Quilts
19 June 2007
A year ago April, I visited my parents in rural Georgia for a week. Because they live so far away from civilization these days, I’ve been building up a small cache of supplies at their house to maintain my sanity while I’m there, things like peppercorns and a grinder, good black tea, whole coffee beans in the freezer, extra virgin olive oil — you know, life basics. There’s also a set of my own cotton sheets because I just sleep better on them, and on that visit in April, I took a quilt (below) that would match.
I made it myself, of course, and it took me more than two years to finish it up. But when I did, it went right on my bed, and I and my boyfriend of the time spent many sweet nights together underneath. Then when that ended, the quilt was inevitably tainted by unpleasant memories. It kind of had to go.
And so to Georgia it went, and all of the navy and khaki and camo fabrics were a perfect match for my sage colored sheets. Nice. Somehow the trip across America cleansed it of all negative associations too. Now, mercifully, each time I see it again it’s like greeting an old friend.
Because of its size, I had never been able to take a good picture of the quilt, and in my mind I had long ago formulated a plan for where and when to take care of that. The living room of my parents’ house has very tall white walls and a high vaulted ceiling; so one day while they were out, I set to work. I took down all the pictures over the sofa and covered the back of the quilt with rolls of clear packing tape. Then at great risk to life and limb, I stood quite unsteadily on the back of the couch and carefully pressed the quilt to the wall.
To the unnerving sound of tape rolls slowly crackling as they became unstuck, I jumped down and snapped a picture, then jumped back up to restick everything. I did this several times, then pulled it all down, balled up the tape, and rehung the pictures. You couldn’t tell anything had moved.
(The pictures, alas, came out a little blurry and with a purple tinge. Thank goodness for Photoshop.)
The Quilts of Gee’s Bend
Quite coincedentally, while I was in Georgia on that visit, there was a show of The Quilts of Gee’s Bend at the High Museum down in Atlanta. I had found the book by that name years earlier and loved the powerful abstract designs, all done by poor black women in rural Alabama. I was already considering a visit to the museum anyway to see the recently completed addition by Renzo Piano. (The main building by Richard Meier was already world famous.) So when I saw that the quilts would be there, that sealed the deal.
While extraordinary, the show was a little overwhelming — too much inspiration. Plus there was a Chuck Close exibit and the architecture. It was a long day on my feet with open eyes. In the gift shop, I bought a stack of postcards with different quilts on them, and I dutifully mailed them off to roommates, friends, and one former lover.
Or actually, I bought a card for him, my ex as of three weeks earlier, but didn’t mail it. I wrote, “I bought this card for you, even though I know I’m never going to send it, because you’re the only person in the world who would understand what this show meant to me.” When I got home to Portland, I stuck it on the bulletin board over my sewing table, where it hung until a year later when I had The Great Fire.
I also wrote a card to myself too. On the front was the quilt at right. On the back it said:
“John, this card is for you. Remember that you took the opportunity to see something new that was exciting, interesting, stimulating for you. Keep doing that. Don’t get in a rut again. ‘Life comes first’ in the words of someone famous. Love, John”
This card has also been hanging over my sewing table. As soon as I saw it, I knew that it was the right design for my next project. Now, finally, a year later, I’ve just gotten started on it. But rest assured that in the interim I’ve been doing my best to follow my own advice, and life has indeed been stimulating.
The New Quilt
All of last summer I was picking up old, out-of-fashion jeans from the free boxes I would see around town. There was almost always one pair in every box. Whereas in the past, jeans were in a classic style and lasted until the holes threatened to get you arrested, nowadays there’s a new (usually unfortunate) look every season. That’s a lot of turnover for a garment whose original appeal was its durability, and all that waste troubled me. I wanted to salvage both the fabric and the reputation of reused jeans, which always brings to mind horrible Seventies craftsy crap.
The quilt I chose as my template seemed to lend itself perfectly to simple, monochromatic lights and darks — faded and un-faded denim, for example. Of course, my own result will probably look nothing like the one above. I’m not a poor, elderly black woman from rural Alabama. I’m an urban, bourgeois, anal-retentive former architecture student. I use a ruler, drafting triangle, and metal straight edge to measure and cut my fabric strips. As much as I love the dynamic irregularity of the Gee’s Bend quilts, it would be a lot more authentic of me to make something that represents my own background. So I’ll just have to make peace with my orderly nature.
Often while I sit alone making something, I think to myself, “This is your life, John. This is how you are spending the limited hours you have on this earth.” And I wonder why I’m not doing something else. The only answer I can come up with is that, if I don’t exactly enjoy it, I do want to be doing it. Simple as that. And I find it deeply satisfying to have a tangible result from my effort. There aren’t a lot of things we do in life that give us that anymore. It’s like I can still hold that time in my hands, like it’s not gone forever after all.
