After last week’s shopping spree, I am making good on my promise to write about a live Honoree. I don’t know which is harder: the live ones often have great internet links, but I never know how they’ll react to what I say; the ones who have passed are harder to track down for info, but they never complain. I guess I should just be glad that each Honoree is interesting in some way. This week’s subject, Nancy Crow, has plenty of interesting accomplishments (see the link below for her bio), starting in 1979 with her co-founding of Quilt National (a juried biennial exhibition of contemporary quilt art) and coming up to date with her recognition in 2019 as a “Master of the Medium”.

I’m especially interested in Nancy as an artist and what it means to make art (I just make quilts, and sadly, there’s a difference).  The best way to get an overview of Nancy’s work is to take a look at the covers of her books; Nancy has authored half a dozen books, and they are regularly available on Amazon and other sites. If your timing is right, you might be able to score an autographed first edition.

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Or you could get a good impression Crow style from the covers of two books written by Maya Angelou which feature Nancy Crow quilts.

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So, what is Crow style, and how did it get that way? Let’s start with what Nancy recently said about herself: this is her “Artist’s Statement” which accompanies her exhibit, “Nancy Crow-Drawings, Monoprints and Riffs” at the International Quilt Museum:

I have made over 300 quilts.

The purpose of my quilts is to make something beautiful for me. They are a means of expression. They represent my deepest feelings as a response to my life. My quilts are how I see color; how I see shapes; how I see line. They are about complexity, sadness, hope and always beauty. My style of quilt-making is contemporary in that I want to express my experiences now and not copy old quilts. They are traditional only in that they are machine-pieced and quilted.

Here’s the catalog from the exhibit, which is up through March 7, 2021.  There’s also a link below for a virtual tour of the exhibit.

Color, shape, and line… Nancy is academically trained, having earned a B.F.A. in ceramics at Ohio State University, and an M.F.A. with a major in ceramics and a minor in tapestry weaving from the same institution.  If you look at her list of classes taught at her Ohio facility –more on that later– you’ll find other “art” terms like figure and ground, linear motifs, etc. But how does that translate into quilts?

Well, several things help.  First, Nancy has a design inspiration wall that includes varied artifacts, including woven vessels, carved animals, and scraps of weaving. You can see some of the weaving structure repeating in the lines of Nancy’s quilts—especially the warp lines.  Then, Nancy has developed a technique of free-form cutting where she pulls a rotary cutter towards herself –dangerous, but it allows her to see where she is going and to feel that she is actually drawing with the blade.

But the biggest factor for turning training and technique into art has to be work—sweat equity.  Here’s a quilt I could imagine myself doing—alright, maybe not all that piecing, but at least using the same palette. I’m a sucker for blue.

What doesn’t show, however, is that this quilt is one of a series of 22! Crow worked for three years exploring the 45-degree angles interplay with stripes and squares.  Here’s another version that has more movement and “glowing” colors, and a third one that emphasizes the squares but uses “flatter” colors:

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And here’s another pairing. I prefer the one on the left, but I can’t say why. Which one speaks to you?

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Wikipedia identifies over a dozen Crow series, not including the November studies.  I don’t know about you, but by the time I’ve finished one top, I usually don’t want to see the same thing again, so hat’s off to an artist who buckles down and repeats, repeats, repeats for the sake of her art. It’s clearly hard work. (If you watch the exhibit below, you’ll see some of Nancy’s thoughts on this level of work: “totally focused”, “10-12 hour days”, “going forward”, “learning” and more). With all this work and discipline, where do feeling and expression come in? Nancy would probably say “Everywhere”, but I’ll give you two examples. One of Nancy’s series is Passion, a group of five quilts she created while caring for her dying mother. I can only imagine the emotions poured into each of those art pieces. Another is her Chinese Souls series, inspired by an incident she witnessed while on an art exchange in China in 1990.

Here’s what she says about those quilts:

“Chinese Souls quilts are my memorial to more than 60 teenage boys who were bound and loaded on two trucks to be driven to their execution for petty crimes. I witnessed this horrible incident when I was an exchange artist in China in September 1990. The boys were all wrapped with heavy ropes. In these quilts, the circles represent their souls and the bull’s-eye embroidery, and the hand-quilting represents the ropes tied around their souls. The colors of the circles represent the individuals.”

No discussion of Nancy Crow would be complete without a little information about one of her other interesting aspects; in addition to being an artist, she’s also a teacher.  She lives on a farm near Columbus, Ohio where a converted 1848 timber barn serves as a retreat center for five- and ten-day workshops taught by Nancy and others. This has got to go on my post-COVID bucket list. I’ve done some dyeing on my own but would love to have expert guidance. Does this look like fun, or what?

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I was going to put a link below for the 2021 schedule, but the classes are already filled, except for one. Oh, what the heck, I will put the link below so you can see what types of classes she teaches and be ready when 2022 rolls around. It will happen—I promise!

Your quilting friend,

Anna

Biographical information https://quiltershalloffame.net/nancy-crow/

Exhibit at International Quilt Museum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ickEU7SuF5k&list=PL8wATen2F83_TAFneOIiALU5dnD6YiDcS

This link is the first of five segments which walk through the entire show; it will either re-direct you or run right into the following segment(s).

Design inspiration wall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n61dNeEblM   (wall discussion starts at 1:20)

Workshops http://www.nancycrow.com/artretreatsspring2021.html  

http://www.nancycrow.com/artretreatsfall2020.2.html

I was going to tell you about a living quilter this week, but there’s something time sensitive I need to address.  As I write this, there are only 19 more shopping days until Christmas! But don’t worry; The Quilters Hall of Fame is here to help.  Have you browsed the online store?  If not, I’ll give you some teasers with the individual links here and a general link to the store below. I know that not all of you readers celebrate Christmas but take a look anyway because you might want a gift for another occasion—or even something for yourself; you deserve it this year.

If you’ve enjoyed learning about the Hall of Fame Honorees through this blog, you’ll probably like the book version.  There’s lots of new info I haven’t included and plenty of beautiful pictures.

You’ll find many other books in the store.  They’re written by some of the Honorees so you can’t go wrong.

Or how about showing off your knowledge of Marie Webster with a mask in a limited-edition fabric taken from her quilt designs? On the right is Poppies and on the left is French Baskets.  There are more in the store.

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I’ve started baking my Christmas cookies and I always wear an apron in the kitchen.  I have florals and dogs, Mardi Gras and Halloween, and several general-design ones, but I pull out the Santas and the reindeer for December.  If you know someone who wishes they could be in Paris, why not get a French-themed apron? Or, if you prefer not to “travel”, there’s always candy.

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Didn’t get that holiday sewing done? (I know you had lots of time this year, so you were probably making a full-sized quilt, finishing UFOs and sewing masks.) But if you’re short on a hand-made gift, we’ve got it.

Or here’s one that doesn’t use the traditional red and green and could be out all winter long. I know I would never do so much piecing for a table runner, so this would be worth the price.

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I’m not going to include any pictures of the many bags that are available; you can use the link below.  But who wouldn’t appreciate receiving a tote gift? I know most people aren’t going out much these days, but come summer, we’ll all be looking for something to cram our beach stuff into. Shop ahead.

The homemade items in the online store have all been made by volunteers, myself included, and the sales help support The Quilters Hall of Fame. If you want something for a Christmas gift, order soon to allow for shipping. And TQHF says “Thank you”.

I don’t want this week to be all infomercial, so let me re-visit an idea from last week.  I told you a little about my development of the connection between fashion trends and quilt designs.  Well, it turns out that great minds think alike: The International Quilt Museum just hosted a virtual session on a similar theme called “Mad Men, the Mid-Century Modern Aesthetic, and Modern Quilts”.  It was presented by Luana Rubin of eQuilter.com and Dr. Carolyn Ducey, curator of collections at IQM. (I say “similar” because I was looking at contemporaneous connections, and they took the connection forward from the 1950s to current modern quilting.)  Ahhhh; affirmation!

