A Visit With Patty Salo Downs –
Maker of Hand Knit, Felted Handbags
By Gerry Luoma Henkel
“One day I went to an art exhibit at a local gallery,” Patty Salo Downs said to an interviewer while she was arranging a few of her recently made felted handbags for a photograph, “and someone asked me if I was an artist. I thought about it for a few moments, and then I said yes, I am an artist.”
That was around two years ago, shortly before she began in earnest to create beautiful artistic handbags and purses made from knitted and felted yarn, and at a period of time when her life was occupied not by art, but by work as a consultant and development director. At that moment when she was asked that question out of the blue, Patty says, “My question for myself was what would happen if I full out claimed my artist side. And the answer was that it has been magical. I never set out to be a handbag maker – it was not a decision or goal – it was solely by intuition...very organic. Most of us are artists, but I don’t think we claim that as loudly as we could. That day I claimed full out my artistic side.”
Patty described an element of the artistic process as “a desire to create and play with concepts” as she was sitting at a dining table snacking on cheese and rye and reflecting on the joyful and exciting turn her life had taken after claiming her artist side. Such philosophical and analytical reflections are second nature to Patty, and they are essential to another side of her life, the part of it where she works as a certified personal and professional life coach helping people achieve their goals.
As the interview proceeded it often turned into a rambling conversation that might begin with a thought, for instance, about the techniques she uses to keep her handbag creations from “strangling” themselves while she felts them in a washing machine, then to a rumination on something else, such as stress. (“What stresses me out is that everybody is trying to ram, shove everything in their life onto a deadline. As an artist I can’t do that. I think the joy of being is lost. The joy of art – of creating a handbag – is not deadline driven”.)
Patty Salo Downs is a multifaceted person. Her thirty-some year career has revolved around working with people in many different environments. She has held positions as a corporate relations representative for one of the largest businesses in northeastern Minnesota, she was director of development for one of the colleges at the University of Minnesota, she has raised millions of dollars in funds for various non-profit and educational organizations, she has served in important positions for the Association of Junior Leagues, and served on numerous boards of directors (such as a center for alcohol and drug treatment, the March of Dimes, Chamber of Commerce, children’s homes – just to name a few).
She did all of this and more before she turned 50. But one gets a sense from her when she starts talking about the creative process that takes hold of her when she begins making a felted handbag, that there is nothing as exciting as making something tangible out of an inner vision. It’s obvious listening to her that when she “full out” claimed her artist side, she found one of the most important parts of herself.
“I want it to be a tightly felted, a last-for-generations handbag,” Patty says as she talks about her felted works of art.
Right now she is making 3 handbags for the wife, daughter, and granddaughter of a man she met while doing other work. “I will tie them together somehow and show the generational linkage. I love the concept of what he is asking me for, and in a month something will bubble out.”
Patty says she tries to connect all the elements of the handbag in the design for an individual. “I look at a ball of yarn, and an idea leaps out at me. The idea for the handbag evolves as I look at the yarn. Sometimes, a lining fabric will lead me into a design, or maybe a button...or a stone. It all becomes integrated into a design. I don’t think I have a formula. It’s whatever jazzes me. There is a kind of an energy in it.”
“It is total play”, she remarks, “a total letting go of any kind of preconceived idea of what it will be, because I never know until I take it out of the washing machine, because I don’t know how the fibers are going to interplay. I do it by feel. Sometimes I have to stop and proceed later when I see what it wants to do.”
The process of making a handbag involves a few steps. “The first thing I do is visit the yarn store and wander around the aisles. I let the balls of yarn call out to me. Well, that’s one of the first steps,” she says laughing. “Or maybe I’ll be walking in the woods and notice a color and texture. Then I’ll take yarn and needles and try to figure out how to create what I saw. A third way is by having a vision of a bag that I’ve never seen. Or I’ll ask, ‘What would happen if...?’”
Once Patty choses the material, she begins to do “free flow knitting” until she has made the handbag. Then it goes into the washing machine into hot soapy water for 20 to 40 minutes. “I call it cooking my bags,” she says. “I have to check them every five minutes – sometimes the strap can strangle a bag. I learned from an old Finnish lady that you can’t throw anything away. So I take all the little yarn ends trimmed from the bag – the waste pieces. I compress them and felt them in the washing machine. Then I use those pieces as the flaps for the handbag.”
After it comes out felted, she will add a magnetic clasp and a flap, and if she hasn’t made it a part of the bag while knitting it, she will add the handle.
The next step is putting the lining on the inside. “The integration of the lining is so important to me...so that when someone opens the bag I want it to energize the person. It’s a little spark that adds life to your life. So picking out the lining for the bag can take some time. I want it to have the right feel. No bag leaves me without my feeling that it is right.”
How long does it take to make a handbag? 10 hours at a minimum, more often than not about 15 hours for a medium size bag. “It takes time. Sometimes I have to redo them. It doesn’t go out unless it’s perfect.” Patty emphasizes.
When she was asked where she learned how to make them she answers, “This is so weird. I didn’t really know what I was doing when I made my first bag. It was one of those manic moments when I had this ball of yarn and I had seen a felted handbag. I said to myself, ‘Patty you’re supposed to make a felted handbag.’ It was a beautiful September day and I should have been outside. I didn’t know anything about making it, but I started knitting. I was running out of the main color, so I found another and threw it in and said, well I’ll see what happens. I put it in the washing machine to felt it, not knowing what I was doing. I happened to have a book about felted purses that had a page on how to make the felt. I said to myself I should probably read it (Patty laughs!). So I started reading it. I guess I was doing it right. Out came this amazing little handbag, and from a design perspective it was perfect. I had no idea what I was doing.”
What does a handbag cost? Anywhere between $95 and $250 – the price depends on the design, the size, the embellishments. The handbags are sold in local galleries and can also be purchased directly from her (218-626-3645, psdowns@cpinternet.com).
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Photos from Patty's life: 1)Four generations of Anderson/Salo women in America: Patty’s mother JoAnn Jokinen Salo; Patty as a baby; Patty’s great grand-mother Mina Anderson; and Patty’s grandmother Esther Anderson Jokinen. 2) When Patty is not knitting handbags, you might find her rumbling around on her Harley – here's Patty and her husband George with one of their Harley Davidson bikes.