PATCHWORK IMPROVISATIONS I am a patchwork quilter by avocation. I love improvising with scraps of colored fabric to create new, unexpected designs that emerge from the bits and pieces I have around. My ground rules in this patchwork game are that I use fabric that comes to me from people’s old clothes and sewing scraps – no buying material at the fabric store. You’d be amazed at how many bags of scraps show up at my door as people learn of my idiosyncrasy. So no two quilts are ever alike as my patterns, like African-American quilts, are inspired by what I have to work with. In fact, when I first saw those gorgeous quilts from Gee’s Bend made of old dungarees and threadbare aprons I cried, realizing that without having known it, I was part of a tradition. Patchwork piecing is my way of relaxing, taking breaks in my workday and testing the boundaries of my imagination. It’s how I find my way from the everyday back to the intuitive art-maker that knows how to improvise – a kind of template for real life, is how I see it. When the orange border material has run out, what do I do? When my pattern is too lopsided, how can I use ‘lopsided’ to make it totally unique? In fact, that’s when it gets interesting, when something’s gone wrong and I’ve got to get very creative to find the solution in the problem itself. I love that! My current quilt is for a newborn, Emma, whose Mom has requested “soft golds and all kinds of purples.” Sorting through my scraps, I realize I’m low on golds, having recently used them in another quilt, so I have only enough to use sparingly, as highlights. That means contrasting the bits of golds with the purples, and when I try it out on my table, it’s fabulous! It looks like sunlight hitting the shadowy forest floor with drops of light. There’s my theme - Sunrise in the Forest – which I’d never have dreamed up without this challenge. I am watching the quilt begin to tell a story, reveal a mood as I use up every last thread of gold fabric in my scrap bag. By nature, and by necessity, I’ve always been an improvisor. As a kid I nearly flunked out of grammar school, and then high school, because all I wanted to do was make up dances. In those days dance improvisation hardly existed in New York City, and anyhow, my parents wouldn’t let me dance, so over time, in secret, I taught myself how. Alone in the basement with doors locked, I felt my way into movement, sensing that relaxation was the key and that the flow would come when my mind stopped thinking so hard. I learned to listen for my body to take over, feel my balance assert itself, and had a new sense of courage to take chances with this balance. The more effortless it seemed, the more I felt “in the zone” and that was when joy welled up out of nowhere, like magic. I discovered a core of assurance I still do not have words for, and synchronicities began popping in my life, indicating new directions at every turn. I still dance improvisationally, and sing too, and make quilts, sharing fabric with friends, and cook with leftovers and have a quirky garden tumbling with vegetables and flowers and know well the pleasure of inventing everything on the spot. I wonder if this kind of art-making just might be our survival – the survival of our healthy hearts and souls, which may be what it is all about. The Gee’s Bend women know this state of mind and body, I think. I recognized it immediately when I went to see them at the museum, where their stunning improvised quilts were on display. They were having such a good time they couldn’t stop singing, and the hundreds of people crowded around them couldn’t help but get into the swing of their good time. They live in the deep rural South cut off by an oxbow bend in an Alabama river where once their people had been slaves. These are the descendents of those who stayed on. I imagine them sitting around a quilting frame in one of their bedrooms, talking and laughing and singing as they stitch their quilts together. They share the gossip and the fabric, the gripes and the worry for the children, telling their losses and triumphs with each other as witness. They are bonded by family and hard work, common need and history; they belong to each other no matter what and they survive by sharing what little they have, seeing it with the new eyes of artists and creating beautiful quilts to keep them warm. Cutting up their worn-out dungarees and the children’s old pajamas, they turn their scraps into functional masterpieces, improvising. They sing together. They share their lives. They take care of one another. They praise their Maker and the miracle of life in the world. And they survive.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 19:59:58 +0000
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