There’s a link below for more of IQM’s virtual events; be on the lookout for the recording of “Mad Men” (December First Friday) and for upcoming First Friday postings. And there’s a link for Textile Talks too.  So much to “do” this winter; maybe I won’t miss getting out.

By next week, my tree should be up and baking done, so I promise a full post about (who will it be ????).

Your quilting friend,

Anna

Shop.https://quiltershalloffame.net/online-store/

IQM. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8wATen2F838IkHMwslSWnvPPCGb1hYk1

Textile Talks. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8wATen2F838IkHMwslSWnvPPCGb1hYk1

While nodding off after Thanksgiving dinner, it came to me that there have been several times when I wrote, “I’ll tell you about that later” or “That’s a whole other discussion”.  Well, this seems like as good a time as any to catch up on loose ends.

When I was writing about Honoree Carrie Hall and her couture business, I promised to flesh out my idea of a connection between quilts and fashion. We know that quilts often follow home decorating trends (crazy quilts in the heyday of Victorian “more is more” style; Thimbleberries when country décor was popular), but I have wondered if there is also a parallel with fashion.  I’ve found a couple of interesting pairings so far; you might call them “spurious relationships”, but, hey, it’s a start.

Fringe was big in the 2010s and that’s when I made one of those wrong-sides-together quilts with the ragged seams.

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In the 2000s, you could get rhinestones on the pockets of your jeans or on a tee shirt, and you could put rhinestones and other embellishments on your quilt.

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In June, 2016 there was an article about a comeback of the 90s bandana trend, and that same year Quilting Digest had “9 Easy Bandana Quilts to Inspire You.”

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So, do you think I’m on to something here? In my spare time I’d like to go back through the decades and see if I can find other connections. I really do have lots of time these days, and I beat myself up for not being more productive. Maybe this will get me going, but that’s unlikely to happen until after the holidays. Stay tuned. Or, better yet, help me out by finding a fashion trend in any decade and then seeing if you can find a quilt style to match.  Send me your info in the reply section.

I also want to tie up the loose end about why I sign off with “Your quilting friend”.  Some of you are my in person friends, and all of you share a common interest in quilts which could make us friends when we meet. But this all started when Honoree Xenia Cord gave a lecture on women who sold quilt patterns from their kitchen tables in the 1950s, and the Round Robin letters of the 1960s. She read us some of the correspondence, and I was overcome with nostalgia for a time I never experienced.  Well, almost never.  I was too young to really correspond with others during that time, but I do remember that my mother got a weekly letter—airmail with a six cent stamp—from my grandmother. So, I guess this is my way to recognize a time when life wasn’t so complicated, so rushed and slap-dash. It’s my nod to all the great quilting correspondents. And there were quite a few.  We’ve talked about Honorees Bertha Stenge and Florence Peto being pen pals (that sounds less stuffy than “correspondents”), but Peto also exchanged letters with another famous quilter, Emma Andres.  In 1939 Emma read an announcement in McCall’s Needlecraft about Peto, and wrote to her in care of the magazine. Peto and Andres only met once, but their friendship in writing continued until Peto’s death. And both Peto and Andres were in written contact with a prominent male quilter, Charles Pratt; Andres used Pratt’s techniques to create her masterpiece, “Ninety and Nine”.

You can see more Andres quilts at the link below, and you’ll also learn that Emma had a connection with another Hall of Fame Honoree, Carrie Hall. I feel like we’re peeling an onion with all of these interlocking stories.  But that’s what I think was so great about the letter-writing time of the 40s and 50s.

Another corresponding pair was Florence Peto and Honoree Lenice Bacon. Do you know the story of what happened when they met?  Bacon visited Peto’s house and at first she thought Florence was the maid.  No one ever tells why the mistake was made, but I imagine it was that Bacon came from a fairly well-to-do family (she was a descendant of the Virginia Randolphs, lived at a place called “Cedar Dells” and also had a summer home) so she probably wasn’t used to someone answering her own door. After the initial faux pas, the meeting went well; Peto had a copy of Bacon’s book, “American Patchwork Quilts”, and (according to Bacon’s report of the visit) praised it profusely.

As much as I enjoy Facebook, especially now when our live visits and events are curtailed, I can’t help but feel that we’ve lost something that the letter writers had. Sure, we have instant access, but they had the pleasure of anticipation

Well, that loose end is a sigh for softer times, and also a segue into this week’s Hall of Fame Honoree, Lenice Bacon.

You can read more about Bacon at the bio link below.  She’s known for her lectures on quilt lore and for her book, American Patchwork Quilts. The book is comprehensive, plus she gets credit for naming the Darting Minnows block which appears in Hall of Fame Honoree Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. And she gets credit from quilt scholar Teri Klassen for being one of the only early quilt history authors to recognize, albeit in a limited and perhaps skewed way, the contribution of African-American quilters.

Here’s Lenice giving her “Quilts and Quilt Lore” lecture to the Boston Women’s City Club in 1950. She’s showing one of her favorite quilts, Friendship Quilt, made of pink and white appliqued prints. Notice the time-inappropriate “Colonial” costume.

There’s not much more to tell, but I did find a few fun snippets.  First, unless there was another nationally-published Lenice Bacon in her day, our gal went in for doggerel.  It’s hard to picture a proper Southern lady who became a Boston society lady writing at this level, but here are some examples:

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Another factoid about Bacon is that she lectured on topics other than quilts. Her programs included talks on Alexander Graham Bell, Greek poetry, “Negro” folk music, Browning (Elizabeth Barrett or Robert? Or both?) and the Currys of Boston.

Okay, Curry isn’t as well-known a Boston name as Cabot or Lodge, so I had to look into that too.  Samuel Silas Curry and Anna Baright Curry were the founders of what became Curry College; it was the School of Expression in 1915 when Bacon matriculated. That struck me as an odd name, but I learned that there was a pedagogical movement known as expressionism, and its proponents were expressionists. In modern educational terms, we might say their focus was critical thinking, reflection, “deep reading” as opposed to rote learning.  They championed elocution, public performance and vocal self-confidence. No wonder audiences were universally delighted to hear Lenice Bacon. She expressed herself as she had been taught, and the result was always reported to have been charming.

That’s it for this week.  I’ve got to get to work on my Christmas decorations.

Your quilting friend,

Anna

Bandana fashions. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/90s-trend-bandana-headband#slide-1

Bandana quilts. http://quiltingdigest.com/9-easy-bandana-quilts-to-inspire-you/

Andres collection. https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=specialcolls&kid=38-94-6

Bio information. https://quiltershalloffame.net/lenice-bacon/

If you own a fascinator, now is the time to wear it; get out your white gloves too because we’re going to meet the Queen. Queen Bertha Stenge, that is—the 1930s-40s “Queen” of Chicago quilting.

Of all the blogs I’ve written so far, this may be the hardest for two reasons.  The first is that I have been championing a Stenge contemporary who was also from Chicago, and I don’t like to see my favorite upstaged. (I wrote about Mary Gasperik back in September, and she’ll be the Heritage Honoree at the 2021 Celebration, so it’s all good.) The second and more difficult reason is that there’s not much written about Bertha Stenge. Where were the paparazzi for this queen?  Let’s see if we can remedy the dearth of coverage.

