A Glimpse of the Japanese Quilting Community:
The Influence of Quilting Schools
by Penny Nii and Shizuko Kuroha
While the Japanese had traditionally made a few patchwork
and quilted articles such as small patchwork bags and futon,
thick, tied sleeping mats and covers, their postwar introduction
to the American quilt did not occur until 1975, when an
exhibition was mounted at the Shiseido gallery in Tokyo. That
exhibition, plus a smaller one derived from it and mounted the
same year at the American Center in Kyoto, and a larger 1976
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, one floor
devoted to the history of quiltmaking in America and another to
the aesthetics of quilts, received a great deal of publicity in all
media in Japan. Those exhibitions, assembled by Jonathan
Holstein and Gail van der Hoof were followed by many others
which brought to the Japanese, in whose culture textiles have
always been honored, a very comprehensive introduction to
American quilts. There were exhibitions of antique quilts of all
types and sizes, including Amish, doll and child's quilts, and
contemporary American quilts. In the following years a
contemporary quilt movement began and developed in Japan
and is now flourishing, manifesting a number of features
unique to that country. This article explores some of the basic
characteristics, and the reasons for them, of that movement.
—Editors' Note
Consider this phenomenon: Japan, an island country of 124
million people, is second in the world only to the United States
in its number of active quilters. A recent estimate puts them at
800,000 to 1 million, of whom twenty-five percent are considered
to be serious quiltmakers. They support quilt-related business
amounting to at least 200 million dollars a year and read three
major quilt magazines with a combined circulation of 300,000
readers. Their quilts are increasingly seen in major international
exhibitions and competitions, where some have earned top
awards. International awareness of Japanese quilts has also
been furthered by quilt books and exhibitions originating in
Japan. While there are some similarities between quiltmaking
in Japan and the United States, there are also profound differences
in the way people learn to quilt, how their aesthetic is formed,
how quilts are exhibited, and how quiltmakers see themselves.
In this article we will discuss the structure of the quilting
community in Japan, focusing primarily on the quilting schools.
We begin by looking at a profile of a typical Japanese quilter,
and then describe some basic characteristics of Japanese society
as these relate to group activities. This is followed by three case
studies of quilting schools and a brief description of the craft/
quilting schools, from which we draw some conclusions about
the Japanese quilt community.
A typical Japanese quilter:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Learns to quilt at a quilting school,
Goes to a school or group meetings on a regular basis,
Exhibits quilts annually at school-sponsored shows, and,
Makes a particular style
of quilts which her
school
advocates.
To be recognized as a
"legitimate" quilter, a Japanese
quilter needs to belong to a
quilting school or a recognized
quilting group whose primary
function is organized teaching.
Generalizations often do
not describe the activities of a
particular individual with
complete accuracy, but they
can serve to highlight the basic
characteristics of a group as a
whole. Japanese quilters are
continued on page 2
A Glimpse of the Japanese Quilting Community: The Influence of Quilting Schools
continued from page 1
strongly tied to a group, whereas in the United States, a quilter's
associations with quilting groups are often incidental and social
in nature. Although there are many influential quilt guilds in the
United States, belonging to such a group does not have the
import such an association has for Japanese quilters. Said
another way, not belonging to a quilt group does not particularly
affect the stature of an American quilter, but in Japan this has
a serious negative effect.
Quilting is an American institution imported into Japan.
There, however, the activity is carried out in a social context
quite different from the U.S. Although Japan is a modern,
democratic society, it is also a society whose basic social
structures evolved over many centuries and is quite different in
significant ways from those of the United States. To understand
and appreciate Japanese quilters and their quilts, we need to
understand the environment in which they live and create.
Background: Groups, Hierarchy, and the Individual
The Japanese are more likely than Westerners to operate in
groups, or at least to see themselves as operating in this way.
Certainly, no difference is more significant between Japanese
and Americans than the Japanese tendency to emphasize the
group at the expense of the individual. Groups of every sort
abound in Japanese society, play a larger role in peoples lives,
and offer them more of a sense of individual self-identification
than do corresponding groups in the United States.[1] There
are groups composed of old schoolmates, associates at work,
women's society, students of tea ceremony, and now, quilters.
