”They say when a race falls under 10,000, it doesn’t exist anymore,” Magpie says, “but my sister and I were right there.”
Her father and grandparents were born in Puerto Rico. Her mother was from San Jose. She was born in San Francisco and lived there until the 1960s when she moved to Seattle.
”I didn’t know anything about sewing,” she says, but she got a job in a garment factory carrying bundles to the seamstresses.
”None of these women could speak English,” she says. “They were all Chinese and they were making twice as much as I was. So I asked the boss if I could stay after work and learn how to use the machines. He said that I could, so I taught myself how to use the machine and got really good at it.”
She discovered that the seamstress
”One of those Catch-22’s,” she says. She was able to get a job that didn’t pay as well but was her entrée into the union. That was the job where she learned how to cut leather and fabric, she says. It was a plant that made high quality office furniture and she used those scraps to begin making things on her own time and selling them at Seattle street fairs.
”That’s how I started,” she says, “making pillows and things.”
From that beginning she went on to acquire the scraps of English Chintz from an upholstery factory where she worked and scraps of leather from a leather company where she was also employed. She worked in factories to support her family and this enabled her to acquire a collection of manufacturing scraps that she could never have afforded to purchase. Magpie is a saver of things and her studio in a back room of Garberville’s Earth Gallery is filled from floor to ceiling with the leather, fabric, and items that intrigued her with the possibilities they offered to future design.
”I’m a person that recycles everything,” she says. “I don’t believe in a throw-away society.”
The range of things she makes is impressive. She produces bags of all descriptions and uses, purses, vests, skirts, belts, moccasins, jackets, and even chaps. In her current inventory, she has a leather jacket that she hung onto for 20 years, waiting for inspiration. This year she reconditioned the leather and finally found the right jeweled studs with which to decorate the collar and pockets.
Magpie likes to work on a variety of projects at one time. She always has a number of projects in progress, works on one for a while and then moves on to another. The variety keeps her interest, she says. Sometimes she will stop midway in a project and spend a few days studying it before deciding how to proceed.
High on a shelf in her studio she’s got a line of half-size upholstered chairs that she’s collected. She thinks they may be factory prototypes from an earlier era and one of these days, she’s going to restore them. Her goal, she says, is to work in her Earth Gallery studio until she has used up all the collected bits of her future projects.
In the past, Magpie did fairs and festivals, but her main outlet now is Earth Gallery.
”Penelope is my sole outlet and like my sponsor,” Magpie says of Earth Gallery owner Penelope Andrews. “She has been really good for me and really inspires me.”
People will have the opportunity to see the results of Magpie’s association with Earth Gallery at the Dec. 5 Arts Alive in Garberville. Magpie will be the featured artist at the gallery. The Gallery has been open in Garberville for over six years now, and has created a home for local artist and artisans.
When Magpie greets the people who come to see her latest creations, she will be keeping an eye out for an apprentice. She would like to pass her craft on to someone younger.
”The Creator gave me skill and opportunity,” she says, “and I would like to be able to pass that on.”
Magpie can also be found at the gallery on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. And be sure to check out the Earth Gallery website: www.sohumarts.com.
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