Photo by Isabella Lonzino
Grace Tourtelotte
News Reporter
Maureen Maher has been teaching Spanish at Newton South for twenty years. What some of her students may not know is that she is also a fashion and textile designer. She attended Massachusetts College of Art and Design for graphic design, and switched to fiber work once out of college.
Maher took her first pattern making and sewing class ten years ago and has been doing it ever since, attending classes at the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts in Jamaica Plain and working in her attic studio.
Maher’s work is detailed and takes time to make. She uses techniques such as nuno felting and pattern design on dress forms, and explains the effort put into each piece.
“The most important part of doing this piece was coming up with this texture,” Maher said, referring to the blue felt vest she was wearing this day.
To come up with the texture Maher created a color palette, in this case it consisted of blues and purples, and then dyed multiple silks. She then placed raw wool onto the silks, before placing another layer of silk, and lastly rolled the layers up using a pool noodle to make the various layers come together.
“A lot of times it’ll be fabric I dye myself, and I’ll just kind of hang it on the form and see what it wants to do,” Maher said.
Maher also gathers inspiration from the nature around her. She has recently been influenced by the bright colors and feather patterns on birds. She is also inspired when in her more structured environments such as the fashion and textile design classes that she attends.
As a full time teacher, she has to work hard to find time to keep up her fashion design. Maher wants students who are interested in art to know that oftentimes sitting down and starting work is the hardest part, especially after a long day at school.
“It’s not easy because I feel like I spend my best energy here. I do a lot of work [on my clothes] over the summer and on weekends because it’s hard to fit it in [during the week]. I’d like to do more than I do. For me, once I start doing it I’m good, it’s just getting to that point that’s hard,” Maher said.
Maher is quick to mention that while she does design a lot, it is a hobby. She does not make money for fashion design, it is mainly a way for her to be creative.
“I just like learning different processes. Like for example, this past summer, it was the first time I learned how to do French draping on a dress form so that’s something really new for me,” Maher said.
While she is not always wearing one of her pieces, students can definitely look forward to catching a glimpse of one of her unique pieces the next time she wears one.
