JOB: Marketing assistant at the UI Press. As a part-time employee, she helps market books published there.
HOW LONG? One year. She and her husband have been in Champaign-Urbana for three years. Her husband, Rick, is a UI professor of religious studies.
HOBBIES? In her spare time, she focuses on weaving intricate liturgical textiles, such as her current project, a Torah scroll cover.
Is your background in marketing?
No, but I've done a lot of it. What I'm doing at the Press is a lot of editing copy for catalogs and promotional pieces and making fliers to promote books. I've done lot of different things. I've worked at everything from being a bus driver to a fishmonger to an office manager to an arts administrator. That's partly because I like to try new things, and partly because we moved a lot while my husband was in graduate school, and that means looking at different job markets everywhere you go.
Where are you from originally?
I'm from Baltimore. I spent a lot of time in Charlottesville, Va. I went to the University of Virginia and got a degree in political and social thought. [She laughed.] Now that and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee.
You seem to be a very talented weaver. Have you always been a creative, arty person?
As the youngest of six kids, I grew up in a house in which part was an antique shop and the back was a place where they reupholstered and refinished furniture. I thought that was normal. At the time I paid no attention to it but I think I was very influenced by all the beautiful fabrics and the wallpaper samples. So I think I had an appreciation of nice things and of handwork.
But I didn't do art in high school or college. I really turned to weaving when I'd been working at the Smithsonian as a contract-employee, hoping to get a real job there. I was very disappointed when I didn't. Then I happened to see this weaving shop that had gorgeous rugs in the window and so I took weaving courses to cheer myself up. And I've been weaving now for 10 or 12 years.
What kinds of things do you weave?
For the past couple of years I've been weaving liturgical pieces, and I think that's what I'll continue doing. I started out the easy way, doing stoles for a priest, who's a friend of the family, and a stole for the Presbyterian minister who married us. Last year I did a piece for the First Presbyterian Church of Urbana. I'm a member there and I did it as part of my stewardship there. And right now I'm working on a Torah scroll cover that I'll donate to the Hillel Foundation when I'm done.
I'm entering it in the Philip and Sylvia Spertus Judaica Prize [competition] sponsored by the Spertus Museum of Judaica in Chicago.
It's a big jump for me because it's an international competition -- and I will feel very honored if I just get my piece in it.
Is it an expensive hobby?
I don't spend a great deal on materials because I don't do a lot of pieces; I do a few that are important to me. I do all my own dyeing. I start with natural or white silk or cotton and dye each bit that I need, so I can buy it fairly inexpensively.
Last year I bought a new used loom, but a really big heavy duty one. It's not as expensive as skiing. [She laughed.] And it's cheaper than being a mental patient, which I might be if I didn't weave.
You also became involved with Krannert Art Museum's exhibit of ancient weavings recently, didn't you?
Yes, last year. I just happened to call them to ask if there was something I could do to volunteer for the museum. As it happened, Eunice Maguire, the curator, was putting together this exhibit called "Weavings From Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Egypt: The Rich Life and The Dance." Of course she's an expert in these textiles, but she's not a weaver, and she felt like she could use help with some of the technical things. So I wrote all the technical descriptions in the catalog, and she also asked me to write a short article, which was a weaver's appreciation of the textiles.
So after three years here, have you decided you like Champaign-Urbana and the university?
Yes, I like it. I do miss my family. That's the hardest thing for me. But we've been very fortunate and we have some good friends here now. I hadn't known this area at all until we moved here. Some things have been a wonderful revelation. I absolutely love Chicago and I try to get there every six weeks.
And it's a very easy lifestyle here in that I walk to work sometimes, I bike to work sometimes, I can take the bus to work -- free. It's very easy to live here.
And I really like working at the Press. I think it's a great group of pleasant and interesting people. I love reading books, so I'm very interested in all the books that are coming out. I just find it's stimulating on an intellectual level -- in a whole different realm than the artistic stuff.
So it all kind of balances out my hands-on creative side with the part of me that's analytical and detail-oriented.