Welcome to Pamela Palma Designs
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.
