What I did in New York!

1. Visited designer friends doing their Spring ’15 shows.

Catherine Bacon was at the W Times Square in the 48^th floor. The views alone! She knows how to create an inviting space, with a calm yet productive energy. Her collection was integrated, balancing light and earthy tones, some pale, some rich, with elegant attention to detail.

It was nice to see one of my yardage pieces made up into one of her art-to-wear kimonos.

Stopped by Xiaoyan Lin and Susan Kirschner’s rooms.

Xiaoyan has been moving in a new direction using silk screen patterns to embellish the fronts and sometimes sides of her shirts. She has employed me to make the screens for her so I was interested to see how they looked. She stretched the usual 8×11 format by extending the screen to create a long border, very fun stuff.

Susan was busy when I stopped in but a brief glance showed her whimsical touch with color and fabrication.

2. Another mission was to connect with the new owner of the Santa Fe Weaving Gallery, Elise Nye.

Through the magic of texting I found Elise in Jill Heppenheimer’s room. Jill is the woman who owned the Gallery till very recently. Elise is younger than Jill and me, and I wished her well in her new venture and will soon send her a box to select some garments for the store.

3. Visited with my friend Annie Brumbaugh.

I have known Annie since 1975 when we both lived in Marrakech. She is a talented and wise clothing / image consultant. We always get into trouble when we are together. She knows all the independent manufacturers and we just effortlessly glide past to try this on and that, making dents in my pocketbook. Cydwoqs ( handmade shoes) has a store in Soho, High*Way sell a better quality Baggalini®-type bag,  Pan American Phoenix on Madison Avenue has beautiful Tasxco silver bangles.

And then there was Mary Jaeger. Mary is precise. She has a Japanese sensibility which her studio reflects. She knows how to make Shibori accessible.

She was at the Palo Alto Show in April but I wasn’t able to connect with her, though admired her wares from a distance. So when Annie said she wanted to visit Mary because she was moving her studio (the raising of the rents), I jumped at the opportunity.   The first visit was harried. I had Cyrus with me. The reason for my trip to NYC was to caretake him while my daughter Tamara was meeting filmmakers for her SF Film Society job. Mary was so great with Cy, but it wasn’t a fulfilling moment! But I did manage to buy a tee and got to look around and lust.

It turned out a couple days later we were walking right by and with luck I grabbed another moment with Mary. This time I was able to be quick and concise in my choices.   I loved talking and commiserating about being a small long time artisan in the world of new DYI-ers and young monied folks. As well as the struggle to maintain studios while striving to keep the creative juices flowing.