The groups are all tightly organized and occupy a large role in
their members' lives: they go out together and travel together.
Loyalty to a group is often more important than family loyalty.
This emphasis on the group has had a pervasive influence
on the Japanese character and lifestyle. A group player is more
appreciated than the solo star. Where an American might seek
to emphasize his or her independence and originality, the
Japanese will do the reverse. An old Japanese saying goes, "A
nail that sticks out will be hammered down." This characteristic
has a profoundly negative effect in the art world, of which quilting
can be considered a part. "One impasse for many artists is the
problem of artistic individuality. . . However democratic the society
has become, stepping out of line still invites censure." [2]
With a recent feudal background and a society that emphasizes
particular relationships, it is inevitable there will be ranks and
status among Japanese. Their interpersonal relations and the
groups to which they belong are usually structured hierarchically.
[3] Thus, an individual's participation in a group confers status,
not only within the group, but within the society as a whole;
the higher the status of the group, the higher is the individual
status. The ability to confer status is one aspect of the growing
popularity of art. [4]
The Quilt Journal
The Iemoto system
The Iemoto system is a school system used in the world of
traditional Japanese arts such as music, dance, flower arrangement
and tea ceremony. "Ie" means household, the primary unit of
social organization in Japan. The concept of Ie also serves as a
structural basis for contemporary Japanese groups. The notion of
a head of a household who looks after its members and to whom
they, in turn, pledge loyalty, is carried over to group organization.
The Iemoto is the founder or the current head of the school.
The Iemoto of each school inherits the secret traditions of the
previous Iemoto; he is the final arbiter of the school's practices
and has the authority to pass them on. He has also the sole right
to award certificates of achievement, to publish the school's
secret techniques, and to expel members of the school in order
to maintain doctrinal orthodoxy.' Each Iemoto is followed by
disciples who are recognized by him or her as accredited
teachers and who in turn are the masters of their own disciples.
Many of the Iemoto-led schools are hierarchical organization of
considerable magnitude.2 [5]
The Iemoto system, which has been a feature of Japanese
life since the 17th century, was used in the context of teaching
various martial and courtly arts (such as tea ceremony and
music). Until around 1955, those who participated in this
system were mostly male. Starting around 1955 variants of the
Iemoto school system began to be used by various craft fields,
together with flower arranging and tea ceremony.[6]
Quilting, a recently imported art/craft, has not yet been
placed in a single uniform school system by its practitioners.
Some quilting schools use the traditional Iemoto system while
in other schools there is no vestige of the old system. However,
because of the basic nature of Japanese society, all schools are
organized following the hierarchical, paternalistic pattern,
characteristic of all organized Japanese groups. Even among the
most modern group loyalty is expected, and the head teacher
is expected to take care for the quilters' welfare. We will look
now at three representative Japanese quilting schools and make
brief mention of the craft/quilting schools.
Example 1: A school in the style of the Iemoto system3
The first school we will consider, and which we will call the
"Iemoto" school, is the largest quilting school in Japan. It has
an organizational structure resembling the Iemoto system and
is the most traditional of the three schools under study.
The headmaster of this school is a well-known quilter in her
own right. The Iemoto school maintains that the only "true"
quilts are those that have the look of American antique quilts.
Its quilters use only traditional patterns and printed fabrics, and
all quilts must be hand sewn and hand quilted. Innovations in
patterns and the use of solid fabrics are forbidden. The school
focuses on sewing and quilting techniques producing quilters
with great technical skills. Quilters from this school have a
recognizable style, which is definitely a traditional antique look.
