Last summer I went to the L.E.A.F. Flower Festival in the Meatpacking District which was such a lovely experience. The weather was beautiful and everyone was enjoying being outside in the sunshine on streets filled with flowers. There were wonderful crafts being sold too, and as I walked by the tables I saw a joyfully colorful one filled with hand made cloth goods. I love textiles, and I was drawn to the table because of the fabric designs and noticeable art of the hand made pieces. I also love to cook and when I saw that there were potholders available, I knew I had to buy some because I'm very particular about the potholders I use. There is nothing that I have in my home that is not an art or design piece, and even the things that I use for functional every day use have to be something special or I won't use them. It takes me forever to pick out pot holders, but on this day at this table at the flower festival I could have chosen any of them and been happy to have them in my kitchen. As it was, I chose two each of three different patterns, making sure that I had at least one or two from the selection of Marimekko designs because those patterns are favorites since childhood. My mother always had Marimekko fabric, and my first grown up dress when I was a teenager was Marimekko. When the woman at the table saw how happy I was with the potholders, she told me that they were made by her daughter, and I took a business card so that I could contact her and follow up to find out what other wonderful things she created.
When I got home, the potholders were so beautiful that I decided I just couldn't start using them yet, so I found places in my kitchen to hang them just to view in the same way that I have other pieces of art on my walls to enjoy. I tried to take photographs of them at different times because I wanted to post them and give credit to the wonderful Artist who made them, but I hadn't found the right photograph or moment until one day when the afternoon light glowed through the window full of a rosy gold, and when I took a photograph of it as it shone over part of the kitchen where two of the potholders were hanging, I finally had a photograph to post.
The Artist who made these lovely potholders, Patricia Pazner, goes by the name of Sew Safe and Sound in her Etsy Shop, and when I tagged her on Instagram I described my experience of discovering the potholders and how I had not been able to use them because they were so beautiful. Patricia responded to my post by offering to send me more so I could start using them, and we began to correspond about her work. I let her know that I'd love to write about her, and she sent me some information to share here.
She wrote that she grew up in Brooklyn, and from age 14 through about 27 she was a professional dancer with Feld Ballets New York which was later known as Ballet Tech. She performed nationally and at the Joyce Theatre in Chelsea which was the home theatre of the ballet company. She was also a member of Cedar Lake Dance Company for a year. Her performing name was Patricia Tuthill which was her maiden name. She retired because of an injury and went back to school, to college and onto law school, and she is now a Public Defender in New York. When I began to do my own research, I discovered that she is also an award winning lawyer who is extremely well respected in her field. It is a part of who she is to be very humble, and though she is highly renowned, she did not tell me that.
Her grandmother was born in Haiti, and she taught Patricia the basics of sewing which she had learned there. Patricia wrote that even though her grandmother passed away five years ago, she is still very influential in Patricia's continuing to sew. Patricia taught herself how to make everything using YouTube and other online videos. She makes clothes, face masks, and home decor, including potholders and quilts, and she wrote that she does it for fun and for business. She also wrote that she has started making visual art pieces with fabric which she shares on her Instagram page and that she loves making things with her hands. In her words, "it's nice to stay creative and tap into that part of my brain that was formally reserved for dance."
When I read her descriptions I had the thought that all of her pieces are works of art. Some are perhaps more functional than others, but each one is something special to be treasured. For years she was a professional dancer, creating pictures and stories with her body in visual space, and now the hands are the part that carries on the dance, creating wearable and functional art and visual art pieces by designing something new as they sculpt and cut and sew and shape and make pieces of fabric dance into life.
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