Crafting helps high-achieving lawyers relax, recharge and have fun
Rebecca Stadler has been crocheting for over five years.
THE REAL DEAL
The need to create a tangible product led Rebecca M. Stadler to crocheting. Photograph by Jim Cookfair; Courtesy of Rebecca Stadler.
It all started when she read a feature in Parade magazine. “The article was talking about crafting and how people with desk jobs like lawyers appreciated it because they were able to create something tangible,” she recalls. “I really identified with the article because, while I do good work for people, everything I do is on the computer.”
Stadler, a partner at Del Vecchio & Stadler in Buffalo, New York, practices intellectual property law with a focus on the biomedical and chemical industries. One of her areas of interest is nanotechnology: She devoted her masters of engineering thesis to the topic and studied it while working as a patent examiner.
Stadler says her mom used to knit and once tried to teach her how. It wasn’t a fit, but that memory inspired Stadler to consider crochet, which requires a single hook instrument rather than a set of needles. “I found a lady who taught crochet, and I learned to do it, and I thought, ‘Wow, I am not terrible!’ ” That was five years ago. Since then, she has made hats, scarves, blankets and shawls.
Currently she’s working on a shawl made from yarn she bought in Bath, England, spun from the wool of three different types of sheep. The ability to hold a finished piece in her hand gives her a unique sense of satisfaction, she says. “You just can’t look at a filing receipt on a computer screen and feel the same sense of pride.”
Meriwether agrees. He says he appreciates being able to make a product after he’s spent all day providing a service.
“As a lawyer, I send out a bill, but in some respects there’s no product to show for it—there’s great service, but no product,” he explains. “But with woodworking, there’s the satisfaction of having a finished product that I can hold and feel; something I made with my own hands.”
Recently, Meriwether has been focusing his creative attention on making writing instruments. They’re much faster and easier to make than furniture, and he says there’s an added bonus: They make great gifts. Among the recipients of his handmade pens are sheriff’s deputies directing traffic at his church, lawyers in his firm, clients and even a journalist he met while giving expert commentary. “I can’t really say, ‘Hey, I appreciate you. Want a free divorce?’ ” Meriwether says with a laugh. “Pens are a much easier way to say thank you.”
Rad notes that knitting has given her something that feels just as tangible as any piece of art: a sense of community. She belonged to a knitting circle in law school, and she still meets up with other lawyers on a regular basis to knit together. Sometimes the group talks about law and the experience of being a lawyer; sometimes they don’t. But there’s usually food, the vibe is warm and cozy, and new members are always welcome.
“Law can be a pretty lonely profession for people. You spend a lot of time at your desk reading and writing and not interacting as much with people in other fields,” she says, which is what makes her so appreciative of knitting groups. “It’s nice to have that built-in time that’s just social. There’s no competition, no requirement that you produce anything—it’s just time to sit and knit and be together.”
After one of her Twitter threads about the history and benefits of knitting went viral in January, Rad created a virtual space for these kinds of interactions. Cho and Rad became the admins of a Facebook group called Legally Stitching, “a place for stitching lawyers, law students and friends of all skill levels to discuss knitting, crocheting and other fiber arts.”
MAKING CHANGE
New York City solo Carolina Rubio MacWright is such a believer in the power of crafting that she has incorporated it into her law practice.
Carolina Rubio MacWright leads her pro bono community program to educate immigrant women. Photograph by Deborah Zeolla Photography.
Last year, MacWright developed a pro bono community program in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn to educate women living in the country without legal permission. She began informing them about their legal rights regarding immigration law and landlord-tenant law. And she added an innovative twist: She simultaneously taught them how to make pottery.
The program is composed of four classes, each three hours long. MacWright, who emigrated from Bogotá, Colombia, when she was 20, conducts the classes in Spanish. The program currently is being funded by Chashama, an arts organization that supports artists by offering them space to create and present their work.
“The clay is almost a means to an end, helping to empower these women,” MacWright says. Working 		the clay helps program participants concentrate; it helps build connections between people; and at the last session, she says, it’s inspiring to see how proud her students are of what they’ve created from scratch.
Photograph of Carolina Rubio MacWright by Kisha Bari.
MacWright’s dual-purpose approach has been so successful, she has been able to expand the program to other neighborhoods and has added a class series for men only. When the program began, her class size was between eight and 15 women. Now, she teaches as many as 27 participants at a time.
The idea to introduce clay to the educational mix was not arbitrary, MacWright says. As a trained artist who works in a variety of media to highlight social justice issues, she has experience working with clay, and she says she chose it specifically because of its forgiving nature.
“When you’re making art, it’s easy to get frustrated if you’re drawing or painting,” she explains. “With clay, you can make a crooked cup, and it looks beautiful—imperfection is beauty in clay.”
She also uses her art instruction to emphasize important points. “There are many allusions you can draw to the material, like ‘The more you know your clay, the stronger a base you can make,’ ” she explains.
MacWright would ultimately like to replicate the program nationwide. She says she’ll be rolling it out in Los Angeles soon, and she’d like to bring it to other states with significant Hispanic populations like Texas and Oklahoma.
“We don’t have enough places to bring people, art and law together,” she says, “and this method is really effective.”
