Oscar-award-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell brought sketches to life in dozens of theater productions in Minneapolis.

“There’s just an energy and a presence in the work that was just recognizable and was just elevated so far above so many of us,” DJ Gramann II, Guthrie Theater draper and tailor, said describing Tazewell’s designs.

Gramann rubbed elbows with Tazewell after meeting in college, becoming colleagues in Minneapolis and now friends.

He sat proudly in the audience at the Oscars when Tazewell was nationally recognized for his costume design in the movie Wicked.

“I just burst into tears,” he said. “Not only do I recognize his incredible talent and his other skills to be able to pull off these projects in the way that he does, but he’s just such a beautiful, caring person that puts so much emotion and so much of himself in the work.”

Starting in 1995, Minneapolis got a front-row seat to Tazewell’s sketches that came to life in over a dozen productions.

“Paul’s sketches are so detailed and amazing and works of art in and of themselves,” Gramann said. “It’s creating the magic for the audience to be able to express the magic and the vision that Paul has.”

The vision that tailors in the Twin Cities stitched for years, having a hand in the fabric of his life.

“It’s just really amazing to know he hasn’t been forgotten from all the people that have worked with him when we worked here,” Gramann said. “I think that that speaks so directly to what a beautiful, caring person he is about the work and also the people who have worked on it.”