We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aidan Sullivan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aidan below.

Aidan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Fashion is often used as a medium to communicate values and beliefs about the self to the world. My angle is a little different, in that I intend to create pieces that spark recognition of a deeper aspect of self within a person. The pieces are personal.

The other day I sat with a friend of mine who was confiding in me about his lack of direction, unsure of his calling. I asked him what his favorite animal was and he laughed, doubting how the question had any relevance to the problem at hand. I urged him to answer anyway an when he said “bonobo” I reminded him that bonobos are known as “the hippies of the forest.” I offered that maybe his legacy was to create community, care for children, and to honor and serve all aspects of femininity. I believe that a great deal can be gleaned about our purpose when we recognize what resonates with us on a level beyond the mind.

So many are lost and dont know where to begin. There used to be a formula for getting found: get a good job, find a nice parter, marry and have children. There were guideposts, checkpoints to lead us forward… but the same rules dont apply today. Owning a home is a pipe dream for most millennials and Gen-Zers, having children in a world where there are rising global temperatures and tensions strikes many among my age-group as borderline sadistic. So where do we go? How do we plot a course that is unprecedented and riddled with harbingers of doom?

I had my fair share of wallowing in hopelessness, but I found a secret that has reinvigorated me, filled me with hope, gratitude, and excitement for the wild and disorienting times we are in. Just because the path is no longer clear, does not mean there isn’t a solid, safe, and simple one ahead of us. The secret I have discovered is that there are clues everywhere. There are clues, made just for you to find, just for you to follow. The clues are found through resonance within ourselves. When we see a work of art or a particular animal, when we hear a song or the sound of a storm and it sets off a certain thrumming inside of us, we must notice this pull, this resonance — it is the next signpost to guide us along our path.

It is a gift that the way is so unclear, with the lack of a preordained life plot, we are left with only the clues that will lead us on a tailor made journey. Gone is the cookie cutter, here is the glowing force of fathomless love.

My work garners polar opinions, people either feel like the piece was made for them, or they cannot believe anyone would brave the world wearing it. When I look for fabric in thrift stores, I look for things that have a charge, something that could strike a strong chord within a person. I do not necessarily buy fabric that I like and I do not create the pieces in a fashion I would necessarily want to wear. I create them in order to embody a strong resonance. I dive deep into the forgotten racks of blankets at Goodwills off I-80 until I say “I have found a clue! It is not a clue for me, but one that surely belongs to someone else!” I refashion the fabric into a bright and colorful beacon until someone comes across it and it sparks that thrumming inside of them. Something deep inside of them says “There I am! You found me!”

I believe that when we seek beyond the desires of the mind and sniff out the longings of The Deep, we bring ourselves into balance. And by brining ourselves into balance, we bring the world into balance. Creating clothing is only a portion of my process, the purpose of my craft is to seek The Deep within myself and to bring clues into the fore that may be instrumental in others finding balance within themselves.

Aidan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I create one of a kind pieces of clothing from thrifted fabrics, blankets, curtains, etc. Most of my works are bold and bright, often highlighting animals and other images from nature. Each item is one of a kind, as the fabrics I source are all small unique pieces from around the country. In spring and fall I hop in my van with my two dogs, Guru and Boone, and set off on an uncharted journey to find fabric in unsuspecting places. When I get home, I nestle into my studio and organize my loot. Each day that I work with the textiles, I show up to the studio with my puppers and sift through my collection until I feel pulled to a particular piece. I have standard patters for jackets, vests, cloaks, hats and I just feel into what a new life for this fabric might look like. I base all my sizing and nuances of design on the unique aspects of the fabric that I am working with. When I am done, I post the creation on my social media and rest easy knowing the piece and its person will find their way to each other. I do not try to push pieces on people or sell someone on something, I always say “If it is yours, you will know it.”
I don’t have a set schedule or routine web drop dates because I feel that the guiding force of my work is intuition. The key to unlocking my intuitive process is simply willing myself to show up and being open to listen and improvise as I feel called. I rarely encounter instances where my customers are dissatisfied because they only become a customer once they are sure the item is for them. Only once have a had to refund someone and I did it happily. The lady had ordered a hat online and when it arrived to her, it did not quite fit. To me, this meant the hat was simply intended for someone else. I returned her money and was grateful that the right match would soon be made.
I named the brand Guru&Boone after my dogs because they are my keepers as much as I am theirs. With two young rambunctious cattle dogs, my will often defers to theirs. On road trips we may have to pull off unexpectedly for them to go out, and low and behold I will find a gem that I would have never encountered if I was on my own schedule.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A while back I went to a friend’s wedding and when I arrived at the rehearsal, he introduced me to his new in-laws saying, “This is Aidan, the bartender.” It threw me off, I looked around for someone with the same name who identified as a bartender. Oh, me? I’m a bartender? It made me laugh, I had never looked at myself and said “There I am, a bartender.” Sure, I spent four days a week behind a bar serving up cocktails, but if I were to identify as something, it surely wouldn’t be my source of income. I was a poet, a pioneer, a lover… whatever the moment called for. And I believe it was precisely that which allowed me to be a great bartender.

