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Arts & Entertainment

Artist in Focus: Nora Fish

Nora Fish designs for her life.

Nora Fish has four business cards and she spread them out like a fan as we sat on the bench in front of .

The top card is for Go Fish Interiors, her interior design business; Nora Fish Design, for her graphic design company; Color Maven is her color consulting business; and, her most recent, Viveca Handmade, is her jewelry making venture.

“What? No card for your hand-knit dog sweater business?” I asked with a laugh.

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She smiled big and pet her eager pug Tootsie, who was sporting Fish's beautiful handiwork, and then blew a kiss to Annika, her glamorous long-haired German Shepherd.

“I really just do that for the dogs,” she said as she listed a handful of hairy friends she keeps warm with her knitted goods.

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Fish is a classic Park Slope Jane-of-all-trades. Her career started in the perfume industry as a graphic designer for Chanel (“Long before they did everything on computer,” he explained.) Next she worked for Lancome, but then took a turn into the financial world and became the one-woman corporate identity team for a small firm. For a time afterward, she started renovating houses, which she still loves to do.

Fish discovered her love for handmade crafts when she was 8 years old while attending Camp Killooleet in Hancock, Vermont. At camp, which was owned by the brother of the American folk musician Pete Seeger, the native Brooklynite made her first crafts: a silver ring and a leather belt.

In the early 1970s Fish and her peace-rallying parents settled in Brooklyn Heights. On her 11th birthday, her mom and dad gave her a gift she still uses today: A jewelry-making set.

Although she only makes canine sweaters for her friends, she does use her knitting skills to keep Slopers warm too. Her Alpaca Mobius shawls were sold last winter at Seventh Avenue outfit, where she can also be seen working as a salesperson: “Mostly because I like being there, I like being around beautiful things and I like meeting people,” she said.

When Fish first sewed buttons on the Alpaca Mobius shawls, it inspired another idea: A jewelry line, Viveca Handmade (her middle name is Viveca), that features necklaces, earrings and pins decorated with modern-colored beads she makes out of polymer clay and bakes in her oven. 

The line, which ranges from $38 for pins to $78 for necklaces, is now being carried at Otto and Cozbi on Fifth Avenue, which specializes in Brooklyn handmade products.

But, it’s often hard for Fish to part with a bead she’s made.

“I hold them up when I finish and I say, ‘This is mine!’” She explained.

When Fish showed the owner of Cozbi, Cozbi Cabrera, a pin she had made, Cabrera wanted to buy it right then and there. But Nora wouldn't sell it.

“I couldn’t,” she said as she clutched the pin, which she still wears, close to her with love, love only a true artist can have for their work.

After that episode with Cabrera, she went home to replicate the beloved pin so she could bring it to the store and someone else could buy it, someone else could fall in love with it, she explained. 

Fish is part of the Brooklyn artisan movement that has gained national notoriety. She has plans to create an Etsy site, so her products can reach people across the globe with her handmade crafts.

As we spoke, Tootsie and Annika began howling and singing along with a passing fire engine, drawing the attentions and smiles of all who passed.

And there she is: Nora Fish, an artist, a businesswoman, a Park Sloper.

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