Yeah. Um, of course. I I
have had a couple of professors who were incredibly influential, and other artists friends
who you know, I learned from them or we learned together. Um.
You know, I think living in a city twelve, living in a city
like New York with this sum much stimulation, you know, you're learning every
day. Your eyes are open and you're taking in and of course travel,
yes, you know, especially going to places like Turkey, India, South
America, you know where the cultures are so completely different than our rigid and
western culture totally. So last question, Deborah, what overall message would you
like to convey as an ambassador for the Advanced Style movement and maybe to our
audience actually, because we didn't talk about this, I'd love you to explain
in your own words, both the Advanced Style movement as well as your ABC
method. Oh okay, yeah, So Advanced Style started in two thousand and
eight. And I met Ari Sethko in two thousand and nine. Yeah,
And he was working at the New Museum, managing the bookstore. And I
walked in. It was a rainy day. I checked my umbrella, my
raincoat, and he runs up to me and says, oh, can I
take your picture? I'd take photographs of women over sixty And I said,
how do you know I'm over sixty? And then he said, oh,
but I forgot my cameras, so he borrowed somebody's cell phone. They existed
already, and then I whipped out my card and I said, well,
why don't you come over. I'll dress up, I'll undress, and I'll
make you a vegetarian lunch. So I didn't hear from him. Five days
later I called him. He came over, we spent the whole day together,
and the rest of his history and eventually he moved to la with his
husband. But I'm still like his New York mom. And so the whole
advanced style thing was really it was encouraged by his grandmother who had just passed
away, who was a brilliant librarian and very creative. And Ari feels like
he learned everything about the creative process through Grandma again. And so when he
came to New York, he had never picked up a camera, and suddenly
he saw all these incredible women and he said, I have to do something
about this. And blogs were just happening. So he started a blog,
and you know, he got in walking the streets of the New York Madison
Avenue, Park Avenue, that the West Village, Harlem. You know,
it's all day long, this you know, it doesn't stop, yea.
And so he said, now what do I do with all this? And
so he started doing a couple of videos and then he met Lina Pleo Plaite.
She was a Barisa and she said, I want to work with you
and she said, I'm a video artist and they were both in their twenties.
Yeah, so they hooked up and said, okay, we'll try it.
We'll do a couple of videos of the women and see where that goes.
And so Lena came over to my house and she's from Lithuania. My
father was from Lithuania, so I said, okay, I'll be your Lithuanian
mother in New York. So we did videos, and the videos took off,
and that's when they decided, Okay, we're gonna go the next step
and do a film. And so Lena was the cinematographer and the editor and
the film is still out there playing. And in fact, we just just
two weeks ago did a piece on The Today Show about the band style.
Ari flew in special and three of us women did our stick. How great
is that? And ten us maybe in closing about the ABC system, Yeah,
I think that's so powerful in terms of like a key takeaway for our
listeners to kind of incorporate into their own lives. Well, when I started
back in the sixties building forms for the body, I needed to come up
with the way that I could explain them. And so ABC to me was
assembling, building and constructing, using texture and color and using the body as
an armature upon which to build these forms because they you know, they weren't
going to be sewn or whatever. They were constructed and I was building.
And so today I still used my ABC's even when I get dressed. What
am I applying on my body? And how am I building it? And
how am I constructing it? And it's just very simple to you know.
And when I get up in the morning, it's like a morning meditation.
It's who am I today? How do I feel? And how do I
want to express myself? And then it's just intuitive how I just open the
closet and pull things or I get a vision and I just pull it together
and that's it. I love that. That's a wonderful thought to leave our
distance with a morning meditation date out of BBC. Yeah, Debor, thank
you so much for joining us today. You're very welcome, my pleasure.
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