Who We Are

Who We Are
Patti Pagliei Simpson CEO and Creative Director Patti grew up enveloped by love – and boisterous, joyful Italian-Americans. Imagine life as theatre as family, and you might get something close to an idea. Everyone had roles – but Patti’s parents wanted everyone to make their own. Patti’s handsome football hero father and her dancer-actress darling mother said things to the effect of Write your own life, be the great story, indulge your imagination, follow your heart, etc. and so she did. Patti has carried this inherent beauty and foundation, coupled with a childhood steeped in creative imagination, into her design innovation for Waxing Poetic. A Bachelors in Fine Art led her to develop a distinctive design sense, one that has informed the inventive artistry and craftsmanship in the Waxing Poetic collections. Patti fully believes in the heart-as-map school of life navigation. Patti likes things that matter more than things that just amuse – but she isn’t averse to the two ideas in the same place. Patti likes heirlooms and old photographs, music and memory-making, letters and listening, art, sacred objects and adventure, and good wine and delicious food and sharing all of it, all the time, in any way she can. She also likes (and wishes for more plan-less) long wonderful days with her entrepreneurial husband John, adorable pointer pup Georgia, and the newest reason to create lasting designs…her baby girl Lulu.
	Lizanne Pagliei Hales *Vice President of Sales and Marketing* Lizanne’s dynamic sales and product development sense stem from her profound innate ability to meld tradition with significant trend insight. A degree in Advertising Design opened Waxing Poetic’s insignia jewelry to the world of celebrities and influential and inspiring publications. Lizanne officially joined forces with Patti following a 10-year adventure in sales and product development within various arenas of the gift industry. We say officially because as Patti’s little (but taller) sister, and her de facto voice of marketing and aesthetic reason, Lizanne has always been part of the Waxing Poetic squad. Now we’ve just gone public with it. Voice of reason, irrepressible humor, and occasionally, baseball statistics. Angel of photo shoots, transcontinental source-finding adventures, and laughter. Makes a mean risotto. Makes an even meaner (and by meaner, we mean extraordinary!) comrade. Lizanne rocks tremendous business acumen with equal parts Jersey-by-way-of-Philly sass, a quick wit, a great laugh, a kind heart…and general brilliance. Considers shopping, cooking, entertaining and gift giving tantamount to grail quests. Loves creating new concepts, scheming out themes and ideas with Patti and working with our excellent staff, and scoping Waxing Poetic jewelry worn by/on strangers. Generally fond adventures of the large and small kind, be they work-related, family-related, or with her wonderful husband Eddie and their Boston Terrier pup Roscoe. Lizanne is a heroine.
Jessie Zenor *General Manager* In a place full of dreamy-eyed designer-types throwing around “ideas” all the time, it’s a very good thing to have a very good manager on hand to make sure that things not only get done, but done well. This is a more difficult to find than you might think. Enter Jessie, stage left. Jessie came back to California after a seven-year stint in Seattle working in management for verrry large companies like Nordstrom and Starbucks, but she missed her family, and missed California. Convenient for Waxing Poetic, we’re located here, and are delighted she’s joined our squad. Jessie brings warmth, humor, and a level head to everything she does, and is a wonderful addition to the WP family. We can’t imagine this without her. When she’s not taking care of us, making our customers happy, or keeping a general sense of order intact, Jessie can be found outside enjoying the sunshine, playing at the beach, making delicious food and following football with her husband.
	Brianna Colburn *Contributing Writer/Aesthetic Consultant* After finishing a double undergraduate degree in Fine Art and English, Brianna took a seasonal design assistant gig with Patti…which evolved into all sorts of more, and soon joined the WP constellation. She moved far away to do an MFA, but didn’t ever really leave our orbit. Five years, lots of projects, and many ideas later, Brianna is officially an ally satellite. Brianna enjoys and can sometimes be found doing some of the following: Drawing. Dancing. Exploring. Getting weak-kneed over analog technology and delighting in things like letterpresses and slide projectors and vintage bias-tape ribbon and ambient noise and archiving adventures. Is fond of Coney Island in the off-season. Brianna lives in an un-renovated 19th century brownstone apartment in Harlem, with violet-grey walls, floors that creak, and an old radiator that makes pleasant jangly sounds. Sometimes she makes chandeliers.
Stephanie Bodine *Designer* Sometime fairly recently, Stephanie jumped coasts to California from NYC, along with her adorable yorkie, Charm. In New York, Stephanie studied design at Parsons, had various adventures, and started BOCAGE, her retail business and repository of vintage trimmings, chains, charms, and creative ephemera. NYC misses Stephanie, but we're selfishly very glad that she's here. When Stephanie and Patti met, and when they realized they had a very similar set of great aesthetic loves (ornamentation, antiques, specific typographies, an obsession with materials, a general passion for charms and particular, often surprising details), and how closely and quickly their styles aligned...it was a match made in magpie heaven. They've been dreaming things up ever since. Stephanie collects, sorts, archives, and explores all kinds of mutual WP-esque inspiration and then, like a magician, transforms the most interesting of it into visuals that help bring our concepts to life!
	Sue Krauer *Designer* Sue, oh Sue. Sue has beautiful hair and an infectious laugh and an ardent love of the Grateful Dead…and we’re more than blessed to have found her. One might say Sue is our local element, having picked up an Art Studio BFA from down-the-lane UCSB, somehow parlayed it into working with type (we love typography!) for a Show Dog magazine, and then found a way to go globetrotting, meet the Dalai Lama, see all the temples and mountains we’ve been dying to go to…and then come “home,” find us, and join our squad. Sue is talented as hell, feverishly in love with beauty in all its iterations, and is never short on humor or compassion. Oh Sue, we love you!
Rita Pagliei *Muse* Patti and Lizanne’s spirited mother, the true life of the party…a collector of all things memory-making, she raised her girls to reinvent themselves daily, through her love and innate understanding of what makes a life. It was the magical journey that Rita set out on in her own life that has inspired so much of the Waxing Poetic catalog. Thank you lovely Rita!
	Catherine Masi *Waxing Poetic’s Blog Writer and Contributing Writer* Cath is a lover of all things…the simple and the fantastically embellished in equal measure. Writing has been her secret love for eons…working on scripts for children’s programming and dreaming up book illustrations and sweet bedtime stories. More recently, she’s joined the ranks of the grown up world writing her own blog and that of Waxing Poetic’s. After picking up a Masters in Art Education, she taught art and dance with children for ten years before embarking on her current business, Ciara Obscura, designing accessories. She’s fond of: Trinketry. Tea. Vintage buttons, ribbons and aprons. Big old trees. Old records that pop when they play. Tiny canvases on which to paint. Family. Good solid friendships. Dark chocolate and port. And nooks (for reading, art making, or otherwise). Born and raised in New England as the “baby” in a huge Italian family, Cath is still slightly out of her element living in Santa Barbara, California, but has found home here with her artist husband, Sebastian, and boxer dog, Mars.