And now for some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent! I was con­tacted out of the wild blue yes­ter­day by new sus­tain­able startup fash­ion com­pany VIDA based out of San Fran­cisco. The VIDA staff had seen my work and were eager to invite me to design some new scarves and silk shirts for their lineup from my paint­ings. When I heard the story of the com­pany, and who will ben­e­fit, I couldn’t resist!

VIDA is a global part­ner­ship of cre­ators, pair­ing design­ers from around the world with mak­ers in Pak­istan and India in accor­dance with high eth­i­cal stan­dards, to cre­ate orig­i­nal, beau­ti­ful prod­ucts.  And the best part is that using part of pro­ceeds from the sales of the prod­ucts, VIDA cre­ates lit­er­acy pro­grams for the mak­ers, so that they have oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn read­ing, writ­ing and basic math that they would not oth­er­wise have.

More than any­thing, I am thrilled when my work pro­vides sup­port, lit­er­acy and edu­ca­tional pro­grams and sup­port for oth­ers. VIDA has a beau­ti­ful plan that is just up my alley, col­laps­ing the dis­tance between mak­ers and artists/designers across the globe. Have a look at The VIDA story and I’m sure you’ll see why I was so excited (and you who know me, know I don’t get this enthusiastic1). Good things can hap­pen in the world.

Such a won­der­ful idea, mar­ry­ing tech­nol­ogy, artists and mak­ers from across the globe. An oppor­tu­nity to make my paint into wear­able, beau­ti­ful prod­ucts, in a sus­tain­able way? Uh huh…I’m totally in. Sign me up…get me a ticket….etc. etc.

I was so excited, I couldn’t decide which paint­ings to go with, but decided on sev­eral strong images that I would wear — and I’m picky! I have a weak­ness for beau­ti­ful scarves, espe­cially since being diag­nosed with breast can­cer. (I’m clear now…but I’ve become a bit of a shawl/scarf maniac in the absence of breasts.) I might use some of the scarves to make some pil­lows and cur­tains for the stu­dio. Lots of cre­ative ideas swirling around in my head.

There are now four prod­ucts up on the site, and if the pre-orders sell ONLY within the next 14 days, VIDA will make the prod­ucts. (As extra entice­ment, VIDA is offer­ing the coupon code VOICES for 25% off of any pre­orders — which makes these 100% modal scarves incred­i­bly rea­son­able and WOWSER for the silk shirts!) AND if you order by the end of this month, they have a spe­cial on inter­na­tional ship­ping for only $5 USD! (Usu­ally it’s $35, so this is a huge sav­ings oppor­tu­nity to jump on board if you see some­thing you like).

Here are the images I chose.

Emer­gence

Detail from“Emergence” ©2015 Jan­ice Tan­ton. Oil on linen. 36x48 (Pri­vate Collection)

Emer­gence will be recre­ated as a beau­ti­ful 100% Modal scarf. The beauty of our forests in Haida Gwaii and British Colum­bia are the inspi­ra­tion for Emer­gence. So much life and the clar­ity of the coastal rain forests are an inspi­ra­tion to me, redefin­ing the resur­gence of life, primeval forests and the sea from whence we emerged.

This scarf is made out of 100% Micro­Modal® by Lenz­ing, a lux­u­ri­ously soft botanic silk fab­ric made out of Euro­pean beech­wood. Because of modal’s botanic ori­gin, it is par­tic­u­larly eco-friendly and its fine­ness is com­pa­ra­ble to that of nat­ural silk. Micro­Modal® offers a soft, beau­ti­ful sheen, with col­ors that are bright and vibrant.

The com­pletely nat­ural fiber of this scarf is made in a fully inte­grated facil­ity in Aus­tria, opti­mized for pro­duc­tion syn­er­gies and energy con­ser­va­tion by using eco-friendly pro­duc­tion processes. The fab­ric is woven in a small fac­tory in Pak­istan. VIDA col­lab­o­rates with the owner and work­ers of this fac­tory to pro­duce the per­fect thread-count and weave for opti­mal soft­ness and sheen.

AND …these scarves are huge! They are more like shawls. Because of the hand­made process, they range in size from 24.5” – 25”  x 76” –77. Snug up with the rainforest!

Emer­gence Modal Scarf

Scarves are sold for $40 USD but use the coupon code VOICES to receive 25% OFF any pre­orders (only $30 for this!)…and again, there’s a spe­cial $5 USD on inter­na­tional ship­ping only until the end of this month (Feb­ru­ary 2015).

Nitawahsin — Our Land

“Nitawahsin” ©2014 Jan­ice Tan­ton. Oil on linen panel.

This piece is titled, “Nitawahsin” which means “Our Land” in Black­foot. It is a strong, active piece with a uni­fied Anders Zorn palette, all of the colours of the med­i­cine wheel are in this piece and that makes it a strong con­tender for wear­able art. Good med­i­cine in this piece. I chose to have it repro­duced as a Modal scarf and a beau­ti­ful silk top.

And here is the gor­geous silk top of Nitawahsin — Our Land.

Siz­ing Chart for the silk tops are as fol­lows.
Note: tops fit true to size but a drapey cut — please size down if you pre­fer a snug fit.
Point of Mea­sure­ments
Small: Bust — 32″, Hips “38” (US Size 0–2)
Medium: Bust — 34″, Hips “39” (US Size 4–6)
Large: Bust — 38″, Hips 40″ (US Size 8–10)

Blue Grass Dancers

As the fourth design, I chose Blue Grass Dancers for some dear women friends and fam­ily in my life who inspired me through my ill­ness, sup­ported our fam­ily and kept us all together. These heal­ing, danc­ing colours were designed to lift and soothe through the tough­est of times. This piece was first painted for my friend and singer/songwriter Julia Lynx, as part of the launch and design for her new album “Wild Patience”.

Blue Grass Dancers — ©2015 Jan­ice Tan­ton. Oil on linen.

And here is the beau­ti­ful silk top by VIDA Voices. A clas­sic, I think, designed with my good friends in my heart.

I’m over the moon to intro­duce this col­lec­tion to you — sim­ply click here to buy any one (or more!) of these scarves and lucious silk shirts, and don’t for­get to include coupon code VOICES to get 25% off (that’s just $30 for each of these lovely scarves! and $48.75 for a silk shirt! NO mid­dle man :). And the juicy, juicy, best part — right now, VIDA ships inter­na­tion­ally, for only $5 until the end of this month. That’s a $30 sav­ings! Folks from all over the world can pur­chase, and help give back. But remem­ber, pre-order only lasts for 2 weeks from today. Help me to spread the word by shar­ing this post with your friends and fam­ily through social media or in per­son. Right then….this is more ram­bling than I’ve done in months. Just get on the site and order some­thing for a friend or fam­ily member…and don’t for­get your­self, because you’re worth it!

Enjoy, my friends. (I can’t wait to cud­dle up in a scarf/shawl!)

MORE ABOUT VIDA::

Fash­ion­ista Mag­a­zine — “Meet Vida, a Socially Respon­si­ble E-Commerce Site Backed by Google

Upstart Busi­ness Jour­nal — “Microsoft Xbox alum’s new game is VIDA: high-tech fash­ion that does good”

More Awe­some Press on VIDA