Welcome to Pamela Palma Designs
Julia Tuttle The Mural
Pamela with Julia
at the opening reception
07-29-2021
PLY-Miami Fiber Art Collective is an offshoot of my design company. I founded it in 2015 to unite like-minded people through the language of textiles. We meet monthly to share skills and techniques, work on Challenge Projects to stretch our imaginations and, best of all, we have developed strong friendships. In 2019 we decided to go BIG and create a mural to honor the Mother of Miami. When 2020 happened, we went into lockdown and it was no longer possible to convene with community groups to produce the original design. We were determined to honor Julia Tuttle regardless and so we reinvented the entire project. FIU loaned us space to project and enlaarge our concept image onto an enormous canvas. Members got busy stitching their own uniquesinterpretations of tropical foliage for the background. I embroidered Julia's face, all 4 feet of it, and hand painted her hair. Her dress underwent many reinventions until we finall settled on an understated, sepia-toned voile garment embellished with lace and stylized flowers.
Julia Tuttle The Mural is in residence at HistoryMiami Museum through the end of 2021. Send me an email if you would like to feature her in 2022 at your facililty. 1pamelapalma@gmail.com
Julia Tuttle The Mural is in residence at HistoryMiami Museum through the end of 2021. Send me an email if you would like to feature her in 2022 at your facililty. 1pamelapalma@gmail.com
Goddess Bag
I am in a purple mood these days. Well not just these days. I love purple everyday. Some days more than others. Colors make life exciting. They affect our moods, our behaviors. Happily, I live in the tropics where life is color, vibrant, glorious color!
Back in the Spring of this year, 2021, I was going through my UFO/project box. UFOs are Un Finished Projects. I came across several things that spurred my purple creativity. The first was a piece of purple cloth I painted years ago when I was exploring Etruscan imagery.
It reminds me of a goddess headdress or Byzantine jewelry. I never used it for anything because - well - I didn't want to squander its glory. It remained in my stash for "someday." Well, someday came! I found a length of hand dyed, woven fabric also from years ago. There is purple in that as well. I used my woven cloth to make a small bag. I used the goddess headdress for the pocket. It is just the right size for my morning dog walks with my sidekick, Blondie. My cell phone fits perfectly in the goddess pocket. Treats for her (good girl, Blondie), and my keys go in the woven component. It just needed a strap. I found a small bit of coordinating yarn and crocheted a lovely strap, added fun beads.
Now Blondie and I walk in style every morning. She sniffs, I photograph.
Back in the Spring of this year, 2021, I was going through my UFO/project box. UFOs are Un Finished Projects. I came across several things that spurred my purple creativity. The first was a piece of purple cloth I painted years ago when I was exploring Etruscan imagery.
It reminds me of a goddess headdress or Byzantine jewelry. I never used it for anything because - well - I didn't want to squander its glory. It remained in my stash for "someday." Well, someday came! I found a length of hand dyed, woven fabric also from years ago. There is purple in that as well. I used my woven cloth to make a small bag. I used the goddess headdress for the pocket. It is just the right size for my morning dog walks with my sidekick, Blondie. My cell phone fits perfectly in the goddess pocket. Treats for her (good girl, Blondie), and my keys go in the woven component. It just needed a strap. I found a small bit of coordinating yarn and crocheted a lovely strap, added fun beads.
Now Blondie and I walk in style every morning. She sniffs, I photograph.
Shadow Weave Bag
with stamped straps
Last week while rummaging through the UFO box, I was inspired to make another tote bag, a larger one. Still in the purple mood, something caught my eye. This cloth is called a Shadow Weave. It was originally one panel in a folding screen I no longer use. I donated the frame and kept the panels because handweaving is time consuming. Shadow weaves require more concentration than usual, lots of counting in peculiar sequences to make the designs in the cloth.
I find it very liberating, exciting even, to cut into hand woven cloth. There are tricks to
keeping it from unraveling. All the steps are worth the end result.
First, I laid out the cloth this way and that, imagining how my bag could be.
Then snip snip snip! I cut it into 3 pieces.
One large piece is now the body of the bag with a 3-compartment pocket on the outside embellished with an artsy button. Inside is one generous pocket for my wallet and keys.
The assembled bag was in need of straps. I cut them from a purple tunic I no longer wear. (Don't worry, I am making a new summer dress in purple to replace it.) I used a rubber stamp from my collection and purple fabric paint to print the pattern on the straps.
