Pattiy Torno

While i had made pictures with my brownie camera as a child, photography really came into my life in 1985 when Steve Mann walked into Chicken Alley, behind my studio in downtown Asheville, carrying a Leica camera borrowed from Ralph Burns of Iris Photographics.  One look through that lens and I was hooked.  I do not come from an artistic background.  I am a clothing designer first and foremost, so playing with color and pattern, shape and proportion comes very naturally to me.  

I began my artist career my senior year of high school.  I decided I would become a fashion designer, as the only thing i loved to do was sew.  I dropped all my academic courses and took nothing but art.  I attended Virginia Commonwealth University for two years and then moved to New York City to attend Parson's School of Design.  I started my first clothing company in 1980 and have been self employed ever since.

My photographic journey has been for the most part self taught.  The exception is Steve Mann teaching me to print color as well as helping me to set up my first darkroom.  I am forever in his debt.