Burning Man Trend Report 2017

Time flies so fast!

Annmarie soaking in the morning light and marveling at all the freakily dressed wonders around her.

I feel like it was only yesterday I quit the soul- sucking, high end, minimum wage, retail, north beach, sales job...
to seek greater things.
​
I designed a line of mens suits,
and disembarked
​
​for Burning Man! 

last year's report

Last Year's Collection

Here we 
have arrived

​at ROUND 2!

​My second Burn
​
"Ritual 2017" 
​
(notice Annmarie sleeping on two chairs in the distance because this is the time of day where her tent in engulfed in sun) 

Here the fellas gaze upon the heavens on that fateful tutu Tuesday. 

This year
​
1 I didn't have to pay 200 over the ticket price, like last year.
2 I luckily love my job, and they love me enough to let me take a vacation. or in this case:

a one week,
spiritual,
social,
and uplifting recess

​in the desert.

Even some of the parents
(I work as an after school sewing/costuming/acting teacher)
were super stoked that I got a chance to go.
​They sent me off with well wishes and it was quite swell. 

I got myself one of them low income tickets.

So I paid $207 not $600 like I did in 2016, 
​last year, I scored my ticket from 1st BM ticket on craigslist. I was really set on going ^_^
​

Annmarie wears her coveted pink fluffy knit coast and her dress from the 8th grade graduation dance. Still cute. She got it as Ross! 
​

​It's amazing that Burning Man helps all walks of life

​(not just the richies)

​through it's gates,

 
our government, cities, state, and country need to learn from this
fabulous,
generous
and inclusive
​organization.

 We need to bring everyone together,
not price them away. 

I would not be able to afford burning man if it weren't for
​their low income ticket program. 

Here we are August 2017!
​
​The gorgeous
Angela Weygandt
wearing Casually Uncommon

From our Fall  2017 "The Headlands" Collection.
She got her hands on this twizzly, turtle necked, sheer number before the photoshoot/music video was even released. 
I'm wearing some festival wear similar to those I sold at
How Weird, and Haight Street Faire and Oakland's First Friday this Summer.

The top is sourced from vintage fabric my grandma just had in a box for ages. The skirt is of a uni-size wrap style, with the most regal psychedelic print you ever did see.

I'm wearing my "Yaaar!" pirate Tee on my head soaked to perfection in ice garlic water
​(not intentional, the garlic exploded in our cooler).

​I pretty much could only survive if I had some sort of soaking wet article of clothing on me.  

Here we are posing with Frankel, one of my baaaast friends. 
The only homie from vallejo who's burning man ready!

Angela and I tend to get dressed up from time to time.
​Here we are at SF's Bay to Breakers and Oakland's First Friday.
​
Here we are with the amazing artists Phoebe Sherman! The feminist curator of Girl Gang, this amazing gathering of artist women.
​

like her on facebook

view her website

​But let's get back to Burning Man!

So body paint, once again, became my best friend.
I left my breast tape perfectly in a pocket that I didn't check, so I couldn't rep my custom pasties...

But!

I did borrow some sweet shamrock and rainbow star pasties
from our sweet snarkasaur (snarky dinosaur) neighbor. ​

Go Pro life.

Coppertone body Rainbow pube life!

This year I opted for the metallic copper body paint
​from Kryolan SF.

I hand sewed a rainbow faux fur bikini bottom and pretened the fluff was my pubic hair.

I wore my acid green wig, Nick's glasses and my green
"Robin the Hood" hat. 

Angela wore her purple bikini top

and
​
a fully tasseled black skirt from CrossRoads.  

By the way!!!
​
This is a glimpse of the incredible
​
SHADE STRUCTURE
our camp mate randomly just designed and built for us! 

A protection from sun and dust winds. ​

Cause Grrrrrrrl, was it DUSTY!

This desert was formed on a prehistoric lake.
The dust is so fine,
imagine walking through flour.
It isn't good for you skin, so if you wear sandals, you MUST vinegar/water scrub your feet twice a day, otherwise your skin is going to dry out to a whole new level of dry death. 
Also you must have a face mask and eyewear on you at all times, because the dust
​will blow up in storms/cyclone/tornado surprises. 

But sometimes the dust was barely there!

Here we are in front of Angie Chang's beautiful, massive art installation.

'Shortly after the last Burn, this year’s theme, “Radical Ritual,” was announced. Angie knew right away that she wanted to bring a Daruma to the playa for BRC Citizens to interact with, and recruited her friends and fellow Burners'

Learn More This Daruma

Next we scaled the 100 ft penguin. 

Here's a gem from one of our 15 disposable cameras. 
We were the last to climb this Flamingo,
because it was our campmate's birthday.
​

Speaking of!
We camped in the presence of a world famous House DJ!
​
Jennifer Taylor

The gorgeous, talented, googly eye ball obsessed gem and she DJ-ed in this Giant Igloo.

