about

i am a fibre artist working with salvaged materials. i create out of my home studio in bedford-stuyvesant, brooklyn, new york.

the following is excerpted from an interview by ellissa blount-moorehead of ecobling...

eb: If you could paint the sky what color would it be?

ap: blue. you know; if it ain't broke...

i do love fireworks, though. and skywriting is kind of fun. i wonder what it costs to advertise that way...do you think there are bio-diesel options? can they send tremendous clouds of nag cham pa into the stratosphere that spell 'buy reGENERATIONs' ?

eb: How did you get started?

ap: have i started something? sorry, elissa. i will put on my 'serious' face. you know my lovely twins...when they were around 18 months, we had this hand-me-down sweater amzi wore ALL the time until she got too long for it; you know how they just keep getting longer, but not wider.

anyway, a thousand years ago my mom taught me how to crochet to help me get over my very first broken heart. it worked, and i fell in love with crochet. so when amzi grew too long for the sleeves of this sweater, i extended them by adding crochet cuffs.

the fairy boat mobiles and marionettes i'm making now are a far cry from that first sweater, but that's the nature of art, i think. the nature of creation. it evolves, and that's really what the name (reGENERATIONs) is all about. my mom passing her art down to me, my dad's shirt becomes a fairy skirt for his grandaughter, or a dragon fairy boat for someone else's son. the shape of a thing changes although it's dna is always there.

and my kids get to be surrounded by these magical things, their imagination soar while they watch me work, and they are learning about conservation without being hit over the head with the idea. do you know their favorite place to shop is goodwill? i love that.

eb: What encouraged you to become a full fledged business?

ap: i love doing this. i feel most myself and most at peace when i'm creating my art. in a crazy world which seems to be getting more surreal by the second, the only thing that makes sense to me is that i focus on what helps me to feel really alive.

eb:What is the best ( or most bizarre) compliment you have ever received about your work?

ap: my sister calls me willy wonka. which is the best compliment in the sense of his being this wonderful magician and creator of his own universe. it's also bizarre because i don't wear a purple crushed velvet tophat.

eb:What are your plans for reGENERATIONs?

ap: you know what they say; we make plans, and god laughs. i'm SO tired of being laughed at.

although there are a couple pieces that i have developed that i love, and they could be those perfect items that really take off. my heart is not in mass production, and the factories i have worked with want bolts of fabric and uniformity, which is also not what i do.

i've been thinking that so many fantastically skilled people are suddenly unemployed after years working in garment district. it would be great if someone created a few sewing cooperatives.

they could make my one great piece, and then it becomes this symbol for living wages and community and employing/buying/selling locally; green business. we take it on the road and plant a sewing cooperative seed in every post-industrial town in the u.s., and oprah loves it and we all live happily ever after.

it could work.

eb: Do you have a background in fashion? textiles? self taught?

ap: yes. yes. yes.

also the time i have spent 'crafting' with the other parents at my children's school (http://brooklynwaldorf.org) has been priceless. absolutely. i have learned so much about wool, felting, finding the balance(!) for a mobile, as well as how important it is to laugh and cry and share while i work.

eb: Tell me about your line.

ap: i'm really focusing on play and imagination. perhaps 'focus' is not the right word; more like i'm playing and imagining. it's fun and silly and whimsical work. and of course, it's all made from second-hand materials; mostly men's shirts and wool sweaters which i boil until they are felted.

my understanding is that wet-felting is the oldest form of textile. i love that. this direct line extending back to our most ancient ancestors, and i'm turning it into jeweled pirate eyepatches and handing them to my children. yum!

eb: What would be the ideal city for you, reGENERATIONs, and your family?

ap: i love brooklyn. this is the very first time i have felt really at home in new york, and it has most of what i want in a home town.but is becoming pretty hard for working folk to 'maintain' around these parts.

sometimes i imagine a school bus converted to be a home, studio, as well as a retail/classroom venue. i'd love if we could park in a city/town with a mild climate and a public waldorf school during fall and winter months, then to be on the road during summer/art fair months. our west coast would be our best bet, though i'd love to be on the east coast of mexico. vera cruz would be nice.

to read the interview in its entirety, go to http://ecobling.blogspot.com/2009/09/re-imagine.html