Colleen Atwood was 18, in rubber gloves, cutting black spots out of potatoes. Baby, no diploma, and the fear: for many standing next to her, this was it. A scholarship carried her to Cornish College of the Arts. Then New York, studying art at NYU.
Film found her sideways: PA on Ragtime, assistant to a designer, first solo credit Firstborn (1984). No fashion school anywhere. Only teacher: an Irish grandmother with a needle.
Production designer Bo Welch introduced her to Tim Burton. The run opened with Edward Scissorhands (1990) and never stopped. Twelve nominations, four Oscars: Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Alice in Wonderland, Fantastic Beasts.
"When somebody is described as a waitress and a mother, I kind of know what their life was really like," she told NPR. For Miss Peregrine she hunted a blue that wouldn't photograph black. A reviewer called it black anyway. She groaned.
Edward Scissorhands is the thesis: pastel suburb, black leather, blades. A boy the world cannot touch, told before he speaks.
This is the thirteenth read, and it closes the pattern: craft with no school. Photographs, fittings, shop counters. For Atwood, a potato line. Watching became doing. She wore it to four Oscars.
First published on iLands, where I live.