Page 2 Volume 2, Number 2 1993
The school's curriculum is divided into four courses, each
lasting one year, Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and Instructor
courses. To sign up for a course, a student must pay a registration
fee as well as monthly tuition. For example, the registration fee for
the Beginner course is 20,000 yen 4 (15,000 yen for the Intermediate
course), and the monthly tuition is 9000 yen/month for the Beginner
course. In addition to the tuition, the students must buy text books
and required materials from the school. The basic contents of the
courses are:
After the completion of each course a certificate is issued. A
student must pay between 15,000 to 20,000 yen to receive the
certificate. After graduating from the Advanced course, students
can remain affiliated with the school by paying a "membership"
fee of approximately 10,000 yen per year. Some may continue
on to get teaching certificates.
The school holds an annual exhibition of quilts made by the
headmaster, the instructors, the students, and the members
during the year. Because of the large number of students, a
committee composed of the instructors selects the quilts to be
•
exhibited.
In order to promote the style and methodology practiced at
the Iemoto school, it licenses franchise schools. Franchise
schools are set up as fabric stores with classroom facilities for
quilting classes. Each franchisee is given a territory, and she can
teach and sell quilt-related products free from competition from
other franchises. To become an owner of a franchise school,
a student must take an additional course above and beyond the
instructor course, pay a fee of approximately 500,000 yen, and
agree to purchase a specified amount of fabrics and other quiltrelated material from a company associated with the school.
(The headmaster is also the president of this company.)
All franchise schools must teach the same courses as those
taught at the head school. They may award various certificates
of completion, which are issued by the head school. Sixty
percent of the certificate fee goes to the head school. One
reason for the popularity of the school and its franchised
schools is transferable credits; that is, students can get credit at
the head school for courses taken at a franchise school and vice
versa. There are currently over 60 Iemoto franchise schools
throughout Japan.
In addition to the franchising arrangement, the school awards
(or sells) a status called "partners." Partners can teach the Basic
course anywhere in the country without a commitment to store
ownership. The school also runs correspondence courses so
people in remote areas can learn to quilt. Students are mailed
text books and instructions on how to make a quilt block or
small quilted items. A completed project is mailed back to the
school for critique. These correspondence courses focus primarily
on sewing methods and techniques.'
We described this school in some detail not only because
it is one of the biggest and the most popular quilting schools
in Japan today, but because many of the other large quilting
schools are run in a similar manner. Over three thousand
students are registered in the Iemoto school system, including
the franchise schools and partner classes. The annual income
of the school, including the income from the associated company
selling fabrics and notions, is estimated to be between three to
five hundred million yen.
The Iemoto school's organizational structure is very
hierarchical, with a propagation of teachers and students down
the branches of the hierarchy and the fees moving back towards
the head school. As in the traditional Iemoto system used in
flower arranging and traditional dance schools, the school
teaches and propagates an identifiable style of quilts and
construction techniques.
Example 2: An apprenticeship-oriented school
The second example, which we will call the "apprentice"
school, is very popular among the beginner students. In addition
to the school, the headmaster owns a large quilting supply
store. She is a quilter well-known for her contemporary style
quilts. She is also an author of a popular how-to quilt book
which is used extensively in her school.
The entrance fee to the apprentice school is 20,000 yen and
the tuition is 30,000 yen every six months. The classes meet
twice a week, and the courses follow a fixed pattern based on
a text book written by the headmaster. In this school, no credit
is given for courses taken at other schools. Thus, regardless of
her experience level, a new student must start in the beginner
class. For the first five years, the students take courses from
instructors who are former students of the school. A certificate
is awarded after the completion of five years of study.
The students get the opportunity to meet with the headmaster
to discuss their work only after they have been studying at the
school for four to five years. Certified students continue to learn
the art of quilting by apprenticing with the instructor or the
headmaster. The headmaster designs her own quilts, but most
of the work is executed by her apprentices and the instructors.
An exhibition of new quilts made by the headmaster and the
instructors is held annually. Certified students may enter their
quilts in the exhibit after paying an "approval" fee and getting
a nod of approval.