I find it very liberating, exciting even, to cut into hand woven cloth. There are tricks to
keeping it from unraveling. All the steps are worth the end result.
First, I laid out the cloth this way and that, imagining how my bag could be.
Then snip snip snip! I cut it into 3 pieces.
One large piece is now the body of the bag with a 3-compartment pocket on the outside embellished with an artsy button. Inside is one generous pocket for my wallet and keys.
The assembled bag was in need of straps. I cut them from a purple tunic I no longer wear. (Don't worry, I am making a new summer dress in purple to replace it.) I used a rubber stamp from my collection and purple fabric paint to print the pattern on the straps.
Noritake Table Runner -
The beginning 05-13-2021
I am always excited to start a new project. I wrote a blog about it, Where Do Ideas Come From?
This is another new weaving project, inspired by my favorite china. I call it the Noritake Table Runner. As fate would have it, the one I made in April sold as soon as I took it off the loom, to a very dear friend! Now I am in the process of making another one, different but similar, for myself.
Read about my creative process on my blog, HERE
Now go on and explore all my art goodies in my Galleries and The Palma Store
BONUS!!! Members of PLY-Miami Fiber Art Collective - the physical group receive a discount on purchases and classes. It's my way of saying Thank You! You are amazing! Contact Pamela for details and start saving now!
This is another new weaving project, inspired by my favorite china. I call it the Noritake Table Runner. As fate would have it, the one I made in April sold as soon as I took it off the loom, to a very dear friend! Now I am in the process of making another one, different but similar, for myself.
Read about my creative process on my blog, HERE
Now go on and explore all my art goodies in my Galleries and The Palma Store
BONUS!!! Members of PLY-Miami Fiber Art Collective - the physical group receive a discount on purchases and classes. It's my way of saying Thank You! You are amazing! Contact Pamela for details and start saving now!
Vote 2020
Mask by Pamela Palma
HistoryMiami Museum is partnering with PLY-Miami, the fiber art collective I founded, in support of Julia Tuttle The Mural. She will be exhibited there in July 2021. They asked the community to submit stories that capture our experiences during this historic time. My story is here and on their website.
When Covid hit in March of 2020, I was full throttle into organizing a monumental mural project to honor Julia Tuttle, the Mother of Miami, for the 125th anniversary of her founding of Miami. It was designed as a crochet project, billboard sized, of her likeness, a project of PLY-Miami Fiber Art Collective. Then the lockdown, the quarantine, the Big Pause. As we paused, my interest in the project waned. I am not so much a crochet artist, it was too big, the community partnerships we had forged were also on hold, the future was certainly uncertain. Even the present was uncertain.
When I launched PLY in 2015, I set our mission statement as “Making the world a nicer place, one thread at a time.” I have always felt compelled to use my art in a way that improves the quality of life for others. During the Big Pause, I shifted the focus away from Julia Tuttle to smaller projects. I wanted to find ways to provide creative outlets for the membership, keep us all focused on the positive. So many people were literally panicking. We had never experienced a pandemic before and it was raging out of control. We didn’t know how to be but we know how to make stuff.
I am a bird lover. In the early Spring of 2020, I became aware of a need for nests to house rescued baby birds and small mammals in rehab at Pelican Harbor Seabird Station. PLY members were eager to participate. Nests are small, instant gratification things we could produce in no time. We crocheted and knitted for weeks, with prizes awarded for the most unusual, the most beautiful, and to the person who produced the most. It was a simple project that gave us purpose and yielded over 100 nests.
Next, with masking now mandatory, artists everywhere began making wild and wonderful masks. That became our late Spring - early Summer project, making artsy masks. IN September, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing inspired jabots. Several women crocheted their own; some of us rummaged through our textile collections for vintage ones. We wore them to the polls in November and at our monthly zoom meetings.
Meanwhile, Julia Tuttle kept calling to me. Miami is the only city founded by a woman. She gets scant recognition for her accomplishments, a tiny sign on a causeway. PLY is comprised of women who feel strongly about our significance as women. 2020 was the Year of the Woman. 2019, when the project first came to light, marked 100 years of voting rights for women. We were already invested in her legacy but our original plan was just overwhelming considering the Covid circumstances clouding our energy levels.
