On the VMAs, Chris Hansen, Milan Fashion Week

Lauren Garroni (0:04)

I spent $40,000 on shoes.

Fashion has changed. Hi, I'm Lauren Garroni.

Chelsea Fairless (0:25)

And I'm Chelsea Fairless.

Lauren Garroni (0:27)

And welcome back to the Every Outfit Podcast, Chelsea, how are you doing?

Chelsea Fairless (0:31)

I'm good. Happy to be home.

Lauren Garroni (0:33)

That's right. You went up to Humboldt this past weekend. I know a little bit of what went on only because I saw on Instagram that you did some outdoor art, let's say.

Chelsea Fairless (0:46)

Yeah, I visited my parents in Northern California, and maybe a week before my trip, my mom called me and was like, I have a project that I need you to help me with. Normally, when she says something like that, it's like you have to help me clean out the garage or something to that effect.

This time, it was like, you have to help me create this piece of land art. Basically, she has been driving by this massive redwood log. I guess some redwood tree was deemed unsafe by the county, so they chopped part of it off and left it by the side of the road.

Lauren Garroni (1:22)

Why? They took most of the tree with them and then left this hunk of redwood.

Chelsea Fairless (1:28)

I have no idea why, but apparently, my mom has been driving by this log every single day and has harbored these deep fantasies about turning it into a Cheshire Cat.

Lauren Garroni (1:38)

I don't want to be conspiratorial, but do you think your mother paid the guys that cut the redwood down to leave that chunk of redwood so she could make this Cheshire Cat land art?

Chelsea Fairless (1:51)

I do not think that is likely. But yes, she had this whole plan. She did a whole study, basically, a mock-up on a smaller log of what she wanted to do.

And she basically, what?

Lauren Garroni (2:05)

This is sounding very familiar.

Chelsea Fairless (2:08)

This is where I get it from?

Lauren Garroni (2:09)

Yeah, this is your mother's version of a deck. She's like, I made a miniature Cheshire Cat. This is what we're going to do.

Chelsea Fairless (2:16)

Totally. And basically what she did is she cut strips of moss and wrapped them around the log to create the striped effect that the Cheshire Cat is known for. And then to make the face, she basically used reflective tape to create the teeth and then those circular reflective things to create the eyes.

Lauren Garroni (2:37)

No offense, but it seems like your mom had quite the plan. What did she need you for exactly?

Chelsea Fairless (2:42)

She needed my aunt and I to help recreate this on the actual log because the log was huge, Lauren. The log was the size of this room. I don't know if it really comes across in photographs, but it was a massive, massive log. We basically had to take these strips of moss, which we gathered from the forest and use staple guns to staple them to the log. Then I made the ears out of sticks basically, sticks and moss. I truly felt like I was one of the girls from Yellow Jackets.

It seems like something they would do out in the wilderness.

Lauren Garroni (3:15)

More as a sacrifice, but yeah, this was to bring a smile, I assume, to people driving by it day in and day out.

Chelsea Fairless (3:23)

Yeah, she wanted to do it for children in the neighborhood, which is funny because when the sun goes down, when you just see the reflective eyes and the teeth, it's actually terrifying.

Lauren Garroni (3:35)

No offense to your lovely mother, but seeing the photo in daylight, it's a little spooky.

Chelsea Fairless (3:42)

But I was very happy to help her execute her vision. It's fun doing a creative project like that, that is just for fun, that has no stakes, that's just for the love of doing it.

Lauren Garroni (3:54)

Is this referencing that we have monetized every hobby we've ever had, essentially?

Chelsea Fairless (3:59)

Yeah, and it's stupid to do that. And that's why land art is so beautiful. It's so ephemeral and so cool. And my mom doesn't typically do stuff like this, because she is a gardener, which I guess is its own form of land art when you think about it. But she's always been a creative person. She's always wrote poetry. She actually put together a program of Mary Oliver poems at her local Unitarian Church a couple of years ago that seemed very cool. So she's always doing something fun and creative, which I admire her for.

Lauren Garroni (4:31)