All this changed when I started sewing. I felt that the worthiness of my craft was associated with the level to which I identified with it. Surely the value of a piece would be compromised if it was made by a twenty six year old existentialist living out of her parent’s attic, it had to be made by a seamstress, a weaver, a master atelier.

I soon saw this to be a trap, engineered by and for myself. Recently, I have been feeling like my craft has very little to do with me. If anything, the craft is compromised when I claim it as my own. I should be cautioned not to exalt myself as some incredible creator. If I must identify with anything, it would be a messenger. I am a crazy little lady talking to quilts, asking them what they want to be when they grow up. In picking ripe fruit, one does not take credit for the tree’s contribution. What we bring about is ready to exist, we are just the one who was wooed by the romance of the idea and brought it through for the sake of enjoyment.

When I identify deeply with my actions, they become a burden rather than the delight they have the potential to be. In my work and constant effort to unlearn habits that may be stifling me, I ask myself these questions: What potential do I blind myself to in effort to be what I believe I should be? Can I bring all that I am to each tiny task? Can I allow the moment to call upon me to be experienced rather than me begging the moment to be in service to my own identity?

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

“I feel like a wild animal who moved to the zoo!” I complained to my mom with maximum dramatic flair as I questioned my decision to move from the western mountains to the east coast to pursue a career in creativity.

In the wild there is no certainty, no known, therefore it requires constant attention. Awareness is the only law, and the stakes are high for all creatures. In civilization the laws are more conditional and the stakes seem uneven for different classes and colors.

One morning after I entered the civilized world, I took the dogs for a walk to clear my mind. I found a narrow trail near the river and unleashed them, though I knew it was against the rules. I called for Guru and she bounced over the logs and brush at the sound of her name. As she came close, I saw she had sliced her ear and blood was dripping down her white collar. She rolled in the dirt, covering her entire mane in blood. Guru seemed unbothered. She noticed a frozen puddle and ran to jump in. I imagined she would balk at the temperature once she plunged through the layer of ice on top, but I was wrong. The ice was no deterrent for her, it was a fascination. When she discovered this strange cracking film that covered the pond, she cocked her head to the side and prodded further with her paws, joyously cracking the ice like a child turned loose on a sheet of bubble wrap. When she emerged from the pond, her coat was covered in her own blood and a layer of frost and icicles. Suddenly, I recognized in her what I had been desperately missing inside myself, The Wild. She never needed mountain peaks and endless national forest to be a wild animal, she brings that with her wherever she goes.

It is easy to be a wild animal in the wild. It is much harder to tap into that magic when the world around you is prepackaged. Not everyone is born into a life high up in frosted forest peaks or on endless golden beaches, but I believe freedom lives in each one of us and as we uncover it, we begin to rewild the world around us.

Through the process of upcycling textiles, I have been re-discovering the source of that constant wild awareness. The whole process has been a great big metaphor for me, diving fully into the unknown to uncover the possibility and potential in used textiles. I have had to ask questions about my work that distance me from certainty rather than deliver me to it. I have learned that what I am seeking is not found in the world around me, but created in the world within me. I have found the value in unraveling bits of my world, salvaging the scraps and threads and stitching them together to create something new.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.guruandboone.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guruandboone/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@guruandboone

Image Credits
Cindy Fatsis