The apprentice school follows a pattern reminiscent of the
old painting and craft schools in which apprentices learned to
copy the master's style exactly, not unlike the European guild
system. There, in many instances, the apprentices' products
were signed with the master's name and their work was
indistinguishable from the master's work.
continued on age 4
p
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Volume
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A Glimpse of the Japanese Quilting Community: The Influence of Quilting Schools
continued from page 3
Example 3: A school with individualized instruction
There are some schools and groups, though not many, that
are organized to encourage the development of individual
tastes and styles. In our final example the headmaster meets
with a number of small groups in which the students may be
at different skill levels. With an assistant, the headmaster gives
individual lessons and allows each student to progress at her
own pace. The headmaster is a well-known quilter and author
who believes in encouraging creativity along with teaching the
basic skills in sewing and quilting.
The entrance fee is 20,000 yen with a monthly fee of 7,000
yen. Each student group meets twice a month, once with the
headmaster and once with an instructor, for three years. In the
fourth year the students meet once a month. No certificate is
awarded, and the classes have a collegial atmosphere.
In the annual exhibit held by this school, all quilts completed
by the headmaster and all the students and instructors are
exhibited. These exhibits come closest to the American quilt
shows in the variety of styles and skill levels of the quilts
exhibited. The quilts made by students of the individual school
and its headmaster are winning recognition at international
shows where they are seen as equals to quilts made in other
countries.
Example 4: Craft schools
In addition to the quilting schools, there are many large craft
schools that offer quilting courses. These courses are organized
in much the same manner as the Iemoto school. There are,
however, fewer rigidly identifiable styles associated with the
craft schools; and they focus more on sewing skills and basic
quilting techniques. Students to whom quilting becomes more
than a passing hobby will move on to one of the better known
quilting schools.
Conclusion
Although quilting is essentially an American institution, it has
become a popular activity in Japan, spawning new businesses
that continue to grow. The Iemoto system of school pervades
the quilting community. It is one of the many manifestations of
the hierarchical pattern of relationships based on the Ie, or
household, structure that exists whenever Japanese organize
themselves into a group. A strong superior-subordinate
relationship reminiscent of the feudal bond between lord and
follower continues to prevail.
The quilting schools and groups form a sort of in-group for
those who participate in them. As a member of a group a
woman can both establish a self-identity and find a means of
self expression. The strong influence of the Iemoto system,
however, has its downside. Thomas Havens made the following
observation: "Students are obliged to perpetuate the teacher's
approach and may not switch to another school or even
another instructor in the same school. For their part, teachers
The Quilt Journal
reward their pupil's loyalty by patronizing them. The result is
that authority is an even more important attribute than skill.. .
[Schools] grant licenses and certificates at regular intervals, not
necessarily to recognize artistic achievement but to reward
longevity with symbols of membership in the group." [7]
Fortunately, the emergence of schools and groups such as
the "individual" type in Example 3 are serving to counteract this
unfortunate tendency in the quilting community. It remains to
be seen if Japanese quilters can move away from the traditional
pattern of the Iemoto system and emerge as independent,
creative quiltmakers.
Penny Nii, who was born in Japan and educated in the
United States, was until 1993 a Senior Research Scientist in the
Computer Science Department at Stanford University, doing
research in artificial intelligence. In that field she published
many articles and co-authored a book on expert systems,
software which is capable of facilitating complex, human-like
reasoning. The visual arts were always a parallel interest for
her. Penny discovered quilting in the early 1980s, and though
her research career left her with little time to make quilts, her
most recent effort was accepted for "New Faces," a juried exhibition of contemporary quilts organized by the American Museum of Quilts and Textiles. She is now a partner in the LeoneNii Gallery in Mountain View, California, which exhibits both
antique and contemporary quilts.
Shizuko Kuroha is a quiltmaker, author, and teacher in her
native Japan. She discovered quilting during a two-year stay in
Bethesda, Maryland, from 1975-1976. Upon her return to
Japan, she founded the Kuroha Quilt Circle, which has now an
enrollment of 200 students in seven Japanese cities. Her own
quilts, which characteristically are made from antique, indigodyed Japanese fabric, were first seen in the United States at an
exhibition, "Indigo," organized by the Nippon Club in New York
City in 1985. In 1989 she was invited to exhibit her circle's
work at the Quilt Festival in New York, sponsored by the
Museum of American Folk Art. Since then her quilts have been
extensively exhibited internationally, notably at the "Feeling
1990" festival in the Netherlands, where her quilt won the 'Most
Artistic" award, and in 1992 in South Korea and Taiwan. In
1993 she was invited to lecture and teach at the Indianapolis
Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana, in conjunction with an
exhibition of Japanese quilts.
