Why am I called Copperwoman? I have always really loved the color of copper. In 1996, I was in recovery from a full year of treatment for breast cancer, and was very interested in doing as many of those “someday” things as I could.  One was to make a costume for myself and go to a Star Trek convention. I had made many for other convention-goers, but not myself. It all started with the mesh of the headdress, which was a thrift store shopping bag that I just happened to put on my head. I had the copper fabric in my stash – lots of it! It’s black and metallic jaquard tissue lame. The jewelry used to be a Rubick’s Cube. The boots are black slip-on canvas shoes with scrunched copper stitched to them. I constructed the thing that goes over my shoulder from empty serger thread cones, cut apart and reassembled, and covered with painted suedecloth. I went to the convention in Seattle and won first place in the costume competition, and got to meet Nichelle Nichols (Leiutenant Uhura.) I had to have a name for my character, so I called her “Copperwoman” and have been using that name sometimes ever since. By the way, I apologize for the poor photos, but they were scanned from 15-year-old slides.

Launch Gallery