Quilts are People Too

              Have you seen this thing? So amazing. On mornings that I wake up to sunlight and it isn’t because I accidentally slept in, I like to try and spot new fabrics that I haven’t spent some time considering yet.  My mother, Marian, made this quilt and to do so, went searching for the perfect fabrics at three different quilting stores to get just the right combination.  Have you seen many quilting stores around? The answer is no, which means she was really on a hunt and even traveled out of state to satisfy her vision of what was meant to be for this piece.

                Growing up people would always ask where I got my “artsyness from,” as if it was a genetic trait that was passed down (as an artist educator I am convinced that it is not genetic, although perhaps it is based somewhat on learning styles, a more visual learner may gravitate to the visual arts, but ultimately art is an area of interest just like soccer is; if you are really interested in it you will naturally take the time to perfect the craft.  Olympic games aren’t won based off of whether or not somebody’s parents were interested in the sport). My mom and I would always respond to that question with “Oh well, my mom’s Aunt Nellie is a painter,” or my mother would get a spark in her eye and say “Ed used to draw cartoons for me when we first started dating,” but we never answered “Marian is artist,” and this has seriously floored me over the past several years.  Let’s just get it out there people, whether I am an artist because of genetics or not, Marian is an artist! That should really be the title of this post.  I mean honestly, check these things out:

Marian gets an idea or an inspiration, alters it’s composition until it suits her standards, gathers materials, slaves for months, and then throws the completed pieces to people in trash bags saying “oh yeah, I forgot about these.” Artist friends – How perfect is that? Marian spent TWO YEARS creating those four quilts and in the end she almost forgot to give them to us on Christmas day as planned.  It’s so hard to value your own work the way it should be.  Perhaps it is in part because of the amount of time you spend on something like that, you become overly aware of the “flaws,” which more often than not are probably just areas that don’t completely sync with your mental vision of the piece and not actually problematic areas. But then again these “flaws” are the things that keep you moving on a piece long after you’ve passed your personal deadline.