84 Years on the Cutting Edge

I was described this way by my best friend, Anne, my opposite in every way:

She was 19 and leggy. She shopped in the best boutiques, ate in the best restaurants, and carried over $100 in loose change and bills in her oversized purse. She ate sandwiches without crusts, gorged on seafood and ate from fine china by candlelight. She drank water with a twist of lemon before it was fashionable. She married a Marine and staged a military pageant for her wedding, designing and making all the gowns. She began 1,000 projects every year and finished two. She was by spells, careless, wasteful, totally unfocused, but always inspired. It was 1956.

Each Christmas Pat designs, makes, and mails 150 cards to her intimate friends. It is my good fortune to be one of them. The arrival of Pat’s handcrafted card is one of the highlights of my family’s Christmas season. Her gift for color and texture make these cards personal and unique. I have saved them all. These yearly cards are among her few finished projects, along with a 49 year marriage and three wonderful children.

Thanks, Pat, for bringing color, light, beauty, humor, and fresh air into my life these past 65 years.

I knew I was creative and that I probably inherited a creative gene. It was the 40s and 50s. These favorite single aunts doted on me before leaving Ohio to begin their careers. Aunt Dorothy was an artist who attended art classes taught by János Bernát (from Hungary, 1910-64). Aunt Dorothy was adept in sculpture, watercolor, and oils. Years later when she came to visit me in Puerto Rico in the mid 1960s, she wrote ahead to say she would share her latest endeavor—collage, so encouraged me to invite ladies over for a class. Tess, the neighbor, came hungry, thinking collage was a Polish dessert. That year I won first place in an art contest for collage.

Aunt Edith was an interior designer in Hollywood whose clients included movie stars and the Mayor. Aunt Jeanne spent her career at O’Melveny Myers in Hollywood working for an attorney for the entertainment industry. She left me a gold brooch that was a gift from actor William Holden. Role models indeed!

I rode my bike to art lessons on Saturday mornings as the only kid among adults. In college all my elective courses were some form of art. I married a handsome Marine, had a family, and traveled the next 20 years. I continued creating a special handmade Christmas card each year for friends and family, a tradition since high school, and my list continued to grow. Life was many experiences but never predictable or boring.

After my husband retired, I began teaching adult education classes using many different techniques, such as marbling paper, collage, and rubber stamps in classes to create greeting cards. This was an era before the availability of so many products and tools that now make art/craft projects so much easier, fun, and more attractive. I envied the Spanish teacher carrying a book to class while I wheeled a cart full of supplies—paper, paper cutter, scissors, paints, adhesives, and more. Each week I demonstrated a technique, and the following week “show and tell” would highlight what the students went home and created using their own ideas.

Although I was able to provide quality paper, adhesive, scissors, and tools, one problem created a seemingly insurmountable dilemma. Paper can be contrary and reacts to its manufacturing process. Two edges can tear alike, and the other two edges are incompatible after being torn. Deckled edges are a signature of mine (for layering paper and mats), and a tool to achieve them alike on all four edges did not exist.

My personal creative projects begin with inspiration, paper, scissors, and a paper cutter. Creating wouldn’t intrigue me if the tools did not have quality. Often art and craft creations are gifts, valued by the recipient, making quality an important aspect. Whether manufacturing, selling, purchasing, or personally using art tools—quality matters, and Fiskars provides.

I was surprised to find among things my Mother left, a simple card I had created in 1st or 2nd grade and hadn’t seen since. I had never even seen a palm tree at that age but matted the construction paper scene in colors and style similar to something I would use today. The card is decades old but not yellowed or faded and still worth framing.

For my nametag when joining art groups, I was asked if I painted in oils or watercolor. I do not paint or draw specifically. I dabble. I was dubbed “the scissor artist.” “Creative” covers an entire spectrum of abilities from having designed my own tools and templates for making art. I love certain colors and textures of quality paper and spend many weeks designing the card that will be sent to over 150 homes at Christmas. I may use natural weeds, small shells or flowers, antique fabric, etc., and need to love the card as well as the process in order to enjoy making so many. The tools I use may be my own Art Deckle, Nouveau Design Templates, or stylus, but ALWAYS involved are scissors.

Quality scissors have been used for every card I’ve ever created. I travel with 8 pair of scissors. Always. I love the array and portability of tools such as punches, rubber stamps, adhesives, and paper. Fiskars recognized the need for special types and sizes of scissors designed for specific projects and uses. We are blessed to have such availability. I can be inspired to create anywhere—just don’t let the idea get away. I so enjoy the process of design, cutting intricate shapes, creations so absorbing that they may even make me forget to eat! I think other artists identify.

As a designer, artist, or simply being creative, our myriad of options available today add the element of joy to any project, art related or not. The internet opens the world with options to art from everywhere, travel, people, education, and choices previous generations did not always have. The two words intrigue me—Creativity and Quality. We expect them both.

To solve the paper dilemma of visually compatible edges of paper, I envisioned a tool, donned a welder’s helmet, and with my husband’s grinder, created my own prototype that became Art Deckle. My utility-patented tool was manufactured in four sizes for specific purposes and art genres. I later sold the company. All from an idea. Trade shows brought in orders from around the world (NAMTA, HIA), the tool won “best innovative product,” and it is now history. Problems need solutions, and who better to solve those than a creative person?

The memories I treasure most are the people I’ve met along the way, the places I’ve been, and the memories of time together. Doctor Seuss was right, “it’s the places you go and the people you meet.”

One unforgettable person’s name was Lorene, and she shared the story of a special group of ladies. After reading an article about my tools in a national rubber stamp magazine, with my only address listed as a PO box, she found me. She reached out to share samples from a bygone era, decades before the scrapbooking trends. Women from all over the country started a “round robin” letter sharing ideas, hand-drawn patterns, and personal news, and sources, developing life-long friendships. Their ingenuity was amazing. They created and shipped their own monthly publication. When one found a tool they loved, they shared it with this special group before most craft tools were available.

Lorene said they would order punches through a typed catalog which she shared with me. Dozens of tiny, ugly designs and shapes of commercial punches were used by subway or train conductors to punch tickets. Exquisitely made, these heavy, chromed, incredible quality, hand-held punches cost nearly $100 today. Pink paper could be punched with the tiny oval to create a petal 5 or 6 “petals” to then create a flower. The same punch in green paper could be the leaf. The ladies sold this delicate, tiny punched paper by the teaspoon by mail, punching as they spent evenings listening to the radio. The paper was colorful magazine ads—nearly free! and the perfect weight to punch. I laminated us both a set of lovely creations Lorene shared with me and kept a copy of the publication they started. What they created with scissors, paper cutters, punches, all completely different from what we use today, all amazing quality is astonishing. They would be amazed at the options and quality that our creative ideas have access to today, thanks to Fiskars. May your creativity live on!

At 84 I still travel 3 or 4 months a year. I feel blessed to still be designing and making 150 Christmas cards every year and enjoy sharing the excitement of creativity with others.