Glenna Stearman, 1960
Every night at midnight, Joel and I would carefully lift the bedspread, still covered with unfolded family clothes, to the floor and go to bed. Each morning we made the bed quickly by carefully lifting the laundry covered spread from the floor and back to the bed. By the weekend we could find time to fold and shelve the clothes, while other almost daily trips to the laundry added to our pattern of life.
One day, while carving my soap, I started thinking about early American women and how they created art in the language of patchwork quilts. I saw the Whitney Museum’s early catalogue of “Abstract Design in American Quilts,” the 1971 exhibit that contributed to breaking through rigid standards in the definition of art.
I decided, once again, to use a folk art form to create the art required for my master’s thesis. Women historically made quilts one square at a time, in their laps, after the dishes were done and kids were in bed. I eyed my constant laundry pile and started sewing it to a double bed sized cotton top sheet. Whatever stayed on the bed was sewn to the sheet – lots of little boys’ clothes, a diaper, underpants, odd socks, and even adult clothing. (Joel was upset when he couldn’t find his dress socks until he looked at my “quilt.” I refused to cut the thread and give them back, so he had to buy a new pair and was careful to regularly grab his things from the heap.) Even while workin
g on the quilt, we lifted it back and forth from bed to floor and back to bed.
Looking at traditional “crazy quilts,” I learned to make colorful embroidery stitches (example at right) around the clothes that were heaped onto the backing, I did not stretch clothes to their flat outline. I let some fold, pucker, and overlap. The first time I exhibited the “quilt,” it was placed on a twin bed so its edges touched a floor that had been covered with black photo backdrop paper. The edges were finished about 20 inches in from the edge toward the center, which was still the double bed sheet backing. In the bare center, I dumped fresh unfolded laundry. People told me that they saw gallery visitors walk on the black paper to get a closer look at the clothes. It amused me because I have seen people step on clothing in messy houses.
(Exhibition of MFA quilt in progress)
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a previous post by Glenna, titled Thesis: Domestic Influence on Art and is being reprinted here as a part of our series on quilting.
