WeWantsTheRedhead.com

So who am I?? Well, my name is Lynette, I'm from Santa Cruz, Ca. where I have spent my life creating things, and costuming is one of my greatest passions.

Little more about me:
Since 1999, I have worked full time at a L. H. Selman Ltd glass gallery, as their web goddess/ internet diva/ production manager. This is not the path I would have chosen for myself if I could change things... even though it was a good path. I figured early on that I had to have a regular job, just in case I ever needed to support myself... I wanted to be an artist, costumer, something... but I didn't want to live in a big city, nor did I want to live on a starving artist's budget... so I became a computer nerd. It has served me well, but it definitely is not where my soul is. It's fortunate for me that computer stuff comes easy, but working full time doesn't afford me the leisure I'd like to have to create.

My last huge costuming project was my wedding dress. I got married in January 2005 to a wonderful man, Lorenzo. I started my dress in November 2004, and finished the day before the wedding (whew!!). It was a huge undertaking, I have never created anything that major. Yards and yards of silk, roses, underskirts, the train... Many costumers and seamstresses consider a wedding dress to be the ultimate challenge, and why I decided to do it and plan a wedding, I'll never know... but I achieved it, and it will remain one of my major accomplishments.

That said, I have made several other costumes in my past. Hopefully this site will one day showcase all of my past and future endeavors, and will maybe one day turn into a little business. I always have my hands in some fire, I never lack for projects. I also make beaded jewelry and embellish everything I can... and very recently I have taken up dollmaking with polymer clay, and cake decorating.

I come from a long line of creative people, notably first my grandparents. My grandfather is a master woods-craftsman, creating many pieces of furniture from scratch, he is also a glassier, and his creative passion led to engraving glass and wood, painting, needlework, and anything else that needed fixing or enhancing. My grandmother taught me to sew at a very young age, I can remember sewing doll clothes and beds very early. She also taught me to knit and crochet, bake, and do needlework. I was soon making several items of clothing for myself. She was a wonderful teacher, I learned how to sew the right way, after ripping out many, many seams and hems that weren't straight enough or finished properly. My mother was also a great teacher, she had sewn costumes and clothes for us growing up. I think my passion for costuming was really developed at an early age, when my mother would encourage us to be creative, and would sew our Halloween costumes to our specifications.

I took sewing classes in junior high and high school, which prepared me to work at the local fabric and craft store starting at age 15. I immediately felt at home, and was more than happy to spend my days in a creative wonderland. I started many projects, tried everything I could, and by 16, was teaching classes at the store in fabric decorating, shirt painting, flower arranging, wreath making, kids classes, and various other crafts. I shared this passion with my mother, who would often take my classes and create wonderful things with me. We bonded deeply, she was always an influence on many of my projects and costumes.

Once into adulthood, I left many of the crafts behind and focused on sewing. This is when the decision came to go to art and design school, or a regular university. I took many art classes in junior college, enough to nearly earn an art minor degree. Many of classes I got the privilege of sharing with my grandfather. We took drawing, color and design, and watercolors together. I went on to take jewelry design, and he took oil painting. So the decision came, my heart said art school, my head said university, and reluctantly, I let my head win. Dragging my feet, off to CSU Monterey Bay I went. I soon found that I was able to thrive there, and amongst all the have-to classes and requirements, I slipped in many internet and design classes. Luckily I had found a way to be creative, while still doing something that I would be able to make money at.

So, long story short, I put in 4 years there, left just shy of getting my degree (currently being remedied... I'm on my way back to school fall 2006). I married and divorced, and my intuition was right. I did soon come to a place in my life where I had to support myself. Many of my passions were sidelined during that period of healing and moving on, but one miracle did happen. I met my match, my hero, and my soul mate. We have been married for about one and a half years now, and so far, its been utterly blissful. Even through enduring two family tragedies, losing my grandmother in 2004, then my mother to cancer in fall 2005, I have remained creative and passionate about life. My two best teachers may be gone now, but their teachings, memories, and creativity will live on in everything I do and create, and hopefully I will be able to pass their teachings on to the next generation.

My mother passed on Halloween in 2005, so I feel like I had to do something special this year, something to honor her creative spirit. Halloween was always one of my favorite holidays because of the chance to become something from a fantasy, to be someone different than I am now. Halloween will now also be a celebration of life and creativity for me, I feel driven to create something that uses the talents I have been given, to showcase what I hold dearest. No other person in my life has had such a profound influence on who I am today, and no one understood what drives me better than my mother did. Knowing that she would be cheering me on right now, helping me when I needed, fitting dresses to me if I needed, offering advice, makes me want to create so much, it nearly breaks my heart. I see no better way to honor my mother, than to be who she saw I was creatively. I have been given so many gifts by my teachers, and the ability to think through and achieve my creative goals through proper construction and execution is on of the greatest ones. Creativity courses through my veins like a drug, it is all-consuming, like a fire that can't be put out. The only way for me to satisfy it, is to create.

So that brings us up to the present, and this project. We were on a huge family trip to Disneyland in February 2006, and it wasn't until we were on our way home that I realized I needed a new project for the upcoming Halloween, and that it should be the Redhead in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. This was also my husband's first trip ever to Disneyland, and he fell in love with the place. Disneyland was one of my mother's most favorite places to visit. We went many times while growing up, just the girls: mom, me and my three sisters. So this project I dedicate to my mother, honoring her creativity, her spirit, and her favorite place on earth. Thanks mom, for everything, I know you will be guiding me.

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