by Quilt Alliance | Jul 7, 2014 | Uncategorized
Today’s Q.S.O.S. Spotlight is about genealogy. But not in the way you’re thinking! Sometimes, in searching the Q.S.O.S. archives, I find small, delightful connections between interviews. Today, I was reading an interview of Canadian quilter Lorraine Roy from 2008. In it, interviewer Bernie Herman mentioned a project by quiltmaker Dominie Nash. His question was about ‘quilt genealogies’–the way that quilts relate to each other and their history, their lineage, connections, and references. Both Dominie and Lorraine shared their thoughts about the way the quilts they made referred to their own past work, their evolution as quiltmakers and artists, and their quilt making process. These two Q.S.O.S. interviews are very different conversations, but they’re all part of the great family of quilts and quiltmakers. In the spirit of quilt geneologies, this week’s Spotlight starts with an excerpt from Dominie Nash’s 2001 interview, as she explained the great variety in projects she’d been working on recently: For a while I had been obsessively filling up areas of my quilt with little tiny pieces of fabric and I decided I wanted to simplify, so that at least for me worked here because as you can see the shapes are not as complex as some of my earlier work. And it led to a series which I’ve been very pleased with I’ve done five altogether… The series that I worked on before this and I don’t think I’ve finished with it is called “Peculiar Poetry” and it’s done in very much the same style although as I’ve said the use of fabric is a little more complex. Each of the big shapes was filled with many more smaller pieces of fabric and from the same color range to kind of create an overall color for each shape. And then I’ve done, I’m working on a series that I call “Deconstruction/Reconstruction” where I take old quilts that I’ve done that I haven’t been happy with and cut them up and recombine them to make new quilts so I’ve done maybe five or so sets of those. I have more candidates waiting in the wings. And then is a series called “Chimera” which involves taking pieces from one quilt and using them as a starting point for the next and those are based on drop cloths that I accumulate when I’m dyeing and printing the fabric. So with most of them I’ve taken a whole piece of cloth that has a lot of paint and dye splashed on it and I add some to it and use that as the ground for the quilt and then add, pieces on top of that from the previous quilt, do stitching and printing on top of the whole newly assembled piece… I don’t usually know when I do the first one or even two whether it’s gonna go on and I have some that have just sort of dead ended. But I like to work in series because it’s a way to develop my ideas and have what everybody seems to want is a body of work that kind of hangs together. I never say, you know I’m going to do ten or four or whatever, it just happens and at some point with some of them I might say this is finished and with others I know that I may come back to them. But I usually have two or three different series that I’m working on at the same time which may not look anything like each other. So I have to be careful when I’m presenting my work not to confuse people. 7 years later, Bernie Herman interviewed Lorraine Roy and mentioned Nash’s work, sparking a conversation about the ever-evolving technique and passions of an artist: Bernie Herman: Your thoughts on this question make me remember two conversations with two very different artists working in the same medium. First, some years ago Dominie Nash described a quilt project in which she made a quilt, rent or cut it into parts, recycled those parts into a second generation of quilts, rent or cut those into bits, recycled those fragments into the third generation, etc. In the end, many generations later, traces of the original continued to surface. Second, Irene Williams of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, explained a process in more or less these words, ‘Every quilt I make remembers all the quilts I’ve ever made and all the quilts my mother, sisters, aunts, cousins, and grandmothers ever made. In fact, every quilt I make remembers every quilt that has ever been made in this place.’ So, in the context of quilt genetics (for want of a better phrase), how do your quilts, using the example of “Luck and Skill,” express their genealogies? Lorraine Roy: My first love in textile technique was embroidery. Even though embroidery techniques were not taught in the area where I grew up, I sought out every possible source of information and was able to master quite a few different types, including canvas work and white work. Needless to say, these are slow painstaking methods of expression, and I wanted to work larger, faster, and in an even more painterly way. Over 20 years I developed the collage technique that I now use, but only in the past 10 years have I been using quilting as a way to finish and present the work (I was previously stretching onto frames). Because my imagery is so strongly influenced by the linear and painterly character of embroidery, my hangings are rarely called ‘quilts.’ In fact I have never made a real quilt, and because French Canadians have a stronger tradition of weaving and rug hooking, I was never exposed to them while growing up. So we could say that “Luck and Skill,” like all my other hangings, expresses its genealogy by referring more strongly to the linear and painterly elements of embroidery than it does to the traditional construction of quilts. As for visual genealogy: grids have appeared in almost every one of my series in some form or another. One of the reasons I was so drawn to my early Canvas embroidery was the orderly rows of stitches and the rhythmic motion of the work itself. I respond to grids in other artists’ work as well, so I suspect it’s simply part of my natural inclination or vocabulary, a symbol of order that balances beautifully with more chaotic elements… [E]ach piece I make captures (in the best way I can) one moment in a continuum of moments. It is not perfect but it has built on previous experience, and is a step to the next level. Just because one individual piece is not perfect does not mean it has less value. On the contrary, it has much to offer someone who is truly observing and searching – the mistakes, the inconsistencies, the omissions, the triumphs and failures – they are all there, plain to see. Each viewer enters it, contributes to it, and grows with it, in his own way. The viewer is a co-creator with the artist. You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories qsos@quiltalliance.org …
by Quilt Alliance | Jun 29, 2014 | Uncategorized
This week’s Q.S.O.S. Spotlight is extra special! Last Wednesday, the National Endowment for the Arts announced the winners of the 2014 National Heritage fellowships–the highest honor in folk and traditional arts in the United States. Among them was quilter and quilt advocate Carolyn Mazloomi, who founded the Women of Color Quilter’s Network in 1985 and has worked tirelessly to advocate for not only quiltmakers of color but all quiltmakers and lovers of quilts. Carolyn was interviewed in 2009 for the Q.S.O.S. project–read some excerpts from that interview about the WCQN and why Carolyn loves quilts, or check out the full interview here. Congratulations, Dr. Mazloomi! “I started the organization as a means to let African American quiltmakers know about the cultural significance as well as the monetary value of their quilts. We started out with nine people and over the years it’s grown tremendously. One of the things that we do is present quilts, quilt exhibitions to museums around the country. We give workshops around the country to children and youth, try to interest them in learning to quilt because when you think in terms of the quilt population of African American quilts within the realm of quilting in this country, there are not that many of us so it is important to me to try and interest young people in learning how to quilt. That is very important, because I think about the future…” “Quilts are important because, physical quilts are important to me because they give me joy, they bring me joy, they bring me joy. That’s the first thing and then the second thing I think about the historical aspect of quilts. I’m interested in recording that history, that is important to record quilt history because it gives us a window into American society, families and lives and social structure of people living here in this country. It is fascinating and it’s important. That’s what is important and then the quiltmakers themselves, people. There is just a wide variety of people that I’ve met and everybody brings something interesting to the table so that’s been an interesting point for me, meeting quilters of all races, gender across the country and sharing that common love of quilt making.” “My legacy and so forth with quiltmaking will be the founding of the Women of Color Quilters Network and finding a recording the contributions of African American quiltmakers to American quiltmaking, especially for the contemporary African American quiltmaker. It’s important for me that I do everything that I can to record their works, to exhibit their works so that they have a place in quilt history.” You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories qsos@quiltalliance.org …
by Quilt Alliance | Jun 23, 2014 | Uncategorized
Last month, Quilt Alliance board president Meg Cox and I were lucky to attend the Studio Art Quilt Associate’s annual meeting, ‘Capitolizing on Fiber’ in Alexandria, Virginia. As part of the meeting, SAQA founder Yvonne Porcella delivered an excellent lecture on early exhibits of the art quilt and SAQA’s beginnings. Check out that lecture here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ64IQmGWBQ Yvonne has been interviewed for the Q.S.O.S. project 4 times. In an interview in 1999, Yvonne shared a bit about her early career, the places her work has traveled and her hopes for the next century: [W]hen you ask me what was my best quilt it’s most likely the last one that I have done. But I do think as I have mentioned, my career has evolved from the first brides quilt that I made as a gift, to the first art quilt I made in 1980 which was basically strips of fabric and triangles and squares of fabric, and that quilt is in the Smithsonian Collection. And that was a great honor. But that quilt was so unique it was very colorful. That quilt also traveled around the world during the early 1980’s, so the quilt has provenance. In other words, it has traveled to France for a year and traveled to Turkey, and so the Smithsonian acquired it because they wanted a quilt that. So there’s a very emotional time of my life that says that must be the very best quilt because it’s in our National Museum. But on the other hand, I’ve evolved from that point, so in 1998 I was invited to do a quilt for the International Triennial of Tapestry which hung in Lodz, Poland. That show is an Invitational of 120 Artists representing about fifty countries and they are invited to exhibit for six months in the Museum in the textile area of Poland. So for me that quilt, my quilt in that show is the coming together of my whole artistic career. I use to be a weaver. I use to weave tapestries. This was a show of the “International Triennial of Tapestries.” So I went back to my roots as a weaver and historical significance of a tapestry which told the