You can read Bertha Stenge’s biography on the Hall of Fame website (link below) and there are a few other places where her basic info is available.  But it’s all very basic, mostly her many awards—not fitting for a queen at all! In fact, of the >250 articles mentioning her on Newspapers.com, almost a third told the same story of how she began quilting during an illness, kept at it for 25 years, and hoped to complete 50 quilts before she was done. Another third used her quote about young women of her day being too impatient to quilt—“too restless”. Most of the remaining entries gave a bare report of her placement in the local fair or quilt show. But I persisted, and found a few interesting tidbits to talk about.

Let’s start out with two of the most famous Stenge quilts, “The Quilt Show” and “The Quilting Party”.

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A few things to note about this quilt-once you get over being gob-smacked by the detail. (All thirteen quilts are actually pieced.) I love the floral motifs in the double-rodded cross hatch quilting; and then the switch-up in the wide white border to signal that these quilts are in the winner’s circle.  This is that kind of attention to detail that puts a jewel in Queen Bertha’s crown. Stenge didn’t always do her own quilting, but I feel sure she designed or at least specified the pattern. And use of trapunto became a signature element for her after her first few quilts. 

Is it fanciful to think that the Irish Chain quilt in the center is “Best of Show”?  It’s the only mini that has a border, so I like to imagine Bertha consciously gave it pride of place if not a ribbon. And she didn’t stop with the central images; she continued her detail into the border motifs, creating a showcase of other blocks that might be seen at a quilt show. These could easily compete with some Dear Jane quilts. And showing that even queens can have a sense of humor, Stenge has signed the quilt in a traditional album block.

“The Quilt Show” above is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, and you can see their other Stenge holdings at the link below. The next quilt, “The Quilting Party” is at the Illinois State Museum along with several other Stenge quilts, and there’s a link for that too. And while you’re in the link section, you’ll see one for the Chicago History Museum which owns Stenge’s 1933 World’s Fair quilt; it has an unusual quilting pattern which is definitely worth seeing. So, let’s go to the party.

This is another quilt where detail reigns supreme. I saw this beauty in person about five years ago.  Look at some of the tiny, precise additions which add so much to the “picture” in the middle.

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The center alone would have been a tour de force, but again, Stenge doesn’t stint in the borders. How many can you count? And here are some detail shots I took of the fabrics:

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You’ll have noticed that the yellow and red print in the star centers on the right is the same as that used on the “quilt” in the center.  Once again, Bertha is winking at us.  But the fabric also provides a segué into another interesting aspect of Stenge’s quilting career, and that is her friendship with Florence Peto (another Hall of Fame Honoree) and others. Bertha and Florence lived in different states but stayed in touch through letters.

It’s said that Florence Peto was instrumental in convincing Bertha Stenge to work in traditional and center-medallion style. I’m not sure how much convincing Stenge required; her earliest works are pretty traditional.  But I do know that Peto played a big part in getting Stenge to use historical fabrics like that purple stripe in “The Quilting Party”.  Peto often instigated round robins or supplied fabric and challenged Stenge and her other pen pals to use it in a quilt.  Take a look at the sashing in this Sawtooth Star quilt that Stenge made. Those of you who are quilt historians will recognize that wavy stripe and brownish-reds as being old (maybe 1870s?), and it’s just the kind of thins Peto used and shared.

We can also look at another example, “Gazelle”, and wonder if some of the fabric came from Peto. Here’s the photo I took at the Intenational Quilt Museum.  The first detail has fabric in three colorways, and could have been a challenge. I don’t know what to think about the floral in the second one because Stenge seems to generally rely on solids and tone-on-tones; this could have come from Peto, but there’s no proof.  Either way, my heart warms with the thought of these ladies sending around their quilting missives, sharing their progress much like we do today online. And who wouldn’t want to be the Queen’s correspondent?

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As an aside, “Gazelle” was made from a newspaper pattern—something unusual for Stenge who largely favored her own original designs.

No discussion of Bertha Stenge is complete without mention of her artistic talents. Here are some examples of how she used her formal art education in her quilting.

This quilt is pieced in a secondary palette of purple, orange and green, showing a good grasp of the color wheel, and inverts the central medallion format in a way that is innovative while still being controlled.  Stenge made other hexagon quilts which can be seen in the Illinois State Museum collection.

Here’s a quilt that shows how Stenge could break out from her traditional preferences and emulate the Art Deco Style.  It’s also whimsical with blocks representing sardine cans, and celery and tin-opening keys in the quilting. (OPA was in charge of rationing during World War II.)

And speaking of whimsy, look at this detail from “American Holidays”; the Valentine is being mailed to Bertha Stenge!  The Queen can poke fun at herself.

What?  The Queen pays taxes?  Well, at least she was a good sport about it and saw the ironic side of things.  Stenge didn’t compete for the prize money (her biggest award was put into war bonds).

I’m going to wrap up with my favorite Bertha Stenge quilt, Iva’s Pin Cushion. I love the subtle coloring and design symmetry, and the trapunto work and quilting are exquisite.

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Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit with Bertha Stenge. Do you agree she earned the title of “Queen”? She showed humor, a quick wit, a command of her art, and loyalty to friends. To top it off, she was modest (“The two things you need most in making quilts are plenty of patience and a warm iron.”).  That adds up to regal in my book.

Your quilting friend,

Anna  

Hall of Fame bio https://quiltershalloffame.net/bertha-stenge/[AH1] 

Wasserman blog http://annquiltsblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/quilts-at-art-institute-of-chicago.html   

Art Institute of Chicago collection https://www.artic.edu/artists/36792/bertha-stenge (I was puzzled by the name of one of these quilts, Toby Lil;  then I read that it represents English crockery known as “Toby” jugs and was named for or given to a friend, Lillian.)

Illinois State Museum http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/art/collections/daisy/gallery.html

Chicago History Museum Century of Progress World’s Fair quilt https://collections.carli.illinois.edu/digital/collection/chm_museum/id/3197/rec/2

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As I do my background reading to write these posts, I usually find myself wishing I could meet the Honoree.  These women and men are always remarkable, and there’s often some twist that makes them real for me.  But that isn’t the case with this week’s subject, Carrie Hall; I had a hard time warming up to her.  But read on, and maybe we’ll find something interesting.

Let’s start with the quilt stuff. Carrie Hall lives on today on eBay, Amazon, AbeBooks and other sites through two things:  the book she wrote with Hall of Fame Honoree, Rose Kretsinger, titled The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America and for Bettina Havig’s book titled Carrie Hall Blocks.

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Both books include photos of the hundreds of quilt blocks made by Hall between 1900 -1935.  She, like Hall of Fame Honoree Mary Barton discussed in an earlier blog, went on the lecture circuit during the “Colonial Revival” of quilting, and used actual blocks to punctuate her talk.  Here’s Carrie dressed for a performance/ lecture, followed by a few of her blocks with the names she gave them;  if you look at all of them on the site below, you’ll find that you may call some of the blocks by different names.  In some cases, Hall was a stickler for historical accuracy, but in others, she didn’t mind being creative or redundant. Makes me wonder what she said in those lectures, but I shouldn’t be too critical because glamorizing the past was a shortcoming of many early quilt history efforts.

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I like to call the one on the left “Going to Chicago” (that’s where I’m from), and you may know it by one of its several other names.  Hall used the first recorded name from an 1884 publication—probably what she grew up with. Names are funny; the same source that named “New Four Patch” called it “World’s Fair” when they put it out again 55 years after the original.

She lived in Leavenworth Kansas while she was making these blocks, so maybe that accounts for the one on the left.  She is the only source cited by Brackman (Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns) to give a name to this pattern, and I guess she wanted to honor her home town.  As I said, sometimes she’s historically accurate, and sometimes she’s creative. 