Julia Tuttle the Mural was reinvented. We are making it smaller but still larger than life. No longer a crochet project, she is fiber-inclusive to accommodate the talents of the community. We are knitting, stitching, crochet, hand painting, and hand quilting components. A giant 10’ x 15’ fiber art collage. We flipped the colors and design, maintaining the integrity of the City of Miami’s orange and green logo but cutting loose from constraints, letting our creativity flow. Julia now emerges proudly from the verdant tropical jungle of 1896 old Miami clothed in brightly a patterned dress of orange flowers and a lacy white jabot. An orange blossom pinned to her bodice she beckons, “Come Henry, bring us your railroad.”
HistoryMiami Museum has generously agreed to partner with PLY-Miami and will host public participatory creativity days in May and June 2021. Julia Tuttle The Mother of Miami will be unveiled at the opening reception of HistoryMiami’s exhibition, It’s a Miami Thing on July 28, 2021, the 125th anniversary of the founding of the city by Julia Tuttle.
Pamela Palma is an artist/designer who works primarily with textiles. She is the founding director of PLY-Miami Fiber Art Collective. See her work at www.pamelapalmadesigns.com and on Facebook and Instagram.
When Covid hit in March of 2020, I was full throttle into organizing a monumental mural project to honor Julia Tuttle, the Mother of Miami, for the 125th anniversary of her founding of Miami. It was designed as a crochet project, billboard sized, of her likeness, a project of PLY-Miami Fiber Art Collective. Then the lockdown, the quarantine, the Big Pause. As we paused, my interest in the project waned. I am not so much a crochet artist, it was too big, the community partnerships we had forged were also on hold, the future was certainly uncertain. Even the present was uncertain.
When I launched PLY in 2015, I set our mission statement as “Making the world a nicer place, one thread at a time.” I have always felt compelled to use my art in a way that improves the quality of life for others. During the Big Pause, I shifted the focus away from Julia Tuttle to smaller projects. I wanted to find ways to provide creative outlets for the membership, keep us all focused on the positive. So many people were literally panicking. We had never experienced a pandemic before and it was raging out of control. We didn’t know how to be but we know how to make stuff.
I am a bird lover. In the early Spring of 2020, I became aware of a need for nests to house rescued baby birds and small mammals in rehab at Pelican Harbor Seabird Station. PLY members were eager to participate. Nests are small, instant gratification things we could produce in no time. We crocheted and knitted for weeks, with prizes awarded for the most unusual, the most beautiful, and to the person who produced the most. It was a simple project that gave us purpose and yielded over 100 nests.
Next, with masking now mandatory, artists everywhere began making wild and wonderful masks. That became our late Spring - early Summer project, making artsy masks. IN September, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing inspired jabots. Several women crocheted their own; some of us rummaged through our textile collections for vintage ones. We wore them to the polls in November and at our monthly zoom meetings.
Meanwhile, Julia Tuttle kept calling to me. Miami is the only city founded by a woman. She gets scant recognition for her accomplishments, a tiny sign on a causeway. PLY is comprised of women who feel strongly about our significance as women. 2020 was the Year of the Woman. 2019, when the project first came to light, marked 100 years of voting rights for women. We were already invested in her legacy but our original plan was just overwhelming considering the Covid circumstances clouding our energy levels.
Julia Tuttle the Mural was reinvented. We are making it smaller but still larger than life. No longer a crochet project, she is fiber-inclusive to accommodate the talents of the community. We are knitting, stitching, crochet, hand painting, and hand quilting components. A giant 10’ x 15’ fiber art collage. We flipped the colors and design, maintaining the integrity of the City of Miami’s orange and green logo but cutting loose from constraints, letting our creativity flow. Julia now emerges proudly from the verdant tropical jungle of 1896 old Miami clothed in brightly a patterned dress of orange flowers and a lacy white jabot. An orange blossom pinned to her bodice she beckons, “Come Henry, bring us your railroad.”
HistoryMiami Museum has generously agreed to partner with PLY-Miami and will host public participatory creativity days in May and June 2021. Julia Tuttle The Mother of Miami will be unveiled at the opening reception of HistoryMiami’s exhibition, It’s a Miami Thing on July 28, 2021, the 125th anniversary of the founding of the city by Julia Tuttle.
Pamela Palma is an artist/designer who works primarily with textiles. She is the founding director of PLY-Miami Fiber Art Collective. See her work at www.pamelapalmadesigns.com and on Facebook and Instagram.
Julia Tuttle The Mural is a community supported endeavor by PLY-Miami Fiber Art Collective. Be part of this important project in honor of the Mother of Miami by donating today. All contributions, no matter the size, will help us realize this tribute to the only woman in the US who has ever founded a city.
