Chris Rodriguez, Deslyn Downes-Dyer & Marianne Corbino

This week's episode features interviews with Port Chester resident Chris Rodriguez, Croton-on-Hudson resident Deslyn Downes-Dyer, and White Plains resident Marianne Corbino as they reflect on the power and meaning of fabric in their families. Interviews were recorded at the Bennett Conservatory of Music in Croton-On-Hudson and the Greenburgh Public Library in Elmsford, NY.

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

Sewing Community is part of ArtsWestchester's Folk Arts Program, made possible in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.   

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

In school, when you would fill out with your parents did for a living, I wouldn't ride trimmings, not knowing what the heck it was when they opened up the window and the sweatshop. I used to go play on the roof. It's got a great place where he could do, like I said, God, that led the morning, come quick. So I can go to myself. I think I'm not. Hello and welcome to sewing community. The podcast for local Westchester area residents share their life and fabric and thread. I'm your host Aaron Page, director of folk arts at arts Westchester, the officially designated arts council for Westchester County, New York in December, 2019, arts Westchester began working with Amanda Brown, a Brooklyn based fabric artist to transform our nine story building and white Plains into a cascading colorful, large scale fabric installation. All the stories heard in this podcast were collected from individual volunteers. Who've been involved in the building of this monumental work of public art while this project is currently on hold because of COVID-19. Our hope is that the story shared here will in some small way, sustain and deepen the social fabric of our selling community for the last several weeks, we took a short hiatus from the podcast, but as of today, I'm happy to tell you that we're back and we'll be releasing weekly episodes over the next several months. Today's episode features three Westchester residents, Chris Rodriguez, Deslin downs, Dyer, and Marianne Corvina, as they reflect on the sewing and fabric stories of their ancestors.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Hi everybody. My name's Chris born and raised in port Chester, New York. And I'm just relaying a story that, uh, I remember being told many times by my grandmother and, um, an Angie who was my grandmother's cousin, who was, uh, just a big part of our lives, uh, world war II generation of Italian descent. Uh, back during that time in world war II, all of port Chester was factories. There were so many factories in Porchester. So pretty much everybody worked in a factory and, uh, uh, Angie was a master seamstress and, uh, growing up, we never had to, uh, really launder our shirts or, or, or tailor our pants or anything like that. We had an Angie, you send your clothes to Angie and Angie would gladly do them for us in, uh, without a sewing machine and just a perfect hem. She didn't need a sewing machine and she would, so whatever we needed and she would launder and just, uh, it was like having her own private laundry mat debt. We had Angie and, and she, during world war II worked for a factory, a shirt factory in port Chester. And, uh, during the war, they switched from making shirts to making parachutes for the troops. And Angie went from sewing shirts to sewing parachutes for the in world war II. And she just took so much pride and she loved telling that story, uh, that they, uh, they were able to help out in the war. Um, you know, the, the way they did in that factory is sewing parachutes. So, uh, that's my Angie story and God rest her soul. She was a wonderful woman and that whole generation was just, uh, just unbelievable, helping out any way they can sewing parachutes, uh, right here, uh, in my hometown, in Portchester.

Speaker 1: 3:23

My name is Deslin Down's Dyer. I live in Croton on Hudson, and we are currently sitting at the Bennett conservatory where my family runs a music school now and its 75th year. My husband's family that is, I am excited today to be part of, uh, Amanda Brower's installation project. And hadn't really thought much about how the fabric itself connected to me because one though I find fabric to be beautiful and useful. I hadn't given it much layered thought, but it occurred to me as I was here today, surrounded by all this fabric and clearly stories attached to the fabric, how close I am to the, to the history of fabric. I grew up on a small Caribbean Island in Grenada where my grandfather Lloyd downs had many professions, but one of them, and one of the ways he made a living was as a tailor. And so as a young girl, I grew up with clothing that was always beautifully made and very tailored and perfect. And my mother in turn made a living for most of her, your own life as a seamstress. And so I have a very vivid memory as a young girl going on a school trip, uh, wearing a grayish bluish pantsuit that my mother had made for me and feeling really sort of superior. I looked sharp. And so for me, there's this emotional feeling of something being made for you specifically with fabric that thought about you, your shape, what color looks good on you? Um, as a young girl, my mother tried to teach me to sew and I completely rejected that idea, um, to this day, until today when I sat down with my daughter who's 11 and who has been learning to sew in school and my eight year old who just learned to sell today with Amanda, I find this to be really interesting, the sort of, um, the way we circle back to fabric, connecting us to our families and memories and situations and life experiences. Um, so that's what I would say got out of today is that there's this incredible community spirit that's happening right now. But for me personally, and I imagine for everybody else coming through here, there is a real personal about how fabric has connected them to places, things, people, and experiences that are meaningful. My family recently took our first family trip to Senegal to attend a traditional Senegalese wedding. The thing that's turned out more than anything else was just how beautifully clothed the women are in Senegal. And the fabric is so colorful and so well made and so tailored and beautiful. They're like aren't beautiful visual things. And so I very much wanted some fabric. We couldn't find any ready-made pieces. So we went to the market to find fabric and we came back with several pieces and one of the vibrant yellow patterned pieces was contributed to this project. Hopefully we'll see it flying above or at Western is building. And we feel really proud that if it does, and we bring a part of Senegal and our experience to that project. But I think overall that probably is the bigger meaning of the project is our, um, that it's not just Amanda's project, but it's, everybody's stories being told in this beautiful way.

Speaker 3: 7:10

I'm Maryanne[inaudible]. I live in white Plains, New York fabric in my family goes back. Many generations. What I'd like to tell you about is my grandmother, about a hundred years ago, she had eight children and her husband had died from the Spanish flu as well as the first two children. So she was left alone at the age of 30, as a widow with six surviving children. So she didn't know what to do, but her landlord said, Oh, I'll give you some sewing. You can work on it at home and raise your children. But that wasn't enough. So think back a hundred years ago, women just didn't go into the workforce, but she had lived in Brooklyn and she got up enough gumption to go into Manhattan and look for a job. And she ended up as a tailor for Macy's and she supported her six children and she was very musical. She bought each one, a musical instrument and a piano. And she had her own band in those days. Women did not go out independently and work. And in her neighborhood, it was quite traditional older Italian women. And they were saying, Oh, she's a widow. Look at her. What is she doing? She's going to work. How terrible, how awful, but the way my mother tells the story, she put on her gloves and her little hat and she'd go into Manhattan every day. And she cut her hair short, which women didn't do it that time. And it just sounds like she was very fashionable. I came from a long line of strong, independent women. My mom went on, she did a lot of sewing. She made all her clothes. She made all the drapes and everything I like to. So in college I made antique vests. I would collect antique fabrics and I cut them and sew them into one of a kind vests for, um, men and women. And I made some tuition that way. Now the next generation is my son, his girlfriend, and him like to cosplay. They make costumes for conventions. So he learned to sew and make some of the costumes. My very first job, I was working as a sewing instructor for an organization called consumer homemaking. And it was based in Yonkers and it was to teach immigrants how to sew. And I got the position because I could speak French. And there were a lot of Haitian people from Haiti, French speakers. And that was my very first job. I was six.

Speaker 4: 10:19

Thank you for listening to sewing community. Please join us for next week's episode, featuring fabric artists, Kim McCormack, and Rona spar.