And look; here are two very different blocks with the same name, and there are at least two other blocks also named “Rose of Sharon” in the Hall block collection:

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Not only was Hall inconsistent and repetitive in naming, but she took great license with botany as well.  I’m not talking about the stylized, pieced, modern pansies, etc; no one expects those to be accurate.  But look at these two versions of the same plant:

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Am I getting a little waspish? Sorry; I told you I couldn’t warm up to her.  But I really do admire Hall’s work; some of the designs require more sewing skill than I can muster (I sure wasn’t piecing LeMoyne stars at age seven and winning first place at the county fair at age 15), and I can’t imagine making that many blocks.  With over 800 of them (1,057 by Brackman’s count), varying from 8 inch pieced blocks to 16 inch applique blocks, she could have made over a dozen quilts!  Wait, she did make quilts—many for charity, and probably few, if any, for the contests that captivated her contemporaries.  Here are two examples:

I love this one for its blue and white border and for the red in the trees to represent cherries, and the axes masquerading as a frame.  I love the next one because it’s all blue/white and reminds me of the old ceramic tile patterns that used to be in the entries of 1930s drug stores and five-and-dimes (and old bathrooms).

The block and quilt images are all taken from the website of the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas.  You can see more of the items donated by Carrie Hall at the link below.  Be warned: there are 92 pages and many of the blocks have no image available, but starting at about page 87, you’ll find quilts and clothing made by her co-author, Rose Kretsinger which are worth seeing too. 

Well, that’s the quilting aspect of Carrie Hall’s entre’ to the Hall of Fame.  She had another interesting career in the world of fashion.  And really, aren’t fashion and quilt fabrics related? That’s the topic of another post, but let’s see how Hall segued from one to the other and back again.

After a stint as a teacher (how many of us were teachers? I had 7^th and 8^th grade for science, religion and art—what a combo!) and later as superintendent, Hall turned to dressmaking.  Under the title “Madam Hall, modiste”, she developed a thriving couture business catering to local society ladies, and included General MacArthur’s mother among her clientele. In 1938, she wrote a book I think should be required reading in all college fashion design programs: From Hoopskirts to Nudity, calling it “A review of the follies and foibles of fashion, 1836-1936”.  The cover of the 1946 edition even emphasizes the silliness of her topic, showing two “fashion” figures on the teeter-totter of time.

        

                         

Having been in the fashion business, Madam Hall knew whereof she wrote. She gives detailed descriptions of designs and construction techniques, along with plenty of information about accessories. But throughout, she expresses an amused, almost disdainful attitude toward fashion.  She encourages her readers to develop their own style, to wear what is becoming to their own figure, and to choose what is most compatible with their own personalities.  She knows how fickle fashion can be!

Her writing is at times chatty, at times moralistic, and always peppered with literary references.  You won’t be surprised to learn that Shakespeare had a lot to say about dress, but would you have thought she could work in quotes from Confucius and the ancient Greeks? Within two pages, she cites Ben Johnson, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Carlyle. There’s also lots of doggerel too, just to keep it from getting too high brow. And in case you are wondering about the title, it’s appropriate: she not only reviews the “Flora Mc Flimsey” modes of the 1920s, she goes so far as to include a photo of a nudist colony. Daring! (And I’m not gonna cut and paste that; find it yourself.)

The ups and downs of fashion that she wrote about turned personal for Carrie Hall.  A combination of the ready-to-wear market and the Depression saw the end of her couture establishment. She re-invented herself in quilting, but that didn’t last either, as travelling for lectures became difficult and her finances declined. But Hall was a survivor; she had “braved it all” (grasshoppers, crop failures and more) as a child of Kansas homesteaders in the early 1870s, and the difficulties of her later life weren’t going to keep her down. Her final career was as a doll maker.

These weren’t common playthings.  Here are some excerpts from an article in the Kansas City Star, May 39, 1948 that record the subject-matter variety and detailed construction of the Hall dolls.

Also mentioned in the article were 50 dolls representing biblical figures (now in the collection of Nebraska Wesleyan University) and dolls made to order from old photographs.

Hall’s dolls are sought after by collectors today, and she’s occasionally written up in the antique doll magazines.  I’m not into dolls myself, but I couldn’t resist purchasing a five-page article about Hall’s fashion dolls on eBay. It should arrive in time for an update in next week’s blog. Below are some of her items sold on the RubyLane website.  Look at the fabulous detail and remember that these are not full or even half size—they’re doll clothes.

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Well, I think Carrie Hall has turned out to be more interesting than I first found her.  And definitely more admirable. I’m glad I kept digging and was able to introduce myself and you to this skilled, creative, whimsical, resourceful Honoree.

Your quilting friend,

Anna

Bio info  https://quiltershalloffame.net/carrie-hall/

Blocks at Spencer Museum https://spencerartapps.ku.edu/collection-search#/search/works/Carrie%20A.%20Hall

Road trip!  Who wants to go to a lovely little quilt shop in Wisconsin? Well. at least virtually that is. 

But before we go, I’m sorry to report it, but I have Bloggers’ Block. I spent the time I should have been writing on Sunday in virtual study centers offered on Zoom by the American Quilt Study Group.  I learned a lot and got to see some old familiar faces, but now it’s hard to get down to work. So I’m going to reprise some information I have on hand about last year’s Heritage Honoree, Mary McElwain.  If you’ve been in one of my regional study groups and heard my Power Point already, or if you learned about Mary McElwain at Celebration 2019, then you can take a pass; but please come back next week.

So now let’s get on the bus and head to Walworth, Wisconsin, the site of the Mary McElwain Quilt Shop.  It’s just about an hour from Chicago going Northwest into an area of moraine hills, woods, and clear, deep lakes left by the last glaciers.  You would love this scenery even if it weren’t for the quilt shop. Nearby Lake Geneva has been a favorite tourist destination for Chicagoans since the wealthy travelled there to escape the 1871 Fire. In 1968, the late Hugh Hefner built his first Playboy resort at Lake Geneva, and there is still a resort on that site. On the left is a resort hotel from the days when Mary had her shop and on the right is the Lake today.

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Mary opened her business in 1910 in a corner of her husband’s jewelry store on the town square in Walworth, but quilts soon took over. By 1933 (at the height of the Depression) the space was expanded with a double archway to access the shop next door. The expansion was marked with a two-day event where 500 people saw two new quilt designs, had tea, and were entertained by Miss Jean Radebough who sang old-fashioned songs to her own melodeon accompaniment. Here’s the shop in 1932 before the renovations and an interior view with some of the gift items offered in addition to the quilts.

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It took a lot of work to develop the McElwain enterprise, and Mary was tireless in her efforts.  In the early days of her business, Mary would take quilts around to small towns in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, giving lectures and exhibiting her collection at local club shows, fairs and bazaars. She also took her show on the road to other cities such as Rochester, NY and St. Petersburg, FL. (I suspect she was combining business with pleasure; there are lots of McElwains in both areas, and maybe she was visiting family.) She promoted her business by writing an article for “Hobbies” magazine called “Heirlooms of Tomorrow”, and by speaking engagements, including one on WLS Radio. In March, 1933, Mary was invited to exhibit at Navy Pier for the Garden Club of Illinois, and later that year, she was one of the judges for the Sears contest at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Phew! Here’s Mary (on the right) with the other judges at the fair.

 Mary’s shop also became famous as a destination for groups as well as for individuals who enjoyed a drive in the country. She displayed quilts not only on the walls, but also had what may have been the original bed turnings. When she wasn’t having turnings, quilts were displayed on beds as well as on the walls of the shop. This is Mary and her husband, William, with a Daisy Chain quilt on a handsome spindle bed.  If you look carefully, you’ll see that there’s not much unused wall space. No wonder a trip to Mary’s shop was such a treat!

