This is the story, so far, of the making of my first quilt.
I have wanted to make a quilt for so long. Every year, I put “make a quilt” on my to-do list, and then December rolls around, no quilt.
I’ve made lots of quilt-adjacent work. I called my Calendars series “mini-quilts” for a while, which I now know was not the most accurate wording based on the traditional definition of the term. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a quilt as “a warm bed covering made of padding enclosed between layers of fabric and kept in place by lines of stitching, typically applied in a decorative design.” My calendars included neither a padding layer nor lines of stitching. I suppose the element of them that was quilt-like to me was the piecing together of the squares.
In 2021 I made a small patchwork piece called (non)essential for the Owens and Struts galleries’ annual fundraising auction, The Sweetest Little Thing. Still no padding/batting, but I did bind it like a quilt. At Can Serrat in Spain this time last year, I was hand-improv-patchworking a curtain to fit the little window of my assigned bedroom in the old Catalan farmhouse.
Of course, I’ve long been inspired by the Gee’s Bend Quilters, and in 2020 I learned of the breathtaking work of Rosie Lee Tompkins through Roberta Smith’s piece published on the occasion of the artist’s Berkeley Art Museum retrospective. Another quilting inspiration over the past few years has been Toronto artist Justin Ming Yong.
The perfect opportunity to finally bring my patchwork obsession all the way home into the form of a quilt came when I discovered Milwaukee-based artist Heidi Parkes this past August on Instagram. I read the description of her Diary Quilt course and felt it was made for me.
“In contrast with an ‘autobiographical quilt,’ a ‘diary quilt’ can tell a story as clearly or as secretly as you desire. A diary entry can reframe the past, track the present, and anticipate the future.” — Heidi Parkes
She approaches these quilt compositions as one would a painting. This one, Magical Thinking Attempt no. 8, is my favourite of hers. I was completely sold and so excited to begin learning with Heidi.
The initial plan for my diary quilt was to mark and process that 10 years have gone by since I graduated from art school by cutting up a piece of fabric I dyed at NSCAD and re-piecing it into a composition that speaks to who am I now and what I’ve learned since then. Here’s how that went:
A note on scale: Supportive, well-intentioned people have, for years, encouraged me to make bigger work. I’ve never been firmly against the idea, but just couldn’t find a reason that resonated with me as to why the work needed to be big. Finally, through the format of a quilt, I’ve found a why that I can get behind: so that it’s big enough to wrap around someone and keep them warm.
Fuel (4 sources of energy):
Education: One of the voices that is helping me begin to learn more about the Israel-Palestine conflict is that of Hungarian-Canadian physician, author, Holocaust survivor, and former Zionist, Gabor Maté. Here is an informative video of him sharing his reflections with his daughter Hannah on October 28th, 2023. From Al Jazeera, a simple guide to one of the world’s longest-running conflicts which “has its roots in a colonial act carried out more than a century ago.”
Calls to action for those in Canada: FREE PALESTINE National March on Ottawa this Saturday, November 25th. Petition e-4649 which closes this Thursday, November 23rd. I read today that this is the most signed federal petition in Canadian history. Petition e-4661.
Through my Diary Quilt teacher Heidi, I discovered another inspiring quilter named Zak Foster whose podcast SEAMSIDE is my new favourite podcast. Zak’s conversations with textile artists centre around what we learn about being human from working with cloth.
“Your job isn’t to stitch it all together. Your job is to be a stitch.” A welcome reminder from artist Andrew Kozlowski.
“What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.”
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Paid subscribers, I invite you to check out the exclusive photo gallery below to see detail shots of hidden messages in the quilt top and what it looks like fully pieced. An accompanying list provides insights into the significance of the text and symbols. Everyone else, thank you so much for reading and please take care, till next time.
xx Clara
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