The Unstoppables is a series about people whose ambition is undimmed by time. Below, Patricia Field explains, in her own words, what continues to motivate her.
Age means nothing to me. In my mind, I’m probably 40. I’ve always gotten my energy by associating with people who are younger. I still do. It’s a habit I formed early in life. Young energy is optimistic.
That pattern continues in my store/art gallery on East Broadway in Manhattan and in my projects. I did a book last year. I don’t like to call it a memoir because “memoir” suggests some kind of an ending, and I wasn’t feeling an ending. The book was more a trip through a series of experiences. I had the opportunity to speak my words, so I did.
I had a great time on “Happy Clothes,” the documentary I worked on with the director Michael Selditch. Part of the fun was being filmed tooling around Brooklyn in my T-Bird with the top down.
The documentary opens with me swimming in a pool. I’ve been swimming since I was a kid. I feel spontaneous in the water. That scene has memories that are meaningful to me. Swimming reminds me of my mother, who was a swimmer as well. We had a little bungalow in Connecticut off a lake called Bantam Lake, and we would swim there most days.
My mother had a dry cleaning business in Queens — I think of her as an entrepreneur — and she was a major influence in the way I am. She wasn’t the kind to give advice. She did what she did. But the ambition I got, it started with her.
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