So there I was in New York , Calvin Klien had offered me a job. Before I tell you what happened. I'd like to say a few other things that went on. What Ireally loved about Parsons was all the crazy thinsg that went on but it was very professional, they were training their students to be professional, not just throw anything at them, pick the best things for yourself and stuff the students. (like some art collages I have heard of, name no names) You went on alot of vists to designers and magazines, vogue etc so you got a real feel of the industry. Vitality was all around, one thing that really struck me at the time was all the students were really focused on making their work commercially viable. Maybe that says something about the system, they said it was because they were in so much debt by the time they finished they simply had to make money.
No such thing as grants, they were shocked when I told them about the support I was getting.
During that time I made costumes for Caroline Salem she was producing a new dance piece her husband was making an architectural piece that changed with the dancing. Very innovative and it was performed in Battery Park down at the bottom of Manhatten, great fun and got me very interested in dance. Listening to the jazz the other night got me thinking about the Jazz clubs, I had a friend called Miles who visited me while in New York named after Miles Davis. We were out one night and got talking to an elderly sax player who when he found out he was named Miles took it apon himself to take us around a number of Jazz clubs. As long as he kept getting drinks bought he kept showing us around all the little nooks and crannys that helped jazz breath.
St Patricks day was interesting, I did'nt know anyone else Irish but off I went to the parade. I had always heard that the best place to be on St pats day was New York. It was the year that there was a bit Ho ha because they would not let the Irish Gay and Lesbian association in the march. Of I went and placed myself in front of St Patricks catherdral when they all stopped and some one from each section would get off and go and shake hands with the Bishop,archbishop. After waiting hours it started, a section of police, with dyed green mostaches marching, then the firemen marching, lots of military. What on earth is going on? I thought. I got to talk to a women in the crowd beside me. Where are you from? "gee I'm irish" she said. "Oh what part" I said "oh well my grandmother twice removed , on my fathers side, once smiled at a man who was Irish and that why I'm here today " she said or some such tentitive link. "What about you, what county are you from" she said " County Down" I said . "Oh, I've not heard of that one, is it near Cork?" the conversation went on like this in a kind of bizarre hum. On I watched all the Americans in the Parade lots with ill fitting jumpers (that the textile designer in me) that they must have dragged out of the bottom of their wardrobes and I went back to my flat wondering what on earth was going on? How did this Irish American thing develop? Why do they have very little up to date information about the country? Were they celebrating the kind of Ireland I knew? No, not a bit. But thats what happens when the mists of time start forming over your memories.
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