Some of Mary’s customers were society ladies who included the wife of an ex- governor of Illinois, a Rockefeller, the wife of the Norwegian Consul, and a visitor from Paris, France. But she also served the local women and shoppers who drove up from Illinois. Mary had connections with large department stores too. A store like Carson, Pirie & Scott in Chicago would have made her products available to the many Park District quilt clubs which were active in the 1930s and 1940s.

McElwain’s connections weren’t just local.  And her success in one tourist area led her to another.  In the late 1920s, St Petersburg, FL became a popular winter getaway, especially in 1929 when the city opened the “Million Dollar Pier”. Mary McElwain was right there with them, offering her goods in the McIntosh department store. The green benches on the sidewalk outside the store are still a tourist attraction. The upscale Wilson-Chase store also carried Mary’s products, but the chicest location for her line was the McElwain shop on Beach Drive.  It was located in the posh Ponce de Leon Hotel, just across from the yacht club. Here are some Florida shots—just to make this a real virtual road trip:

Million Dollar Pier. Mary’s shop is in the hotel to the left of the pier , just under the word “The” in “The Sunshine State”.

Green benches at McIntosh department store which carried Mary’s goods.

Ponce de Leon Hotel.  Mary’s shop occupied the street-level corner on the left side.

So, what did Mary sell?  Mostly, other people’s products, but she did design one pattern called “Daisy Chain”. This may be her most-recognized pattern because it was on the cover of her catalog, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. “Daisy Chain” sold at 35 cents for a paper pattern, $12.50 for a stamped or cut kit, $25.00 for a basted top and $85.00 for a finished product.  The “Painted Daisy” crib quilt was available in pink or blue, stamped at $1.75 or finished at $7.50.

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Other patterns and quilts sold by the McElwain shop were traditional designs like Drunkard’s Path, re-named “Gypsy Tears”. Mary wasn‘t shy about giving her own names to common blocks and settings; for example, what we know as Trip Around the World was sold as “American Tapestry”. Other patterns were based on old quilts in Mary’s collection, or came from well-known designers such as Marie Webster and Ruby Short McKim.

There is no evidence that McElwain took out ads for her patterns and kits, but the shop did provide little brochures of its offerings.  In 1934, Mary compiled a catalog-cum-commentary which she called “The Romance of the Village Quilts”. This 34 page booklet cost twenty five cents in the store. The catalog contained photos of finished quilts that could be purchased as a paper pattern, a kit which was either stamped or cut, a basted top, or a completed quilt.  Mixed in with these were a romantic essay on quilts written by Mary, a poem describing the bed turnings (written as a tribute to McElwain), interior shots of the shop, and an Edgar A. Guest poem in praise of the afghan. 

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Mary used quality products for the finished quilts she sold and offered those same products through the catalog for those who were making the quilts themselves.  She carried fabric, rulers, stencils, batting and bias binding.

The quilt patterns and kits that McElwain sold were mostly traditional, but she had something for other tastes as well. Here’s a “Modern Rose” on the left (made by next year’s Heritage Honoree, Mary Gasperik) and a “Pines and Wreaths” on the right made by Esther Swingle Weter, who stored it with a note saying, “Pattern and material from the McElwain shop in Walworth, Wisconsin.”

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McElwain not only sold directly, she also distributed her patterns indirectly through other companies.  Rock River batting from nearby Janesville, WI, was carried in the shop and catalog, and was used in the finished quilts that Mary sold; in exchange for this placement, she arranged for a McElwain pattern to be included on the batting wrapper. Rock River Cotton Company also purchased patterns from Mary, which they printed on tissue paper and sold as a set of eleven. Here’s a photo of a Rock River batting wrapper and the listing for the batting in the McElwain catalog.

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 McElwain’s patterns were distributed on Mountain Mist labels as well, but there is no indication that their batting was sold by McElwain.  Mary also had a working relationship with the Boag Company of River Forest, IL.  Mary would sell Boag’s quilt and pillow kits at her store and through her catalog, and in return, Boag would slap a McElwain label on his Julia Fischer Force catalog.

This is from the inside of a Boag/ JFF catalog, and below is the cover with the McElwain label.  Look closely and you’ll see the glue outline from the original Boag label around McElwain’s name.

How’s that for marketing?

As you can imagine, the McElwain enterprise took a lot of workers.  Mary began with her own work and items made by local women; her husband helped with the accounts, and her daughter, DeEtte, was a mainstay.  Eventually, McElwain teamed with a Women’s Exchange of nearly 60 workers who made the completed quilts.  Mary’s granddaughter delivered projects to their homes and was paid a nickel per item (even if 3 items went to same house).  The local girls who helped with the large bed turnings were friends of the family and they were “paid” with a soda (or do you say pop?). One of Mary’s pattern designers, Lillian Walker, became famous in her own right.

Well, I’ve taken you on a virtual road trip and introduced you to a quilt entrepreneur of the highest order. Sadly, you can’t take a real trip to the McElwain Quilt Shop because it closed in 1960.  But the Walworth Historical Society has a permanent exhibit displaying quilts and giving information about the shop.  Not all of these items are McElwain’s, but I think I see a Webster kit which she would have sold in the first picture, and some of the patterns from her catalog in the second. Who knows what else they have?

That’s it for now.  I promise to be back on track next week.

Your quilting friend,

Anna

How did you learn to quilt? In my case, no one in my family was a quilter, so I was introduced by a friend. I purchased four block of the month kits from JoAnns and gave it a try.  Then I started reading. I got Harriet Hargrave’s Quilter’s Academy books (freshman and sophomore years only—I was an academy drop out), Ruby Short McKim’s One Hundred and One Patchwork Patterns, a number of how-to books and a few coffee table books for inspiration. If I had been born 50 years later, I’d probably have just looked on the internet and found Alex Anderson and Jenny Doan.

But what would I have done if I had been born 50 years earlier? I would have read Marie Webster (Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them), Ruth Finley (Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them), and Marguerite Ickis (The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting. These classics are part of the quilt historian’s essential library, and are still available on eBay and the open market. Today I want to tell you about one of these authors.

If you read the bio on the Hall of Fame website (link below), you’ll see that Marguerite Ickis re-invented herself many times over.  Her way of putting it was that she had nine lives–hence “The Cat”.  We know her from her quilting books, but she’s known for much more. But before I get to that, here are the quilting books.

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The “Standard” book is just that, an all-inclusive handbook.  To give you an idea of its scope, here’s what the publishers say about it:

You’ll learn how to plan the quilt, the number of blocks to fit a bed, how to select the pattern to harmonize with the design and color of the room, and how to choose materials. Clear directions explain how to cut, sew, and make applique patterns, patchwork, and strips. An entire chapter on design discusses basic elements, sources, making your own designs, avoiding sewing problems, how to use the rag bag, and much more. The section on patterns gives directions on tracing, seam allowance, and estimating quantity. There is full information on borders, quilting, and tufting, and just about every other aspect of quilt making. Mrs. Ickis shows you over 100 traditional and unusual quilts, including Basket, Tree of Life, Flowers  in a Pot, Traditional Geometric, Friendship, Square and Cross, Saw Tooth, Drunkard’s Path, Flying Geese, Mexican Cross, Pennsylvania Dutch, Crazy Quilts, Yo-yo Quilts, Album Quilts, and dozens of others, including over 40 full-size patterns. You are given other uses for quilting, such as drapes, curtains, upholstery, lunch cloths, purses, cushions, and Italian quilting. Completing the coverage are fascinating chapters on collecting quilts as a hobby; how to make full-size patterns of famous American quilts from pictures, small designs, and museum or collector’s quilts; and a history of quilt making with personal memories.

