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My name is Denise Tucker Gordon. I was born April 22nd. I’m not saying the year. And my connection with the Hill District is that I was born and raised in the Hill District. I had a very, very unusual childhood, a very, very happy childhood, and it was a good childhood when I was a small child. When I was about seven years old, one of my teachers saw my artistic ability and sent me to the art teacher, who is for the 8th graders or the 9th graders or so, and he saw me, and then they had me tested, and I was put into a program at Carnegie Mellon University for gifted children with genius IQ’s. My family, I have one sister. My mother was a housewife. My dad was an architect, and during that period of time, because he was black, there wasn’t much work for architects. So he became a- he had owned his own business and he built homes around here. He built, for example, in the Hill District, that building directly across from the Wesley Center Church, he built that building, it’s an apartment building now, and there’s an apartment building over on the other side, directly across the street. He built that as a young man. A strong woman to me is someone with confidence or someone who’s a lone wolf, someone who doesn’t need to follow anyone, doesn’t need to be like anyone, think like anyone, talk like anyone, just be who she is and still be confident, and no matter what anybody says, except herself. I believe in myself. I believe in how I think, how I look, how I am, and most people don’t. Well, maybe they do, but they don’t have enough courage to come up to me and tell me that what I am is not what they like, I don’t really care. My momma used to say to me like when I was little, you can’t fly with the eagles if you’re down there pecking with the chickens. Eagles fly higher than everybody. Chickens are still down there pecking. You can’t do things. You can’t be what you’re supposed to be if you’re down there just mediocre. So when I see that happening, I most certainly open my mouth and take somebody aside and tell them whether or not they want to hear it or not, because I’ve been there and done that and I’ve got a T-shirt for it, and I just know what could happen if you don’t believe in yourself simply because you’ve probably never had an example of what that is, so I make myself the example. When I was, I think I was 19, I was finished university. I took my portfolio, left and went to Europe. I went to Paris and-and I knocked on Yvonne’s door, she took my portfolio and I got a job working there. And then I started working for Chanel. Chanel came after me and asked me if I would work for them because they heard about me, and then I worked for Chanel as a composer, which is someone who makes the clothes for production or for the fashion show. And I worked as a pattern designer, a grader. I taught school at the Fashion Academy in France. I taught school at the Fashion Academy in Amsterdam. I worked as a fashion designer in Amsterdam, and I worked as a fashion designer, mostly in Paris. And I work for France H’ouvres and France Mollinard, and I also was a head designer of a bridal boutique. I learned to speak 6 languages, and I lived there for 41 years, and I recently came back, and the reason why I came back is because no matter where I have been, I have probably lived all over the world and worked there, there is no place like home. Pittsburgh is, to most Pittsburghers, boring. I love Pittsburgh. “Goedemiddag,” Dutch. “Guten tag,” that is German. “Buena fecir,” that is Spanish. “Good afternoon,” That’s English. “Hi y’all,” That’s black people.