My Quilt Collection + Maternal Heritage
There is some popular advice given to artists that has gotten in my head: that what we make should look “recognizable” or that we should niche down to painting one thing, one way. I now understand that my art practice is hindered by that limitation. I happen to be, on my best days, curious, and on my worst, distracted. So exploring my creative impulses in several mediums has always felt best to me. I can become voracious for a new thing to learn and I will follow that rabbit hole with single-minded focus until I get bored. That kind of learning seems to fuel my creativity with new ideas and new ambitions. Some may call this absolute chaos. But it’s familiar to me and I don’t mind it.
So, after focusing on painting for so long I was finding myself reaching for fabric — work that was less representational and a bit more tactile. But also something much more friendly to my everyday life. I can bring needlework outside of the studio. And this playful, casual experiment has refreshed me. It has been fun to use traditional patterns and play with colors. It’s simple. It’s repetitive. It has been a rest from the skills I’ve been reaching for in my painting practice.
The other part of quilting that still reflects a major theme of my work is that sewing is a skill I’ve inherited from the women in my family. I have two massive quilts in my home that were made entirely by my great grandmother’s hands. She pieced each one together with her needle and thread and quilted them by hand. I have always treated them like art pieces in my home. Ones that we cuddle under to watch a movie or throw on a bed for extra warmth in the winter, but they are always on display. My paternal grandmother was a skilled seamstress and toward the end of her life she began to teach me to use patterns to make my own clothes and left me her sewing machine when she passed. I learned to quilt as a teenager alongside my mom. She would buy books and magazines with patterns in them and I would pour over them thinking about the quilts I wanted to make. We’d walk the aisles at Hancock Fabrics grabbing bolts of fabric and fat quarters that caught our eye — growing a collection of fabric bigger than our actual need.
Quilting has been called “women’s work” or a “handicraft” and we have often neglected to recognize quilters for the skilled artists they are. Which is tragic. They are masterful and devote countless hours to one quilt. And upon seeing quilts we are reminded of the people we know who pour their hearts into making them or for the times quilts covered us and kept us warm. Anyway, I can get existential about it, but to save time, when I quilt I feel like I’m part of a bigger conversation. I’m participating in something that has been going on for hundreds of years, carrying it on into this present time with my hands and my voice. Honestly, what a wild thing that we talk about quilting as a “domestic craft” as if it is a lesser art form.
The technical problem of selling quilts is that because of the hours of labor and skill they require to make, they can get quite pricey. I’m sticking to small quilts that are meant to be hung to keep them at a reasonable price and because they feel very much like a sketchbook page to me. These quilts are really just color studies. They are an exploration. I’m not trying to make them long winded and huge. They are meant to be brief and easy going.
I’m looking forward to continuing to make these small quilts and sharing them with you. Do you have a favorite? Or is there are person in your life that quilts? What is one of your most vivid memories of that person and their work?
