Tiempo de Zafra
The holistic beauty of the beaches, like the life of most artists, like the environment of Santo Domingo, is a patchwork crafted with intention – the intention to survive and the intention to realize what was once just a dream.
“I used to dream of doing art, and I decided to do it by trying to do it. The trying allowed me to get out of the habit of not seeing my process as art. The process is the syllables and sounds that make up the language of art. It’s a language to make us feel things. It’s action to create value.” Edgar Garrido often walks on this beach about an hour and a half from where he was born in La Romana to escape the studio. The dream is more challenging to escape. As Edgar absorbs the sound of the breeze through the palms and the smell of the Flor de Mantequilla draping down from the cliffs, he also absorbs the color story of the environment. The flamboyant orange, the lush green, the vibrant blue, and the khaki sands follow him home to the workman’s bench, as does the vision of plastic bottles bobbing up and down in the water. With that inspiration and a dedicated team, Tiempo de Zafra creates one-of-a-kind garments that prize function and fashion equally. “Everything made goes out with a piece of the DR. It’s our fabric, our color, a vision to activate our community to meet our needs”.
Edgar finds himself in the middle of things and works his way out of them as a creative designer at the nexus of art and fashion. Still, our world is increasingly faced with a climate crisis that individuals cannot work out, nor can the industries that have contributed significantly. It is difficult for most people to grapple with the fact that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, modern humans will continue to experience drastic changes in the environments where we conduct our lives and relationships as the impact of climate change continues to compound. The effects caused by climate change, including declining mental health and hopelessness, depend on the collective action humans take as we move forward into the future.
The artists’ boundless ability to reimagine provides a sanctuary in chaos. Most days, Edgar and his partner in the inception and development of Tiempo De Zafra, Stephanie Bezarra Rodrigues, are not thinking in dour and irreversible terms but are fully embroiled in recovering fabrics and the capacity to change where they live and work in San Carlos, the new city area of Santo Domingo. There is an openness and a constant sense of discovery in Santo Domingo, which activates Edgar and Stephanie’s creative sensibilities more than anywhere else, even in New York City, where they met almost nine years ago.