story. It tells the story of the history at that moment. We can go back as historians and look at the flora and fauna and the costumes, of that particular moment in time that’s been showcased in the woven tapestry. I wanted my quilt that went to that show to be the sort of the dialogue of my place in this world at this moment done in quilt but with the concept of tapestry of telling a story. The quilt was done in 102 by 110 inches and done by hand. I laid the colors in and I stitched them by hand very much like I had that same mental and artistic feeling when I laid in the threads for my tapestries, but here my fabrics were large pieces, so the shapes were all reminiscent of what I have done as a weaver and building up areas of colors. The quilt is titled “Answering the Riddle” and I had proposed to myself questions about the Twentieth Century, and what do we take from the Twentieth Century, what happened in this century that will effect us in the next? The quilt has a lot of meaning to me because events and moments in time of the Twentieth Century are translated visually into that quilt, so that’s my best. Jeri Baldwin: It sounds like it. What have you done with thinking about the Twentieth Century in your work and your teaching? What do you think you’ll change, or will you want to change, or what do you want to leave the same? What are you going to take into the Twenty-first Century as a quilter and as a teacher? I’m still going to take the passion I have for doing it by hand. I’m going to take the passion of creating something totally for myself, that pleases myself, that comes from myself. I am not interested in scanning it on the computer. I am not interested in coloring it on the computer. Because to me the reason I am an artist, which was very difficult for me to even reach that point where that I can verbalize it because I was trained as a nurse. I was trained as a mother, as a grandmother and to be an artist was to say to people, ‘Well, I think I am an artist although I am not academically trained.’ But I have a passion and I know that if I don’t do the work that I’d be unhappy. So for me the twenty-first century will be similar to the twentieth century because I will continue to work until I can no longer work. The wonderful part of being an artist is that the wonderful ideas never stop so the concept of the creativity that will be produced in the–however long I am going to live is very exciting to me. You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories qsos@quiltalliance.org …
by Quilt Alliance | Jun 15, 2014 | Uncategorized
Today we’re sharing a quilt that’s a wonderful tribute to a father’s life story. Maria Herrera made a quilt depicting her father’s colorful tales about his journey from Mexico to the United States, picking cotton and cucumbers, laying track, meeting Hollywoods stars and piloting planes, blurring the line between tall tale and family history. A very happy Father’s Day to all fathers, whether they’re storytellers, travelers, salesmen, famers or just plain dad! “My dad is a big storyteller. I wish that I would have been actually able to tell his story more in the quilt, but I’m very happy with how it turned out. He came here in the 1950’s, early 1950’s and he was very fortunate to be one of those immigrants that was able to his papers together and come in with a work permit. My dad’s story is that he crossed the river and that he suffered and he went through everything that all of these immigrants went through. Not that he is making fun or joking about that but I think he wanted his story to sound just as much as the immigrants in how much they suffered. So he crosses over and he comes in on bus, but yet he always say, ‘Oh no, I had to cross the river and it took me days to cross the desert.’ I was always like, ‘Oh my Dad, my poor Dad.’ Then he says that the first place that he stopped after he came over from Mexico is in California. At the time he only had my brother, Richard, three of my oldest, which was Richard, Art, and Maria and he came over–and, oh Emma, I’m forgetting her, and came over into California. He stayed there and worked there for a few years where he states that he met very famous people and he got to know all these singers and now when we watch certain documentaries or stories of old Mexican artists, ‘Oh I met so and so when I was in California when I came over I was so fortunate.’ There is nobody here to prove that since he came by himself. These are all his stories. That was his first stop, California, Hollywood. He met all these famous people, worked very hard of course. He had to send money back to my mom and the kids. My mom stayed behind, of course, with the rest of his family and her family and he would go back and forth because he had that luxury and I call it a luxury because at the time it probably was. He didn’t have to go through the struggles of crossing over every time as an immigrant and going through the hardship that a lot of people did but he was able to do that. Go back and forth. His next stop, after he crossed back to Mexico, was New Mexico where he worked in the railroad station for about three years. He explains that he was one of a few Latinos at the time, which weren’t many. There were more African American and Caucasian that they laid down the tracks for the train in a certain part of the state where it was still much desert. That was his job there and he worked there for three years and then he mentioned that a brother of his also joined him and they worked together for three years. Up to this day, we haven’t been able to verify his story. Since he is now retired, fifteen years, he still insists we need to go back to New Mexico to claim that retirement from the railroads. I Googled. I have gone