About Uptown Atelier
Uptown Atelier is a woman-owned small business in the northern Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood in New York City, offering fashion sewing classes, fine art classes, and couture sewing services, and occasionally even classes integrating sewing and art. Here you will find personalized approach to learning, as well as in the alterations and bespoke garment services. Every person is an individual, and clothes are like a second skin - why not let them reflect who you are?
Uptown Atelier seeks to express its deepest values through the art and practice of hands-on creativity: cherishing individuality, respecting the Earth, cultivating connection with others, and practicing joyful, mindful living.
Though there may not seem to be time to make things by hand, in a way, there is no time not to, because we are most deeply alive when we are engaged in our daily lives and present in our bodies. Creative practice cultivates that, and is a curative for so many challenges. Lessons are taught to generate individual confidence in creativity and technique. Inclusivity is another form of respect. Nature has infinite forms of beauty in so many plants, landscapes, and animals. Human beings are no different, and therefore these classes are not about conformity or one way to do things. Rather, they are about revealing who an individual is, and providing the skills to do that. We strive to cherish all learning differences so that your experience is a safe one. You are welcome here.
About Rose
Welcome to my studio!
It is my honor to share my love of sewing, art, and all things creative with you.
Early Beginnings
The first dress I ever made, at nine years old. I was so proud to wear it to school!
When I was very young, creativity had already taken flight. My earliest art teachers were a lot of fun, and I still remember special projects I did with them, as well as in my regular classrooms. Outside of school, I did a lot of drawing and painting as a hobby. And then came 4-H.
4-H is associated with rural areas, and in fact my mother grew up on a farm in Michigan. However it does exist in cities as well. It is a nice combination of life skills and a social group, and allows kids to take all sorts of classes in a community setting, where parents teach a skill to a group of interested kids. My mother grew up learning how to sew in 4-H (in addition to her chores involving driving the tractor as a child!), and courageously also took on the task of learning to decorate cakes with me, since I wanted to take cake decorating and there was no teacher. I dabbled in a few other pursuits, but stayed focused for years on both sewing and cake decorating. We got an opportunity once per year to take our finished projects to the county fair, where we would compete for ribbons. I still remember the incredible pride at seeing my work hung with a prize, my reward for many months of hard work. It taught me that I could do things far beyond what I thought possible, and encouraged me later on it life to be willing to just give something a whirl. What if I don’t know how to do that? That’s okay . . . we will figure it out along the way! I recognize this as a rare blessing as so many people have had creativity squeezed or belittled out of them. But if that’s the case for you, don’t worry . . . I can help with that, too.
In addition to 4-H, I got a lot of support from my grandmother, Theone. As a literature professor, she enthusiastically supported my creative writing, and all my other creative pursuits as well. I still vividly remember her delight when I made and decorated her cake for her 80th birthday, decorated with a peacock. Visiting my grandparents’ farm was one of the highlights of my childhood, and I remember it as being a place where I felt safe and free, where a lot of love was put into daily activities, and where the corn fresh from the garden was the sweetest corn you’d ever had! My grandmother was very into fashion, and I am very happy to still have her sewing machine in my collection.
Rose with Grandma Theone
Into High School . . . Discovering my Voice
One of my pieces from high school art class with Mr. Davis
I was lucky enough to have an incredible art teacher in high school named Mr. Davis. I wonder sometimes if he knew how much he impacted me. In his class I discovered new ideas and techniques, but also more about myself, that I could be an artist on an even deeper level. There was just the right amount of support and guidance. I remember his studio space as being the most zen room in the school, where time just flew by and everyone was on task, regardless (or perhaps because) of his soft spoken manner and confidence in his students.
It was empowering to learn art in a way that involved real technique, but also freedom. He became an example to me years later when I became a teacher, and I can only hope to offer as much inspiration and encouragement to my students as he once did for me.
Mr. Davis, I will always remember you!
While unrelated to my current business, I also had the good fortune of being able to participate in a really wonderful competitive jazz band, led by Mr. C, as we called him instead of Mr. Christopher. Mr. C taught me so much about music. By my junior year, I was performing in both the advanced jazz band and the small combo, and had many solos on flute and piano. All of this was confidence building in a way I cannot describe, and informed my music composition in years to come. Regardless of what creative practice someone chooses, having the opportunity to explore the arts either as a young person or an adult is a wonderful, foundational part of being human.
