Mackenzie Anderson Sholtz
Mackenzie Anderson Sholtz produces Fig Leaf Patterns and operates Dancing Leaf Designs, Inc. She has worked in the fashion, clothing design and production business for many years.
Mackenzie received a BA in Medieval Studies from Vassar College and Certificate of Fashion Design from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco. She worked ten years in the San Francisco garment industry in many areas: as a tambour beader for evening wear, cutter, grader, pattern drafter and designer for a variety of smaller design houses. She also was Department Chair for Fashion Design at FIDM (San Francisco) for 2 years while working concurrently as teacher in the department for 3 years.
During college Mackenzie interned for a year with Joanne Olian at the Museum of the City of New York. In San Francisco, she was a volunteer at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco under the direction of Melissa Leventon. Upon moving to South Carolina in 1993, she became a volunteer at the Sumter County Museum and has served six years as a board member.
In addition to volunteer work for the Sumter County Museum, she has mounted two exhibitions for them. Closing December 2001, was "Poppies for Young Men" based on WWI memorabilia found in the trunks of William Harrison Saunders (see Historic Fashions Calendar by Sally Queen, July 2000). The earlier exhibition "Fashions from Our Past: Reproduction Patterns from the Sumter County Museum" examined the history of home sewing during the 19th century. Along with items from a typical home sewer's basket, the exhibit featured three original dresses from the museum's collection and three reproductions which Mackenzie made (which subsequently became Fig Leaf Patterns 101, 201 and 202).
Kay Gnagey
People
always ask, so here it is: I was born in Germany, my father was German, and my mother Hungarian. After spending my childhood near Frankfurt, Germany, I studied in Münster, Germany, and Reading, Great Britain, where I also lived for over 10 years. I moved to NE Indiana in the fall of 2001.
Historical clothing has been a source of fascination from early childhood. Growing up in a household full of books on art history, I was more interested in the people and the clothes they wore in those paintings than the great master's brush strokes!
However, my parents insisted that I study something "proper", so now I have a MA in Education with major in Math, and a MS in Math from Purdue. Perhaps this means that I do bring at once an artistic and an analytic mind to this endeavor (at least it probably helps with pattern drafting!).
You can read more about me and the other work I do at my website: http://www.originals-by-kay.com and also at http://www.midwestcwcivilian.com.
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