on the Internet and I cannot seem to find any form of information on that, so he might have struggled on little odd jobs or something or maybe he did work on the railroad but up to now it has become one of his great stories that he keeps talking about. My brothers just go with it and think that is part of his journey and that is how it happened. He moved into Kansas and did some cotton picking and did some cucumber picking, which is very hard he said. It was extremely hard for him. He said the hours were long and it was very hard work but he always felt that America is a great country to live in. America, my father loves the United States of America. We come from a family of seven brothers and three sisters and I believe I truly believe that if he would have had all boys he probably would have sent them to the service. That’s how much he loves this country because he feels that we need to protect our country. He feels that we have a right to fight and serve our country regardless of what politics are going on. It’s a great country to grow up in. It’s a great country to live in. He absolutely loves this country, very faithful to his country, never says anything wrong, whether the economy is good or is bad or politicians, never. It is always a great country… He is a mad scientist sometimes where he will try to build something and just doesn’t quite right come out. He will try to lay down grass, you better believe it there is going to be a patch with maybe just sand, a patch of grass, and maybe some weeds on that side and he will be so proud. That is the kind of man that he is. He will try to screw a light bulb and it just won’t work. But he is always proud, he has always been like that. That’s how I know my dad. A lot of his stories–I know my brothers and sisters some times, especially the older ones get very impatient because they have heard them through their whole lives. I’m forty-one. I can remember my dad’s story from maybe about five [years old.] because he started telling me that when he was in Mexico. Because when you turn eighteen in Mexico, you have to join the service and fulfill your term. I think for two years and my dad would tell me that he was a pilot in the service and that he flew all these mission. I think now sometimes, Mexico didn’t have any pilots in that time. Now I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god all this time I believed my dad was a pilot and he was this great man,’ which he still is. To me those stories are great. All the movie stars that he met in California. All the trains that he probably road on and drove probably himself and all the tracks that he laid from New Mexico to Michigan, that is part of my history now. Even though my brothers and sisters are sometimes just tired of it, I can’t get enough of it and even now as an adult I still love to hear my dad’s stories. He will be eighty-one this year and he is still telling his stories now even to my sisters and my brothers. Maybe some of those stories might have a little truth to them because he is always telling that story exactly the same. They never change. If he were lying, they would change. They [siblings.] go, ‘Oh you’re crazy. You are turning just like my dad.’ I started now recording my dad’s stories because I want my child–I have one son. He is five. I want him to grow up hearing my dad’s stories because I know that he might get to an age where my dad might be around anymore. I want him to grow up hearing the stories that I grew up hearing because he might not have that opportunity to hear everything… I felt that I should honor my dad in making a quilt for him. Even though I had no idea how it was going to come out, how I was going to begin this project. I didn’t tell my dad and when I did he almost felt a little embarrassed that I was going to talk about his stories. He was like, ‘Well just don’t tell them everything.’ I was like, ‘I won’t Dad. I will just tell them the ones that most of the family and some of our friends know.’ He said, ‘Okay because I don’t want them to think I’m crazy or anything.’ I said, ‘No, they won’t think that. Everybody knows you. They know how you are.’ I just thought to honor him.” You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories qsos@quiltalliance.org …
by Quilt Alliance | Jun 8, 2014 | Uncategorized
I only have one quilter in my family, and I only own one of her quilts. It’s a huge (no, really, I mean HUGE) Texas Lone Start quilt made of impossibly tiny pieces. I admire it every time I see it, and have often thought about how wonderful it would be to make a quilt, by hand, of the same pattern, but with color choices and quilting that’s all mine. It seems like a perfect way to honor my great-grandmother, and understand just how much work she poured into creating that beautiful family heirloom! Today’s Q.S.O.S. Spotlight is on two quiltmakers who did just that–re-created quilts made by their grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Darlene Reid and Valli Schiller re-made these family quilts with their own additions and flare, creating a gift for the future that reflected the past. Darlene Reid shared with interviewer Lenna DeMarco the story of how she came to re-make a crazy quilt her grandmother, great-grandmother and great aunt made: “Well, I went to visit an aunt that I hadn’t had much connection with and saw the original hanging on her dinning room wall. And what I saw was that each of these ladies had made their own block on the quilt and had signed their name and that the quilt was dated as well. And I went from being a person who wasn’t that interested in crazy quilting to someone who said “I’ve got to make a quilt like this.” So it took me two or three or four years before I really–talk about self-taught. I