All this for under $5.00 at today’s prices! But a word of caution: the directions may not be so simple.  Here’s how to make a Caesar’s Crown block: “Fold block diagonally each way across center and then across to get center creases. Draw in 2 circles. Use compass to draw center block. The tops of the diamonds will come along the fold in the block. Piece design and appliqué to block.” Here’s the block, in case you can’t visualize it from the directions:

Even so, the book is more than worth the cost for this famous quote from an unknown Ohio great-grandmother:

It took me more than 20 years, nearly 25, I reckon, in the evenings after supper when the children were all put to bed.  It scares me sometimes when I look at it.  All my joys and all my sorrows are stitched into those little pieces.  When I was proud of the boys….When the girls annoyed me….And John too….Sometimes I loved him and sometimes I sat there hating him as I pieced the patches together.  So they are all in that quilt, my hopes and fears, my joys and sorrows, my loves and hates. I tremble sometimes when I remember what that quilt knows about me.

Wow!  If that doesn’t make quilting into something magical and mystical, I don’t know what would.

With an undergraduate degree in education from Ohio University and a master’s in botany from Columbia, Ickis’ first career/”life” was as a teacher. Before going to Columbia, she was an instructor in recreation at New York University and Dean of the New York Recreation Training School. She then went East to work as the curator of the Botany Department at the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station (Mass. Agricultural College) in Amherst.

Following that “life,” but related to it, was a career with the Girl Scouts. Beginning with the Paterson (New Jersey) Council in 1923 as a “first class nature specialist”, she went on to direct the acclaimed nature museum at the Council’s summer camp. She spent almost a decade working with the Girl Scouts as a trainer at the national level, and was affiliated with the National Recreation Association as a member and as Assistant Editor of “Recreation” magazine. She was also Dean of the Recreation Training School for the Works Projects Administration (WPA). This was a time when the “Playground Movement” was coming into its own, and Ickis would be glad to know that there is a playground named after her in Massachusetts.

Playground on Cape Cod named after Marguerite Ickis.  See more at link below.

A few of Marguerite Ickis’ “lives” came from difficult circumstances.  When she was around 60, she began losing her sight to cataracts. Rather than retire, she did two things: she started painting and she opened a restaurant.

The restaurant was located in the town of Dennis on Cape Cod.  She poked fun at herself in this “life” saying that even though she had no restaurant experience, she could see enough to measure three cups of flour and one cup of lard for a pie crust. She ran the restaurant for fourteen years, and “The Pheasant” is still at the original location, serving freshly-caught seafood and other food cooked on an open wood fire. This new popular restaurant is a far cry from where Ickis started her foodie career. As she explained, “My building had been a storehouse for clipper ships on the Dennis shore and had been moved to Main Street. There was a stall in it which housed a horse and it certainly smelled terribly. We used grills. I had no screens. And do you know the Rockfellers, Fleischmans and others of that ilk came often and loved it.” (“Dennis Author-Painter Still Lives Valiantly,” Women’s World, 1978). I’m including photos of the new restaurant—because I miss going out to eat in pandemic times, and this makes my mouth water. See the link below for their Facebook page; if you are in the area, they have take-away these days.

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Ickis also took up painting.  She said she wanted to stop chain smoking and using a paint brush gave her something to do with her hands. Her paintings have been likened to Grandma Moses, but she thought they were less stick-like.  In fact, she tried to make them homey and personal.  One painting is a reminder of the shopping trips with her mother and sister at Stone and Thomas in Ohio to buy new hats—one every year for Easter and another for the county fair.  Another is based on people from her childhood town: the butcher and his wife, the man with the ear trumpet, the woman who nursed her baby “right in church”.

Marquerite Ickis’ painting of a quilting bee.

You can see more of Ickis’ paintings in “The Ickis Room” of the Dennis Senior Center, Dennis MA—if we ever get to travel again.

Ickis had a well-established “life” as a writer. In addition to her quilting books, she had several titles related to crafts, hobbies and the “Playground Movement”. Among these are Nature in Recreation, Pastimes for the Patient, The Book of Games and Entertainment the World Over,Weaving as a Hobby, The Book of Arts and Crafts, Folk Arts and Crafts, and Handicrafts and Hobbies for Pleasure and Profit. Garnering the most hits on Newspapers.com are articles about Ickis’ holiday books.  Between 1965 and 2000, journalists all over the country relied on her for filler in their feature stories whenever a holiday came around. In October, Ickis was cited as attributing Jack-o-lanterns to the Irish; in the Spring she was quoted on the origin of Easter egg hunts.  And at Christmas time, the papers trotted out her craft ideas for holiday decorations. Here are the holiday books:

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I want to close by coming full circle in Marguerite Ickis’ nine lives, and end with her life as a quilter.  This was probably her first “life”; she learned to quilt at a young age in Ohio.  She was taught to quilt by her mother and Quaker grandmother and she helped batt quilts with wool produced on the family sheep farm. The Quilters Hall of Fame is very lucky to have an Ickis quilt; this one was made with scraps of costumes from WPA theater productions. (Thanks for the donation, Holice Turnbow!) There’s a link below for more information about the quilt.

Marguerite Ickis. Fan Medallion c. 1940

Well, that’s the many “lives” of Honoree Marguerite Ickis. I think I would have enjoyed knowing her; she had a sense of humor and self-deprecation as well as a determination to make the most of the hand she was dealt. Worthy traits to emulate.

Your quilting friend,

Anna

Hall of Fame bio https://quiltershalloffame.net/marguerite-ickis/

Ickis Playground https://capecodplaygrounds.blogspot.com/2015/05/johnny-kelley-park-dennis.html

Restaurant. https://www.facebook.com/thepheasantcapecod/

Fan Medallion quilt https://quiltershalloffame.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/342CC602-9798-4B42-AA73-866582057530

Idle hands may be the Devil’s workshop, but Grace Snyder must have put him out of business.  The story of her life is told in an autobiography written with her daughter titled No Time on My Hands.  One reason she had no time was that she made over 300 quilts including one containing over 87,000 pieces! But Grace wasn’t busy all the time; she was a dreamer too. As a child she “… wished that (she) might grow up to make the most beautiful quilts in the world, to marry a cowboy, and to look down on the top of a cloud.”  If you count air travel for looking down on a cloud, her dreams all came true.  How many of us can say that?

At first glance, Grace Snyder’s life is unremarkable: the daughter of 1880s Nebraska homesteaders, she married a Nebraska rancher/cowboy (Bert), did some teaching, and raised four children. But she also made quite a few  remarkable quilts, and that’s what we’ll look at today. You can learn more about her story in the bio information on the Hall of Fame website and the Nebraska Quilters site (links below); the latter is an especially thorough presentation for a reason I’ll tell you about later. 

Let me start with some of Grace’s not-so-remarkable quilts—and when I say “not so remarkable”, it’s only in comparison with her others.  From her earliest days, Grace was taught to make small neat stitches, and every Snyder quilt displays her fantastic workmanship.  But some of her quilts are show-stopping designs and others are more personal.  These are the personal ones—the ones that reveal something significant to the maker. (You won’t be able to zoom in on these images, but you’ll find them in the expanded bio link and can view close ups there if you want.)

This quilt was made with fabric from one of Grace’s favorite childhood dresses. Not an unusual story, but here’s the Snyder twist: the dress was torn as she ducked through a barbed wire fence to escape a charging bull. 

Not every Grace Snyder quilt tells such personal stories.  Here are some that tell us the quilter could be conventional. I wish I could give you better shots of the quilting; I’ve put links below to their home sites where you can at least zoom in.

