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Kathy Goodwind

designers_goodwind(profile).gifKathy Goodwind practiced her chemistry profession for years as a toxicologist in laboratories, then gave it up for kites. “Kites paint a color pattern in the sky never to be repeated,” she says. "They're a way of expressing yourself. They raise my spirits.” Born and reared in Seattle , Goodwind took an associate degree in art at Everett Community College , then a bachelor's in science at Seattle University . After a decade in the sciences, she went to a kite festival in 1976 and was captivated by the sky painting she saw. Pleasure afforded by her own kite making efforts led her to set up a shop, originally attached to her studio, which she has maintained ever since. Formerly Suspended Elevations, it is now known as the Gasworks Park Kite Shop. Kathy also runs Goodwinds Kites, an online outlet for kites, parts, and supplies.

In addition to her retail businesses, Goodwind has continued to make kites, many custom-ordered, and she has developed a definite renown for her elegant appliqué work. Her devotion to her craft is so consuming she spent ten years carefully collecting different dye lots of fabric so she could create a three-dimensional effect in the cock's comb of the rooster pictured in her 10-by-12-foot "Rokkakadoodleku" kite. Another favorite is an eight-point star painted after a design on an American Indian war shield. “A big, floppy Snoopy inflatable by Rolf Sturm of Germany also showed me another direction," she said.

Goodwind has traveled widely and teaching new converts to kite making has been a passion; no one knows as many time-savers, neat tools, clever sewing techniques, and interesting materials. Kathy is always interested in craft techniques that can be brought to kites and her passion for soft-sculpture figures is finding its way into new and innovative kites.