Cutting glass may not seem like a restful activity to most people, but for Pate, "it's the most soothing hobby - to create something alive from an inanimate object." It's something she always admired and wanted to do. When her two children were old enough to be out on their own, she took a course at RISD, but found it very disappointing. "The teacher was a true artisan, but couldn't teach," she said. Then she found Joe DiPalma, who was the principal at Hope High School at the time. DiPalma had taken the same RISD course. Equally disappointed, he went to Boston to study the craft, then opened his own glass shop in Warwick, where Pate started taking lessons.
Now Pate has moved her home studio into a working studio with four other women artists who work with glass. They are setting up a retail store in the front of the Pontiac Mills studio in Cranston to sell their works to the public.
Pate's hobby followed her to work. Two years ago, she made a stained-glass window of the CIS logo - not just for the beauty of it, but to provide some privacy for those who work behind the glass-walled cubicle. "It's hard to work with people watching you," she said. "This gives us privacy but allows us to see."
A constant stream of commissioned pieces keeps Pate busy. She did a round piece - a portrait of a Victorian lady - for her sister in Florida, and carried it on the plane the same morning she finished it. "I enjoyed watching my sister's joy. That does it for me - when I can please someone."
In eight years, Pate has cut herself three times. "You learn to get the feel of which way the glass is going to cut - it almost talks to you. It takes practice, like anything else," she said. Her biggest mistake so far was an error in judgment. "I had laid out an entire window but had to dissemble it because I didn't like the color that I had picked anymore. And I knew if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't want someone else to have it."
This was Pate's third year selling her wares at the annual Christmas Bazaar, held Dec. 4 in Sayles Hall. A best-seller there is an 11-point star ideal for catching the rays through a sunlit window. "I usually sell out before I even get to the bazaar," she said.
Pate is practically counting the days to when her hobby will become her full-time job. "It's exciting to have a whole new career to look forward to - something I really enjoy," she said. "I don't intend to sit in a rocking chair." - Linda J. P. Mahdesian