The Lincoln Quilt, International Quilt Museum

Snyder, Grace. Grape and Vine Applique. 1951. From University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Nebraska Quilt Project (Lincoln Quilters Guild). Published in The Quilt Index, http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=57-90-6E2. Accessed: 09/12/2020

Snyder, Grace. McGills Cherries; Applique. 1945. From University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Nebraska Quilt Project (Lincoln Quilters Guild). Published in The Quilt Index, http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=57-90-6E1. Accessed: 09/12/2020

Remember I mentioned show-stoppers? I think these last three would qualify, but (wait) there’s more.  Grace won quite a few ribbons in her day, having made 24 quilts expressly for exhibition or competition. In addition to honors at county and state fairs, in 1950 four of Grace’s quilts were displayed at the Women’s International Exhibition in New York City. “Covered Wagon States” won a special ribbon in the International Division, and “Grape and Vine Applique” won a blue ribbon for its fine applique work. Her “Flower Basket Petit Point” and “The Bird of Paradise” were placed in a special division since there was nothing else like them at the exhibition. And there’s still more: Grace also has two quilts that were included among the 100 chosen for publication in The Twentieth Century’s Best American Quilts, and here they are:

This is a mosaic in the style of Albert Small (who made three hexagon quilts, the last one having pieces only 3/8 inch!).  Grace probably saw the design in a 1939s magazine, and she made up her own color scheme from a black and white photo included with the article.

Nebraska State Historical Society

Before it was one of the 100 Best, this quilt was the Sweepstakes winner at the 1944 Nebraska State Fair and earned Grace a prize of $2.50. You can’t really appreciate how detailed it is without seeing the video in the extended bio (link below.) The video starts off with some great close-up shots so you can see how she used half square triangles to create the look of needlework. Really, follow that link and play at least the first minute of the video. Wowza!

The State of Nebraska is justly proud of Grace Snyder, and Nebraskans make sure her legacy lives on. Her autobiography has been re-interpreted as a book for young readers, Pioneer Girl, which teachers throughout the state use in the required State History course.  The University of Nebraska has also developed study aids to keep Grace’s story alive because it’s the story of the state itself, a real life Prairie life. And of course there’s the presentation available at the extended bio link below. What other state has memorialized one of its quilters in this way?

That got me to thinking about who the famous or most-recognized quilters are in each state  I live in Illinois, and we have Bertha Stenge (I promise to write about her soon) and next year Mary Gasperik will be inducted.  Indiana has Marie Webster; California claims Yvonne Porcella and Jean Ray Laury; Nancy Crow put Ohio on the art quilting map. So, who is your state’s best or most notable quilter—current or historical? Is there one for every state? Is she or he in the Quilter’s Hall of Fame, or will you be making a nomination so your state won’t be left out?  If Grace Snyder’s story tells us anything, it’s that someone can be living a quotidian life, all the while making quilts and making her dreams come true. So, look around for people like her, and look at yourself to see if your dreams are coming true.

Bio information https://quiltershalloffame.net/grace-snyder/

Expanded bio http://nequilters.org/node/8

The Lincoln Quilt https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/quilt/20090320001

Grape and Vine Applique http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=57-90-6E2

McGill’s Cherries http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=57-90-6E1

Hooray! Hooray! Yippee! Hooray!  It’s a good thing I’m writing rather than talking because I’d be tripping over my tongue with excitement. I have big news.

A few months ago, I told you about the process for nominating someone to be selected as a Quilters Hall of Fame Honoree. Well, I went through that process last year, nominating Mary Gasperik to be a Heritage Honoree—the category for a person who is deceased or was active in the quilt world at least 80 years ago.  And now the word is out that Mary was chosen and will be inducted in 2021. I couldn’t be more thrilled, but I’ll try to contain myself and tell you about my journey with Mary Gasperik. It all started when I went to the American Quilt Study Group 2012 Seminar in Lincoln, Nebraska.  I had just retired, and was checking things off my bucket list, including a visit to the International Quilt Museum.  I didn’t dream that rather than being a “one and done” trip, this jaunt would open up a whole world of quilt study and travels for me.  I didn’t know anyone there, but everyone welcomed me and treated me with a level of collegiality that I had no reason to expect. One day, I was standing next to Merikay Waldvogel (Hall of Fame Honoree, scholar, and nationally-known expert on the quilts of the Chicago World’s Fair) and she asked what I was studying—as if, naturally, I would have an area of expertise.  I told her that, being from Chicago, I would have been interested in researching the 1933 Sears quilt contest at the Fair, but that she had already covered that ground. Without missing a beat, Merikay assured me that there was plenty more to look into, especially some of the individual quilters. When I came home from Lincoln, I took a look at Merikay’s book and learned that there were Park District-sponsored quilting clubs in 1930s Chicago, and that Mary Gasperik was active in one of them. Here’s a photo of Mary (on the left in the back row) in front of her Laurel Wreath quilt with some of the other ladies of the Tuley Park Quilters.

Something hit a familiar chord when I saw that picture: not only did Mary remind me of one of my favorite aunts, she was also—like me—a South Side girl. Anyone familiar with Chicago knows about the rivalry between the North Side and the South Side. The Cubs and Sox slug it out in their crosstown classic mini-series every year (except this year, with COVID-19), and there are other bones of contention which I’ll tell you about when I write up Bertha Stenge, a Hall of Fame Honoree from the North Side.  Anyway, I decided that Mary Gasperik and I were sympatico. I started learning about Mary indirectly when I prepared a presentation on Alice Beyer who, in her capacity as an “Artcraft” supervisor for the Park District, worked with the Tuley Park Quilters to publish a quilting handbook in 1934. Here’s the cover of the book, with a sample page and the quilt Mary Gasperik made from that pattern. 

And, so you’ll get a preview of Mary’s work and start to know why she was chosen as an Honoree, here’s a close up shot of the quilting:

I’m pretty sure this quilt will be at Celebration next year, and you won’t want to miss seeing it in the cloth. And there are some great stories to go with it, but I won’t spoil that for you now.

One of Mary’s granddaughters, Susan Salser, helped me with the Alice Beyer lecture by filling in lots of information about the Tuley Park Quilters, and this naturally included Mary Gasperik.  Susan is a scholar in her own right: she has researched, from microfiche if you can imagine, hundreds of articles about the Detroit News Quilt Club Corner to learn about her grandmother’s participation in the “club”; she has scoured design records to find the sources of images that appear on the quilts; she’s been a keeper of family records related to Mary’s quilting.  And the crown jewel of Susan’s efforts is the fact that every known Gasperik quilt has been documented, in detail and with the help of Merikay Waldvogel, on the Quilt Index.

Well, the more I talked with Susan, the more I thought that Mary Gasperik should be in the Hall of Fame. Her quilts are many and varied, ranging from whimsical to elegant; her workmanship is superb; she even has a quilt on display at the Smithsonian. Her story is worth recognizing: as a Hungarian immigrant with little command of the English language, she assimilated through quilting in the Park District and membership in the Detroit club which required bus trips to participate in their shows. Unlike several other Honorees who had a formal art background, Mary used her untrained eye to adapt published patterns and to create her own original masterpieces. Mary wasn’t a society lady, but she was like so many unsung quilters of her era who just plain enjoyed quilting.

So, let me tell you about the nomination process. Mary Gasperik’s nomination was made in the name of the Northern Illinois Quilt Study Group, my local quilt study group. I had given a Power Point presentation about Mary to the group, and we were lucky to have two other granddaughters bring us some of Mary’s quilts to examine.  These granddaughters also brought family scrapbooks, appliqued clothing made by Mary, and other ephemera. The study group had a great time, and everyone was so impressed that they readily adopted my suggestion to nominate.

There’s a form for the nomination on the website, but it’s really bare bones.  The first part is writing about why the nominee is deserving. Once I had lined up the reasons above, I just had to put down my thoughts. Writing is easy for me, but if you are thinking about submitting a name, don’t let writer’s block worry you; what’s important is the nominee’s merit, not the nominator’s writing talent.

