Catching Waste with Waste is a project for venting my frustration at my lack of control over intangible wastes.
Water down the drain, exhaust out the back of my car- this project fulfills the desire to grasp a quantity, if only temporarily, using other physical waste products.

BREAD is Buck's Rock Earth Awareness Day, a series of events I design each summer with and for the 500+ teenage artists and arts educators at Buck's Rock Camp, in New Milford, Connecticut.

BREAD is, at it's core, a project about privilege. I was lucky enough to attend Buck's Rock as a young person for many summers. It was pivotal. I continue to use skills I learn there almost every day...both artistic and social. Because Buck's Rock teaches craft at a very high level, and because it uses a choice-based montessori model that involves lots of personal attention, the camp is extremely expensive. It is one of many great gifts I have been given that is inextricably linked to the circumstances I was born in to.

BREAD is an act of continuity. I remain engaged with Buck's Rock in order to work with young people who are growing up in a culture of privilege much akin to my own. Buck's Rock shaped my beliefs about how education functions, and I go there because it is a place where I think I can effectively educate affluent young people for social change.

BREAD is the exact fusing of artwork, education and sustainability advocacy. BREAD is also immensely frustrating- because what would turning young minds towards sustainability and justice look like? how could I tell if i'd done it? Probably I'll never know. Here are some projects that I've used to try.

Rebuttoning is a small and necessary act of straightening up. To Rebutton is to be pragmatically attentive.

Rebutton studios is Rachel Schragis's work for sale, in periodic partnership with Maker/Friends.

Rebutton Studios is the creation of wearable work that is conceptually aligned with my other experiments, big and small.

Rebutton is an opportunity to reinstate the value of small portions of the waste stream, to navigate money independently, and to participate in a craft culture that values individual handiwork over mass production. Rebutton reminds me to celebrate the beauty and functionality of making objects.

Rebutton wares is available at period open studios and crafts markets. For more information about sales, contact schragis.rachel@gmail.com

Rachel Schragis is a flow chart maker, accumulator, native new yorker, and educator. In addition to the endeavors on this site, Rachel works as a Teaching Artist with Wingspan Arts, Inc. She wholeheartedly welcomes any interested visitors to her studio Gowanus, Brooklyn.

You can contact Rachel at schragis.rachel@gmail.com.

This website was made for me by Jesse Spielman.

Besides being beautiful and way professional looking, the site is designed to grow and change with me. There's a whole second half of the site you don't see, a secret web universe for Jesse and I alone. Through this custom interface, I can endlessly restructure and retitle elements of my website. Jesse can too, actually- if you see any gross looking images of pie around... that's him playing a joke on me. Having this site has turned web self-representation from a stressful chore in to an activity that helps me sort and clarify my endeavors.

The site is a small fulfillment of my ideals for engaging the internet, which right now are mostly shaped by reading Jaron Lanier. The site interacts with corporate internet interests as little as possible, and exists as a representation of myself outside of social networking templates. Taking the time to make this site from scratch is an acknowledgement that the internet now functions in a way akin to physical space. My self-representation in cyberspace is worth engaging with actively, because it's as aesthetically ripe and politically fraught as my interaction with any physical sphere of society. We made this website slowly, collaboratively, and perhaps inefficiently. On top of all that, Jesse and my collaboration on this site rekindled a mostly-inert old friendship, and facilitated us learning from each other/hanging out in both the physical and digital worlds.

The site is hosted by Laughing Squid, an open source hosting operation that supports the art/tech blog of the same name. I did buy my domain name from godaddy, a "faceless megacompany" according to Jesse...but there's no pretending we can escape the things we don't totally believe in, right? I still use gmail.

So in short-This is awesome! Thanks Jesse.

In exchange for the site, I am now teaching Jesse to drive a car. Wish me luck.

the web presence/enterprises of people I care about:

objects:
Abigail Lloyd
Alison, Wilder
Brooklyn Butcher Blocks

events/performance:
Emma Alabaster
Claire Moodey
Hana Malia
Maxwell Cramer
School
Weird Chess

contact me at schragis.rachel@gmail.com