Interview Q&A with Erin Lewis re: ReadyMade issue 2
Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald was photographed for the cover of the Spring 2002 edition of ReadyMade Magazine. I used the omnipotent power of Google and Mark Zuckerberg to track her down. Kids, don’t try this at home. Erin was gracious enough to give me an interview.
1. Is this the right Erin Lewis? If so, what have you been up to as an artist/maker since the Spring of 2002?
Yes! Soon after the cover shoot I moved permanently to Melbourne, Australia. Journalism was my career and making things was a hobby for the next 10 years.
In 2012 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, about three months after I’d quit my job as an editor of many newspapers. I had a what-am-I-doing-with-my-life crisis and decided not to return to journalism. Around the same time I started getting into clothes mending in a public way, and realising people were quite excited to learn about repairs. I’d been sewing since I was nine and I took those skills for granted for a long time, assuming people either already knew how to mend stuff or weren’t interested in pursuing it.
A few years later I started a social enterprise called Bright Sparks Australia, which repaired and reused electrical appliances to keep them out of landfill.
In 2017 I started mending other people’s clothes on commission and sharing the results on Instagram. And I started teaching a 7-week mending course that is still running (now online) and sells out quickly. At the end of that year I decided to close Bright Sparks and spent most of 2018 and 2019 writing and photographing my book, Modern Mending.
The book came out in February 2020 and I launched an online shop – modernmending.com – at the same time.
What a Sham
In the early 2000s this article sent me in search of vintage Ralph Lauren pillowcases. During that search I happened upon Dahlila Found, a vintage clothing and home goods shop, and I was hooked. Earlier this month I got another shipment of pillowcases from her, and I can’t wait to put them to good use.
2. What do you remember about your project in the 2nd issue of ReadyMade, and about the magazine in general?
A friend showed me the first issue of ReadyMade because they knew I would love it. I got in contact with RM as soon as I read it – I think about wanting to write a tutorial for a future edition and asking to visit the RM office when I was next in Berkeley. Editor-in-chief Shoshana Berger asked me if I wanted to model on the cover of issue 2. I had done some modelling so it wasn’t out of the question, but I was disappointed that my writing and ideas weren’t the reasons for my debut in the mag. I had a chip on my shoulder about the whole modelling thing – I wanted to be taken seriously for my achievements, not my looks, and I rarely mentioned the m-word because I found it embarrassing. I hated it when my parents told people I was a model, when I had a master’s degree in journalism and lived in Australia, which I thought were far more interesting. And I hated how hair and makeup artists never knew what to do with my pixie cut and managed to turn it into a Lego-man hair helmet nearly every time. But I said yes, which is how you found me!
RM couldn’t afford to pay for the modelling gig (they did pay for my published articles). I think I was compensated with a year’s subscription to the magazine, and I requested a small letterboard sign from their online shop. RM used to have this cool shop that sold unusual stuff like letterboard signs (long before the days of Instagram – I think they sourced them from hospitality wholesalers, as you normally only saw those signs in delis and mom-and-pop restaurants) and funny wall plaques with artist statements like you see in museums, that you could place next to your television and other boring house things and turn them into faux gallery pieces. You know, I often think about those art plaques and wish I would have asked for them as part of my payment, too! I still have the original letterboard sign and use it.
I wrote three tutorials for RM over the years:
You can find the tutorial for this too-cute project in ReadyMade issue 15, Instant Guest Room.
“What a Sham: Two Pillowcase Projects” in issue 3 (how to make a skirt or apron from a pillowcase)
“Instant Guest Room” in issue 15 (how to make an emergency overnight-guest kit containing guest sheets, towels, toothbrush, razor, etc.)
“Guard Your Cards” in issue 46 (sew your credit cards shut so you can’t use them unless you ask a salesperson for scissors)
The experience from writing for RM came in handy later on when I wrote tutorials for other magazines, and for my book, which is essentially a giant how-to book.
3. It seems like you have a new book available - can you tell us a little about it?
Modern Mending is 240 pages of mending inspiration, motivation, instructions and helpful tips. It took me two years to write and photograph it, and a bit longer if you factor in all mending commissions featured in it. It’s gorgeous, which is the first thing people mention (I’m taking credit for hand-picking my book designer), and friendly and helpful and a little bit silly and bonkers at times, which makes it fun. I wrote it so even 8-year-olds and extremely anxious first-time stitchers could follow along. Teaching the mending course really helped there, too; there are five troubleshooting sections called “What Could Go Wrong?” that were taken directly from my teaching experience.
Currently it’s only printed in Australia, but I’ve heard rumours about a U.S. edition, maybe next year if we’re lucky?
Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald Maker + mender