Then you need to gather up a record of supporting evidence—in the case of a quilter, it’s her quilts.  Here’s where I chose well: with all of Gasperik’s work on the Quilt Index, I could get pictures and information all in one place. If you’re going to nominate a contemporary quilter, you might be lucky and find their work on their website or elsewhere on the internet.

The last part is getting references, and this is where I had some nice experiences, rubbing elbows with the big wigs. Shelly Zegart, producer of the series “Why Quilts Matter”, had referenced Mary Gasperik in several episodes, and she was able to use those points again to boost Mary’s nomination.  Merikay Waldvogel graciously contributed by placing Mary Gasperik in the context of the 1930s milieu.  And Marsha McDowell wrote a nice letter about the significance of having the Gasperik collection online at the Quilt Index, and of recording family legacies in general. Susan Salser added to the backup with a reference from the woman who had coordinated a museum exhibit of Gasperik quilts, and quilt historian Karen Alexander also gave a reference.

If you’ve ever thought “So-and-So should be in the Hall of Fame” or asked why a certain prominent quilting personality hasn’t been named, the answer may be that no one has made a nomination of that person yet. The Hall of Fame relies on you to bring a name forward—you can do this. I’m here to tell you that submitting a nomination is a little like herding cats, but it’s well worth the effort. You’ll learn a lot, meet some interesting people, and (almost as an aside) maybe your efforts will pay off with a selection, and you can come to Celebration to see your nominee honored. 

I know where I’ll be in July 2021 (pandemic permitting), and I hope I see you there—in Marion, welcoming Mary Gasperik into the Quilters Hall of Fame.

Your quilting friend,

Anna

Link to the Nomination form on The Quilters Hall of Fame website: https://quiltershalloffame.net/honoree-nomination/

My first blog entry was about Gail van der Hoof, who is known as one of the forces behind the ground-breaking quilt exhibit at the Whitney Museum in 1971. Now it’s time to tell you about the other half of that partnership, Jonathan Holstein. As a refresher, the exhibit they mounted, Abstract Design in American Quilts, at New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art, is credited with taking quilts from the bed to the wall as a form of art to be appreciated not for warmth but for artistic qualities such as form, color and design. You can read a fleshed-out version of the Holstein/van der Hoof collecting and exhibit story, along with more info about his life at the bio link below.

Today, I want to go to a museum—at least in my mind—and think about art. Having repeated the conventional view of the Whitney exhibit, I wonder how accurate it is. Haven’t there always been quilters who saw their work as art? Remember last week when we talked about Rose Kretsinger’s designs? Surely, she was applying the principles of form and design that she learned at the Art Institute of Chicago. As did Bertha Stenge, another Hall of Fame Honoree who studied at the San Francisco School of Art. Take a look at the center of one of Stenge’s quilts, Gazelle, and see if you don’t recognize the Art Deco elements. Or The Spectrum, which was another quilt artist’s entry to the 1933 Sears contest at the Chicago Worlds Fair, which certainly shows color, form and line.

I would say that the artistic element could always be found in at least some quilts, but it took a Jonathan Holstein to make the art world –and not just the quilting world–aware of it.  So, what was special about the Whitney exhibit that makes us say (properly) that it was the beginning of quilts being seen as art? For a scholarly analysis, I read Karin Elizabeth Peterson, cited below.  Peterson makes the interesting  point that it’s the whole museum experience that transformed quilts into art. First, it’s the venue in  which the quilts are displayed. She says, “Museums can be understood as places where quasi-sacred rituals take place. Rituals that define legitimate objects, legitimate artists and legitimate viewers…. Museum space facilitates an art-for-art’s sake experience by employing a series of architectural and display cues: isolated rooms, small labels, white walls, spotlighted pedestals, space to stand back from works and grasp their effect…. The museum, which is structured to appear neutral, objective and disinterested, privileges a special way of viewing objects within its walls.”

The other aspect Peterson notes is Holstein’s discourse about the quilts. For example, when he “pitched” the exhibit to the Whitney staff, he presented slides of the works, just as he would have done with his photographs. In titling the exhibit, he carefully chose wording that would make a connection to the world of abstract art.  And when he wrote the catalog and promotional materials, he was careful to write about quilts as he would any other work of art: not focusing on workmanship, but using phrases like “sensibilities and visual skills of the artist”, “laying on colors and textures”, “a traditional American approach to design, vigorous, simple, reductive”. (1971 Exhibit catalog)

So, here’s the takeaway: Art is seen at the art museum, not the local school gym.  And if you’re going to call it art, you have to use art jargon.  Sounds simplistic and a bit cynical, but that’s just what Jonathan Holstein did, and he was successful with it. The quilt world hasn’t been the same since.  

There were other “art” exhibits after the Whitney: in 1972, American Pieced Quilts, opened at the Renwick Gallery of the National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. (this exhibit traveled to twenty-one American museums and two English venues under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES); in 1975, there was an exhibition for the Shiseido Corporation in Tokyo and the American Cultural Center Kyoto, the first show of American quilts in Japan; the following year, another exhibit was mounted at the Kyoto Museum of Modern Art.; and in 1980, Amish Quilts, from Pennsylvania and the Midwest, was seen in ten museums in the United States. 

Holstein is also the author or co-author of several books, all of which are in the Quilters Hall of Fame collection and available for purchase on the open market.

In 2003, the entire Holstein/ van der Hoof collection of quilts and ephemera was donated to the International Quilt Museum in Nebraska.  It was then valued at around $2.2 million—not bad for collectors who had initially set themselves a $36.00 limit when buying a quilt. There’s a link below to a charming video of Holstein reminiscing about the first Amish quilt he purchased—for $5.75! There’s also a link that will give you access to all of the quilts now in the IQM, but I’ve put in a few here as a teaser.

These two are graphic, and I think I can recognize what must have drawn Holstein to them.

OK.  You’ve seen my choices. When you have time, take yourself to the International Quilt Museum and pick out your own favorites from the Collection. Let me know what you find, and what strikes your fancy; leave a comment at the end of the blog.  And if you have lots of time, you might also enjoy hearing Jonathan Holstein walk you through an exhibit that was shown at the IQM called “Quilts in Common”. (link below) There are a few quilts from his Collection, but the exhibit format was comparing pairs of related quilts.  Holstein’s artist’s eye, which first got quilts on the Whitney walls, is well worth looking through as he talks about these quilts. And he shares some stories and photos which are a funky and fun view of his early buying days.

After I’ve written something like this, I find myself thinking “What if??” and recognizing how much I don’t know.  What if I had studied design or trained to be a museum curator? What if I had chosen, as Jonathan Holstein did, to center my professional life around quilts? Well, I didn’t, so I can just be grateful that Holstein was on the scene when he was, and that he continues to be active in the quilt/art world today.

Your quilting friend,

Anna

Biographical info https://quiltershalloffame.net/jonathan-holstein/

Karin Elizabeth Peterson, “Discourse and Display: The Modern Eye, Entrepreneurship, and the Cultural Transformation of the Patchwork Quilt,” Sociological Perspectives. Vol 46, Number 4, 2003

First Amish quilt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8vD8UhoBBM

Holstein quilts at International Quilt Museum https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/collections/search?title=&field_quilt_primary_pattern_tid=All&field_quiltmaker_value=&field_quilt_geo_origin_country_tid=All&field_quilt_geo_origin_state_reg_tid=All&field_quilt_predominant_techniqu_tid=All&field_quilt_object__value=&field_quilt_collection_tid=8024&field_quilt_date_range=&field_cultural_group_tid=All&combine=

Quilts in Common lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUs5m7AqvOY