By Shelby Hartin
Special to The Weekly
Rhythmic bass blasts from car stereos, mixing with sounds of dreadlocked Deadheads strumming guitars and beating drums. A sea of yawning hatchbacks litter the parking lot, barking dogs tied to their bumpers. Two teenage girls hurry through the crowd, pushing past stands selling crafts and grilled cheese. One holds a stack of handmade dresses in her arms. The other, a willowy figure with long blond dreadlocks, wipes her sweaty palms on the lace petticoat peeking from under a handmade patchwork creation. The two girls splash through puddles, anxious to set up their display for others to view in the summer sun of New Hampshire.
“Isis!” the blonde girl yells, looking on in horror as a flurry of handmade dresses and limbs falter
and come crashing down, a threatening mud puddle inches away. She holds her breath, then
opens her eyes slowly, waiting for word that their creations have been ruined.
“The dresses are okay,” Isis yells back, arms outstretched and a smile on her face as she peers up through fabrics from her position on the ground.
“The lots of the Dead shows were like a scene all their own,” Jessica Sader recalls, laughing at
the memory. Sader, known to her family and friends as Jessi — “I’m a Jessi once you get to know me,” she says — grew up wandering the country in cramped hatchbacks that functioned doubly as a place to curl up for the night. Her sea foam green eyes glitter when she talks about her youth, which consisted largely of selling handmade clothing at Grateful Dead concerts in the nineties. She exudes thrill and melancholy recalling her days of adventure with friends she would describe as “hippies.”
Sader is a wandering soul, given the unique path she’s chosen to follow in life, but even wanderers find a place to put down roots and call home. For Sader, that place has been the small town of Orono.
Brisk winter wind follows Sader as she comes through the door. It whisks her long blonde hair
into tighter waves and coils around the ends her cardigan. The Store Ampersand owner, Roberta Bradson, watches Sader flutter around, gathering the necessary tools to mix herself up a cup of coffee.
Bradson has an unspoken agreement with Sader, who she’s watched grow up. Bradson sells
Sader’s clothing brand — FXDressed — among the variety of treasures the store contains and in return, Sader gets all the free coffee she can drink.
“She just sort of told me ‘I’m leaving this stuff here,’” Bradson laughs, glancing over at Sader. “I
don’t think she ever asked, it was always just understood that she could.”
Sader says she’s always been an artist as she gets up from her chair and hurries over to a clothing rack adorned with patterns. She pulls out an armful of dresses and holds them up against her body for viewing. Hues of candied orange, delicate yellows and hardy browns are only a few of the colors the stack represents. Each pattern is unique. She smiles as she runs her hands over the clothing, swaying back and forth as if modeling them herself. She has come a long way since her days selling her wares in the parking lots of Grateful Dead concerts, but her spirit remains the same.
For her designs, Sader uses fabrics made in the USA, traveling far and wide to collect the most
unique prints and patterns. In 2002, she opened Past Lives Boutique that specialized in vintage
clothing. The store closed in 2005, and since then her focus has been on her own clothing line.
She used to spend her afternoons making clothing on her old-fashioned Singer sewing machine,
but now she employs seamstresses who take care of the production, leaving her creative mind to work its magic.
Sader recently made the decision to relocate to California, where she hopes the economy will
benefit her small business.
“The economy here in Maine has waned,” Sader says. “I have a lot of very strong relationships
with people who have had stores and have had to close. It’s been a challenge in my market —
business has taken a hit in the past couple years.” She glances over at her daughter, Caernyx — Nixie for short — and mentions the greater opportunities available for her in California as well.
Sader isn’t alone in her struggle. The current climate for small businesses in the nation is harsh,
and Maine is no exception.
“Small businesses always do have their challenges based on their type of business, the economy they’re in and often in rural states in Maine, trying to access a new market,” said Seth Goodall, regional administrator for the United States Small Business Administration.
The U.S. Small Business Administration is one of many organizations around the nation trying to
increase opportunities for small businesses like Sader’s. For example, the Maine Small Business Coalition advocates for policies that promote responsible economic development and investment in the community.
“It is vital that we invest in our small businesses. Small business owners, because they’re
members of our community, are going to make business decisions that are better for their
communities and the state of Maine. This is especially true in small towns. Small business
owners and small businesses are so important for the health of our communities,” said director of the Maine Small Business Coalition, Will Ikard.
If Sader is anything, she is a devoted member of the community. In addition to working a needle
and thread, she works as an instructor for the Orono-Hampden-Old Town Adult Ed Partnership,
where she teaches classes in aroma therapy, essential oils and herbal medicine as a certified
master herbalist. She also leads herb walks for her father’s classes.
Her father, Steven Sader, is the professor of forest resources at the University of Maine where he specializes in remote sensing. Her mother has also taught printmaking classes at the university.
Sader has made Orono her home in more ways than one, whether it be from her history with
locals such as Bradson or her involvement with local education. When asked what her longtime
friend Isis Bell-Smith — who teaches yoga classes at local small business Om Land Yoga —
thought about Sader’s move across the country, she laughs.
“She wants to move, too,” Sader says. “I don’t know if she will,” a hint of sadness
clouding her otherwise sunshiny face. Sader seems to transform when she speaks of her friend
Isis, whom she grew up with in Orono.
“We both moulded each other’s young adult life in so many ways,” Sader says, traveling back to
the day in New Hampshire in the crowded Grateful Dead parking lot when she and Isis started a
unique trend of artistry and design that Sader continues to this day.
Sader has built her life around a small town. She’s a clothing designer, a mother, an herbalist, a
teacher, a daughter and a friend. Above all, she is a member of the Orono community, a place
she has come to call home over the years, and a place that she will be sad to leave behind in the
new adventure she plans to take. This time she will holding her handmade clothing in her own
arms and avoiding the puddles along the way.