Jennifer on Soundcloud

It's the hardest we danced all week!

Me and Nat getting warmed up before the crowd arrived!

​Back to the Penguin!

The view from the mighty penguin.

Look closer, you can see the crew!

Jeremy, Brian, Nick and Andrew in the flesh!!!

The crew below

The crew up top! I didn't take this photo,
​ the flamingo builder man did. 
​

Here we are before the windy/loud/scary/fun dust storm hit. 

At Camp UnFuckYourBurn, clearly.

This was a delightful camp with a giant vagina you could push yourself out through, kind of like Jim Carey and the rhino. 
​

They also have Bocci, which I'm secretly really good at. 

Flawless execution!

Good form!

This was inside the "uterus" dome.
It symbolized a womb, with comfy cushions and such,
the vagina you can burst out of.
This sperm shaped baby symbolizes a giant fetus.

The best thing about our camp is that Jenn loves googily eyes the proper amount.

Her concoctions!
The yurts that are always watching...
I left the timestamp on because I didn't want to cut off the eye. 

    Now!                              For!   

​THE MAN!

BurningHe exploded beautifully in an epic mushroom shape
on Saturday evening.
All the art cars,
and massive cranes
gathered round to watch the man and his massive pagoda
go up in flames.

We walked around the entire circle listening to all the sounds and gazing in awe of all the insane LED displays.

It was lovely. ​

Unfortunately... 
There was a man who dove into the flames this year.
He did not survive.
I'm not going to make him more famous than he already is,
there's footage of his death all over the internet and testimonials from his family if you'd like to search.

Burning Man is a highly spiritual place where reincarnation and different dimension adventuring is a common theme.
It's not surprising that someone would symbolically want to
"be the burning man"
We've got to listen to our friends and pay attention to any signs.
If you, or anyone you know needs help,
there are resources available.
See the Site below.  

Suicide prevention lifeline

​On a lighter note!

Annmaire wearing her thai head peice that you can't see, a bike light hooked to some elastic as a headlamp, a m&m's tube she got at outsidelands, and her dress from Halloween 2009. 
Nick wears his Han solo vest and the totems he made/received on the playa this year.
​

Here goes my best bud, Nick Frankel. The Libertarian, gun loving, german shepard puppy daddy, survivalist.

The only one of the Vallejo crew to every step foot at burning man, but
​NEXT YEAR THAT CHANGES!!!!

Next year, we MUST get these ones out here!
THAT'S RIGHT ALI, DEVIN, AND MICHAEL!!! ALSO JENNY!
​

Watch the video below to witness the magic that is my favorite art installation this year!
​

MORE BEAUTIFUL THINGS!

I saw her walking down the playa on Wednesday Morning.
A girl with a microphone headset walks behind her and they amplify her so the puppet has a voice. 

She spoke about how interesting this place was and how many friends she's making.
​It was surreal.

One of the hottest places we happened upon was a room where they shot fire down form the ceiling.
My camera couldn't capture the pulsating flame hills,
but!
If you look at the bottom center of this shot, where Frankel's tattoo is, you can see a reflection of the flame fromt he glass of my camera.
PRETTY SWEET!

Also, this was a fine moment for Frankel because he loves and fees a deeply primal connection to fire.

​

Burning Man awakes the caveman/survivalist in Nick Frnankel!

​

Unofficial

"1st Sunrise"
​
Morning Photoshoot!
​

JEREMY

BRIAN AND ANDREW

ANNMARIE

FRANKEL

ANDREW, JENN AND FRANKEL

JENN AND ANDREW



<3
<3
<3



​

And now for the temple!

The most serious and emotional places of Black Rock City..
​

Here we see Brian is his sarong wrap. Gazing upon everyone's dedications.

This beautiful structure gets burned sunday night and is a silent and powerful burn to experience. 

#JojojStriker


#JaquarriusHolland



#AlphonzaWatson



#KenneMcFadden

​ 
#SAYHERNAME
​
Learn more about this uplifting movement

Say Her Name

The temle this year was beautiful as ever. I didn't put any friends in here this year. Instead a read and connected with numerous tales of loss. 

This was my favorite burn of the weekenend. Just sat on the ground in silence as people all around me sobbed at different frequencies. 

It was impossible not to cry too!

a cummunal cry is very uniting, let me tell you. 

Then people shouted random love or sorrow towards their lost ones.

It was like a massive funeral, but more positive. 

So that's this years BM Trend Report!
I'm going to compile our documentary style footage into a

"Real Sparkle Ponies of Black Rock City"

​Reality Show. 

It will air this winter, so stay tuned!
​I'll see everyone at Burning Man's Decompression In SF October 14th!