Meet Candiss Cole. Candiss is Sedona’s Fashion Forward Leader that loves Dressing Women!

Q: What inspired you to do what you do?

A: My family is Dutch. They came over from Holland as weavers. They chose to live near
the Hudson River, where they worked in the Lockport and Newfane Felt Mills in Upstate
New York. I was raised Dutch-Reform, so we wove at home. The women did all the
home weaving. We took t-shirts and coats apart to make rag rugs and placemats. We
made just about everything, but the carpet in the house. I was raised doing the
threading of the loom because as a little girl that was my job.

When I needed to learn Norwegian to be a midwife, the first and most natural thing for
me to do was to go to textile school. So, I went to a weaving school in Norway, learned
the language, and never went to midwifery school, ha-ha. I stayed there. I spent four or
five years with Marie Meko studying with different weavers and textile designers, all
over Finland, Sweden, and Norway. I became a translator for American artists with
Fulbright and Tiffany grants, who came to Norway to learn glassblowing. I just
immersed myself in their culture.
While I was at an event in Stockholm translating for the American artists that were
attending, I happened to be introduced to a gentleman who was the President of the
American Craft Council who said to me, ‘I know you are American, and I know you are an
artist and a craft person, you need to know that there is a woman, a philanthropist by the
name of Aileen Webb, who has decided to bequeath her fortune to the furtherance of
American craft. She was the one who started the whole thingQ: What exactly do you focus on? What is your work?

Q: What exactly do you focus on? What is your work?

A: I absolutely adore dressing women; I love making them look 10 pounds lighter and
10 years younger. My fashions are all about discovering and expressing their
personality right from the beginning.
I’ve been doing this for 45 years. My first show was in 1976, which happened to be the
bicentennial. I went in a Cutch Hat American Colonial outfit. I had a spinning wheel next
to me and I spun yarn. The idea was that you could buy yarn from me that had a history.
The yarn came from a Riverdale farm and the sheeps name was Buffy. People could
make something for their children or grandchildren out of that.

In 1977 I realized that women had more room in their closets than they did on their walls
or their couches, so I chose not to make wall hangings and pillows
I started dressing women. I had a couple of women who believed in me. And they just
handed me their credit cards and said, ‘dress me’ and that’s s where it all got started. It
was very hard for me when we had to close down the gallery because my connection
with people is so important to me. I enjoyed the bonding of dressing women and having
them all come back to me saying how wonderful they felt and looked and with their husband’s approval. That’s what I thrive on because there’s s magic when the person and the piece meet.
Originally, it’s just fabric, raw goods, an idea and a design; it doesn’t have a life.
But when the person and the piece meet, it’s s no longer mine, it’s theirs.

Q: Please tell us your story, how did you and your husband meet?

A: My husband didn’t want to bepart of the interview. He really feels that this is about
me. Twenty years ago, my husband and I met by chance. He has been in textiles longer
than I have. He started as a silk dire in the North of England. When he and I met, I had
to go to England to a conference to introduce my work at a world symposium. I told him
I was just going to send my work, he said I am going to take you there. And while we are there, I
might as well take you by the textile mill that I worked in. My materials are all silk and
that’s s what I was working in exclusively when he and I met.
One day, I was having trouble with doing dyes and he said, ‘that’s what I was raised on’.
He came over to America to work in the mills in the Carolinas. He is a textile machinist
and an engineer. We do it together and he does all the pattern, drafting, and cutting of
the garments. That was truly a gift to have that match because he brought another level
of expertise and polish to the work that as a homegrown hand weaver I didn’t have.
He was able to add another dimension to what we do.

Q: How long have you lived or worked in Sedona?

A: I got here in 1989.

Q: When you are not working, what’s your favorite thing to do?

A: I take the dog out for a walk. I live on a cul-de-sac and the National Forest is just 50
feet away. When Rodger and I got together, I said to him, you have to have a passion
besides this because to me it’s  really important that each person has a dream that
they are striving for and not just get up in the morning and work one more day.
Rodger said he would like to build a sidecar and go to Alaska. So, we did. Then we went up
Pike Peak on a sidecar. The current dream is a Bonneville land speed record on a
sidecar. He has built a motocross sidecar, its been tested and approved, and we have had our
rookie run. This year we are going to go for Bonneville Salt Flats.

Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Sedona?

A: My favorite restaurant is really my kitchen, ha-ha. But I love Elote and Heartline used
to be my all-time favorite because it felt like home.

Q: Is there anything I have left out or you would like somebody to know about you

A:  I am easily available in Sedona. We don’t have an outlet right in town anymore. We do have a gallery of wearable art online. We set up appointments at the house in our studio. We have a treasure hunt,
we run around for fabrics that people will just fall in love with. Next, we look at designs and then make
something special for them. I like a challenge. I don’t weddings but I will make something special for the mother of the bride!

Q: How would they find you?

A: Our website at www.candisscole.com.