Once Upon a Time
A young Music Education student wanted a renaissance costume to go to the faire with his theater friends. A colleague offered to make a simple T-tunic, but she mis-measured, and sewed it onto the student so tight that it had to be removed with a seam ripper.
Time was short. She had to leave for work. There was no one else in the costume shop, and the student wanted the tunic for the next day. So, he decided to figure it out for himself.
With no one to show him what to do, and long before the invention of Google and YouTube, he sat down at the sewing machine, figured out how to thread it, selected an interesting contrast fabric, added expansion panels (because it made sense to him), and finished with a decorative collar. He wore his tunic to the faire the next day.
Of course, the student was me. A week after the faire, I was working at the costume shop, learning by doing - my favorite way to learn! Thirty years later, I’m still costuming, sewing, designing, and “making.” By the way, I wore that tunic for years after, proud of my first sewn garment.
What Makes Me Tick
Growing up on a farm instilled a solid work ethic. I enjoy doing good work and I put in the extra time to elevate a project to higher levels of creativity. The wonder of creation, of turning nothing into something, is like magic!
As a thinking man, I believe in looking at processes, and tweaking them to improve product and efficiency. I don’t live inside nor outside the box. I see the box as a starting point to learn, develop, and grow new processes.
Why Community?
Most of my costuming has been for volunteer community theater. I have professional experience, but I was more excited by the artistic creativity I was allowed with community non-profits. Southeast Michigan has a larger than average number of good, community theater organizations. The shows they program have a better budget. They generally produce larger, showy plays with impressive costume designs. I’ve worked with many materials: feathers & faux fur; sequins & stones; EVA foam & PVC; lamé & brocades; custom prints & pieced fabrics. I’m comfortable with both creating and maintaining specialty costumes.
Key words that inspire me include: stylization, showy, inventive, flash-&-splash, color story. I choose to design and coordinate for shows where the costumes are ovetly key to the production--where the audience notices and reacts to my designs. I get excited to wardrobe shows where the costumes become like another character in the story, and I believe this has been the best use of my particular talents.
…And Then the World Changed.
In the past, my professional experience was mostly in administration, with 20 years as a trainer and executive assistant for a credit union and 2.5 years managing a school performing arts center. This honed a variety of organizational skills. I did administrative work during the day, and creative theater tech at night which created a satisfying balance.
…and then the world changed. Pandemic budget cuts downsized me out of my long-term career.
I chose to use this as an opportunity to try something new. I knew I was happiest when I was creating, so I took up industrial sewing. I knew that repetitive production sewing would strengthen my muscle-memory skills for working on a variety of industrial grade sewing machines. I was already proficient with a variety of good home sewing machines, including Janome, Viking, and Husqvarna lockstitch machines, and a variety of home sergers.
I’ve now worked at two industrial sewing production factories:
TD Industrial Coverings (TDIC) manufactures a large quantity of quality protective coverings for paint robots on automobile lines in many countries. During my 8 months there, I worked on Juki lockstitch, elastic easing machines, binding feet, walking feet and heavy duty lockstitch. I also learned to read tech packs. This was fascinating and fun work. But as this was my first time using industrial machines, I was concerned I wasn’t getting much direct coaching to improve my sewing techniques.
I transferred to ISAIC - Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center, a non-profit organization based in Detroit, dedicated to teaching industrial production sewing skills in an effort to train new production stitchers and to innovate new technologies for the reintroduction of on-shore stitch manufacturing. The three branches of the ISAIC organization are: the stitching school, the technology innovation center, and the production line, with a close collaboration between the three departments. I worked on the production line, where we strove to develop efficient manufacturing processes that can be used as a model for small scale, on-shore fashion manufacturing.
My work with ISAIC has helped me hone better skills with Juki lockstitch machines (digital and analogue), Pegasus sergers (3 and 4 thread), programmable pattern stitchers (Brother box stitch for brand label placement), Juki coverstitch hemming, walking foot and walking needle lockstitch. I appreciate that team work and committee participation are a big part of the ISAIC experience.
My work ethics and focus have led to my development as one of the prime stitching specialists for the production department. I’ve also participated as a founding member of the Member-worker Business Unit (MBU), an advisory committee between production staff and management.
What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?
Theater and creativity have been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. Combine my skills in organization, leadership & team support, with my unique history of sewing, building, designing and creating with challenging materials, All of this makes me a well rounded costumer.
For the next chapter in my life, I want to combine my experience with administration, theater craft and professional sewing to join the wardrobe team of a creative theatrical organization. I believe I could be a good addition to your wardrobe crew and I look forward to expanding my skills with new experiences.