Class
Article
College
Caine College of the Arts
Department
Art and Design Department
Faculty Mentor
Mike Daines
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Abstract
My mother has always been a maker. My entire life, I have heard her sewing machine whirring as often as I have seen her face. She was, in particular, an amazing quilter, spending hours, weeks, months on intricate & exquisite compositions, often just to give them away to friends or family after. It’s always been a part of her, so when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in January of 2022, her imminent loss of her ability to sew was devastating. In the wake of this news, I began to take my first real interest in her quilts. I even began to sew.
Now, as the illness has progressed, she has lost all ability to sew. Her quilts are now a representation of who she was and is. They are reminders to our family of her true creative gift. They are what we will show to our children so that they can know her as we do. She is in each of them.
My research project blooms from that: the tie that binds my love for quilting to my mother’s. Almost everyone I’ve asked has a quilter in their family, and it is almost always a woman- a woman who was taught to quilt by her mother, or her aunt, or her grandmother. The connection between quilting and womanhood is as old as America itself, and each woman who participates sews her name into the history.
I believe my love for quilting is also strongly connected to my love for design, or at least they come from the same part of myself. If graphic design is communication through words and images, then quilting is graphic design. In both, one works with shapes, colors, compositions, textures, contrast, balance, etc. Each holds the potential for experimentation and individualization. Each gives voice to a story- it gives voice to my story. Now I think, maybe everything is quilting. Maybe everything is design.
This project is dedicated to my beautiful mother, Julie, and also to her mother, who taught her to sew, and to my child, who I do not know, who I will teach to sew and who will be warmed by my mother’s quilts. Our lives, even yet, are intertwined.
Location
Logan, UT
Start Date
4-9-2024 2:30 PM
End Date
4-9-2024 3:20 PM
Included in
Quilting: Design & Womanhood
Logan, UT
My mother has always been a maker. My entire life, I have heard her sewing machine whirring as often as I have seen her face. She was, in particular, an amazing quilter, spending hours, weeks, months on intricate & exquisite compositions, often just to give them away to friends or family after. It’s always been a part of her, so when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in January of 2022, her imminent loss of her ability to sew was devastating. In the wake of this news, I began to take my first real interest in her quilts. I even began to sew.
Now, as the illness has progressed, she has lost all ability to sew. Her quilts are now a representation of who she was and is. They are reminders to our family of her true creative gift. They are what we will show to our children so that they can know her as we do. She is in each of them.
My research project blooms from that: the tie that binds my love for quilting to my mother’s. Almost everyone I’ve asked has a quilter in their family, and it is almost always a woman- a woman who was taught to quilt by her mother, or her aunt, or her grandmother. The connection between quilting and womanhood is as old as America itself, and each woman who participates sews her name into the history.
I believe my love for quilting is also strongly connected to my love for design, or at least they come from the same part of myself. If graphic design is communication through words and images, then quilting is graphic design. In both, one works with shapes, colors, compositions, textures, contrast, balance, etc. Each holds the potential for experimentation and individualization. Each gives voice to a story- it gives voice to my story. Now I think, maybe everything is quilting. Maybe everything is design.
This project is dedicated to my beautiful mother, Julie, and also to her mother, who taught her to sew, and to my child, who I do not know, who I will teach to sew and who will be warmed by my mother’s quilts. Our lives, even yet, are intertwined.