Creating into Adulthood
For a lot of my adulthood, creativity was a necessity to pour myself into after jobs that did not necessarily encompass my creative being. I would gleefully take up one new hobby after another just because I couldn’t resist, in addition to the existing rotation of art, sewing, music, writing, jewelry making, and culinary experimentation. I also found myself exploring temporary pursuits such as glass painting, and I finally learned to knit beyond just making a scarf, eventually learning enough to design a celtic cable and lace cardigan. I felt a longing to move beyond the realism I had been learned and gravitated toward in my high school art classes, and explored illustrative and abstract styles. I struggled with new media, like watercolor, which initially I felt I totally sucked at - but I had learned when I was young to persist through the feeling of can’t and have enough confidence to keep trying until . . . one day it clicked, and I was so thrilled when I produced a painting I actually liked. As for sewing, my obsession with precision and technique did not die down, but I also developed a lot of interest in pattern design, and without any formal training at all decided just to use my love of puzzles and math and just wing it. While my early designs could have been more refined in terms of the total construction, they actually fit really well, better than the commercial sewing patterns I’d always used and were a lot of fun to wear (though some of my designs at age 21 were a bit on the loud and strange side!).
Eventually I became very interested in couture sewing and industrial techniques, for opposite reasons - couture sewing because of the emphasis on precision, fit, and sophistication, as well as impeccable technique - industrial sewing for speed, baby! And actually, also for precision, as that is very important in industrial applications. Industrial techniques in particular are tough to learn because they’re generally just taught on the job, and are quite different from home sewing techniques. Nonetheless I scraped together whatever knowledge I could to better my techniques. All the while I continued to self education with books, and eventually with videos, and also just with experimentation. Eventually I picked up “proper” patternmaking techniques, using textbooks from fashion schools as reference guides. They expanded my instinctual flair for it with more specificity to understand how it’s done, and why little tweaks make a world of difference in the end result.
Only when I began my own business did it become a full time occupation - both a blessing and a bit of an obstacle, really. Before, my creative pursuits meant freedom - and suddenly, they had other meanings attached. At the same time I was trying to build my business, I encountered some very tough personal obstacles, things in the realm of grief, illness, and trauma. And for the first time in my life . . . my creativity got a little quiet. And eventually seemed to have gone right out of me. I was absolutely terrified that I’d lost something that felt totally essential to who I was - but every time I tried, it just was so blocked that I felt paralyzed. I think this is because creativity is deeply tied to our ability to feel. In tough times, we can sometimes shut down those parts of ourselves without knowing it. And awakening them can be a little rough - buckle your seatbelt! And yet the same thing that can be rather painful can turn into something liberating. I pushed through my blockages and I am so glad I did. It felt like coming back to life. In the end, even though this experience was truly awful, I’m glad it gave me greater personal insight into what stifled creativity feels like for many people, because for most of my life I just couldn’t imagine it. I had to compare it to something else, such as organization being incredibly difficult for my neurodivergent brain. I certainly felt organizationally stifled, paralyzed, overwhelmed. But never creatively, up until that point.
I have to say, I initially felt like this period of creative paralysis meant I was somehow doomed to continue my business - I did continue it, and eked out my work for each client, but did not manage to find any joy in it for myself. There was a lot of self doubt there - how can a professional experience creative paralysis? But now I see it differently. Now I see it as just a hard time I went through, in which the creative paralysis was just a very logical side effect. And moreover, it did really help me have better understanding of helping students who might feel anxiety, as so many do for so many reasons. Feelings are complicated. And unraveling my paralysis was complicated, and in so doing I learned a whole toolbox of tricks to get through it, to keep cultivating that feeling of joy and freedom, and to keep doubts at bay. So previously I could relate to my students with creative anxiety or paralysis with compassion, by thinking how I felt when I felt blocked in other ways (as mentioned, organization is a hard one for me . . .). But it’s really powerful to have used the tools yourself. And for that reason now I actually consider it a benefit to m business to have had this period of creative paralysis, because without that I would not have my handy box of tools to help.
No matter what, I believe in our innate ability to create, and that means you, too! I am here to support you and help you learn, no matter if you’re in a feverish frenzy to learn or just feeling a bit overwhelmed to get started. Sometimes it’s just a little adjustment, a little oiling of the rusty hinges on a door that can then open to a beautiful beyond.
I believe we learn from other people, and by trying new things - whether it be observation, taking a class, reading a book, watching a video, or simply getting out the sewing machine or the paint brushes and having a go. Try it! It's fun! The best thing about creativity is it's about expansion and opening up to new things. Even mistakes can be a beautiful part of the creative process.
I taught in NYC middle school classrooms for eight years full time, teaching everything from French to English to music. Even though I didn't teach art or sewing as a subject matter, I enjoyed bringing art into my classroom whenever possible. I have had additional experience teaching young children through college aged students, I have taught gifted and special needs students, and I hold a graduate degree in education.
My favorite moments as a teacher were always the ones when a student who didn't believe they could do something, but took a chance and discovered, “Yes! I can do this!” And so can you. Whether you believe you are creative or not, if you have aspirations to becoming more creative, I can help. I make learning to sew, paint, draw, and make jewelry fun and accessible.
My wish is for every student to leave my class with a big smile and pride in their achievement. So far . . . I have achieved my goal! I'd love to help you do the same.
Teaching Experience