was self-taught as far as crazy quilting…. I love–now I teach crazy quilting and, of course, crazy quilting is very, very flamboyant and gaudy and so it will make a great photograph. Lenna DeMarco: So what do you think this quilt says about you? Darlene Reid: It says that I am a woman and a quilter who’s very interested in my foremothers and my quilting roots. When I first became a quilter I didn’t think I had any quilting people attached to me and then afterwards as the years went by I gradually realized that my paternal grandmother, who had taught me to sew on an old sewing machine and taught me embroidery, of course, had a great influence on me a well. And then when I found this quilt I felt so thrilled that I had foremothers who were making these beautiful quilts.” Valli Schiller re-interpreted a quilt made by her great-grandmother, Josie Adams. She shared the story of her quilt, and her grandmother’s, with interviewer Karen Musgrave. The quilt that I brought with me is called “Mamaw’s Puzzle” and it is a quilt that I made earlier this year. It is a reinterpretation of the quilt made by my great-grandmother, Josie Adams some time between the 1920’s and the ’40’s. I brought the original quilt […] I just discovered, this year I think, that my great-grandmother was a quilter. My mother is a quilter. She started in the bicentennial, and my grandmother, her mother, was a sewer and when my grandmother’s house was sold, my mother was poking around in the attic trying to find whatever was worth saving and she found a box of about six quilts that she remembers from her childhood and she said that these quilts were made by my great-grandmother, Josie. This is one of the quilts. She [my mother.] sent them to me so I could photograph them and kind of document them for our family heritage, and they were sitting around on my cutting table for a while. Not to cut, just because that was where they were sitting and I was looking for a project to do, and casting around trying to find something to keep me busy, and this particular quilt that is made of lots of little flying geese caught my eye, and I decided that if my great-grandmother could do a quilt like that, I would do one also. The thing that is unique about Josie’s quilt is that, judging from her other quilts; she liked every color as long as it was pink. The quilt that I brought with me is typical of her quilts. It is a scrap quilt. It is made with clothing scraps, but this particular quilt is made with mostly blues and grays, kind of shirting and dress fabrics. She has got a few little patches of pink thrown in, she couldn’t resist, but I imagine a lot of the chambray was probably from my great-grandfather’s shirts, and she had some scraps saved up and I guess decided to challenge herself with a color scheme that she didn’t use very often. The blues and grays and tans are a color scheme that I don’t use very often either. That was my inspiration for my own quilt called “Mamaw’s Puzzle.” “Mamaw” was what I knew Josie as. […] I don’t think I am going to use it on a bed. I think I’m going to save it and I’m going to save it along with Josie’s quilt. I feel like both of these quilts are documents of my family’s history. Although with all of my quilts–I haven’t had a chance yet to sleep under this quilt, but I will sleep under it once, put some DNA in it. Josie’s quilt, I think you can see from all the stains, probably has a lot of family DNA in it also. That just adds to its uniqueness. You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories qsos@quiltalliance.org …
by Quilt Alliance | Jun 1, 2014 | Uncategorized
It’s hard to believe that we’re already five full months into 2014! Since today happens to be June 1st, our Q.S.O.S. Spotlight this Sunday is on an interviewee named June! June Ross, who has won first place in American Heritage and DAR quilt contests. Too much of a stretch for you? Read on for some excerpts from June’s Q.S.O.S. interview: On her unusual reason for starting to quilt: “I started quite late in life. I am a retired art teacher, and I remarried 24 years ago to a gentleman who had a hardware background and was not used to the mess that a creative person creates, so I gave up making baskets, and I sold my loom, and I started making quilts which I could fold up and neatly put in a little spot that wouldn’t bother him.” An amusing anecdote from her quilting life: “I have a pretty extensive basket collection, and included in the basket collection are two workbaskets that were made by the slaves in South Carolina, and I took them to be appraised at one point, and the lady who was appraising the baskets remembered them. She was mounting an exhibit, and so she came to the house to take pictures of them and measure them etcetera and she brought a friend of hers from South Africa who was looking at my quilts while the lady was taking care of the baskets. And when she got through looking at that quilt, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘if I saw you coming out of Walmart, I never would never have guessed that you could make such lovely things.’ So, that started me thinking about how–how I should look in order to make people aware of the fact that I make beautiful things. I thought that was amusing.” On what makes a great quilt: “Well, the visual impact of a quilt. I think is important. Interesting value changes in material that is selected. That is another advance. You used to have red material, green material. Now you have tone on tone. All types of patterns that you have. I particularly enjoy the color, and it’s always fascinating to see what beautiful quilting can do to a relatively ordinary looking product.” You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories qsos@quiltalliance.org …