Page 4 Volume 2, Number 2 1993
THE QUILT PROJECT INFORMATION
Conference Lectures Ordering Information
The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc., is pleased to announce
publication of the collected working papers of the 1992 Louisville Celebrates the American Quilt conferences. The following lectures, edited from the conferences transcripts, are included:
1. Since Kentucky: Surveying State Quilts 1981-1991.
2. Directions in Quilt Scholarship.
3. Bibliography Conference.
4. The African-American and the American Quilt.
5. Quilts and Collections - Private, Public and Corporate.
The exhibitions, conferences, lectures and gatherings which
comprised the Celebration addressed issues of concern to all
interested in quilts here and abroad and helped establish goals,
priorities and methods for the coming decades of quilt study
and appreciation. The conferences were planned to further
quilt scholarship in specific areas, and to bring together scholars
who might create new dialogues about quilts and help clarify
scholarly aims and standards in the field.
The collection will be available to members of The Quilt Project
at an introductory price of $35.00 plus $3.75 shipping/handling. Prepaid orders will be accepted until January 15, 1994. (Holiday gift
cards can be arranged.) Delivery will be within six weeks after
January 15, 1994. After January 15, 1994, the price is $52.00 plus
$3.75 shipping/handling. Orders of four or more copies, after
January 15, 1994, receive a 20% discount ($41.60 each plus $3.75
shipping/handling per copy).
Please send your orders to The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc.,
P.O. Box 6251, Louisville, Kentucky 40206. Visa/MasterCard
accepted. Phone: 502-587-6721. Fax: 502-897-3819.
The Quilt Journal
Page 5 Volume 2, Number 2 1993
Quilt and Fabric Stylings of the
Later Twentieth Century
by Jeffrey Gutcheon
The relationship between the design characteristics — the
"look" — of the quilts of a given era and that period's available
and popular materials has been much noted but little studied.
One reason for this is the range of scholarship required in a
number of fields, not all related, to make any sort of reasonable
judgments in the matter. More, many seemingly find it easier
to apply the skills needed to see and understand those
relationships to the work of the past than that of the present,
an example of a psychological predilection intruding on a
process which logically should have no temporal boundaries.
Jeffrey Gutcheon has been involved in the late 20th century's
quilt revival since its inception, first as artist and quiltmaker,
then as designer and producer of materials specifically
conceived for the quiltmaker, and as a perceptive columnist,
quilts and materials his subject matter. His training as
architect and designer gave him skills additional to his
natural ones to bring to his quilts and materials. His early
and continuing involvement in the commercial world of quilt
kit and cloth production gave him a particular knowledge of
that industry's business and aesthetic history.
In the article which follows, he considers the interrelated
effects of textile industry trends and practices and the schools,
styles and fabric choices of contemporary quilt making. Mr.
Gutcheon discusses also the effects of these on modern quilt
aesthetics.
—Editors' Note
The great quiltmaking revival of the late 20th century is a rolling
historical event of global dimensions. Quilting is being done at
a furious pace from Taipei to Norway, from the Klondike to
Capetown, and its momentum shows no signs of slackening. We
might, therefore, have reasonable expectations of seeing it sail
on into the next millennium, urged along by growing consumer
demand and brisk trade winds. This huge outpouring of quilted
articles will eventually be compared historically to that of the
post-Civil War period, commonly thought of as the "Victorian"
era, roughly a century ago. Each era's quilts have, of course,
visual characteristics which help us date and evaluate them. This
is as true for the quilts of the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s as it is for
earlier work. The quilts of the 1990s are now developing the
characteristic look by which we will know and evaluate them in
decades to come. Describing that look, and its evolution in
America, is the purpose of this article.
The genesis of our vast legacy of post-Civil War quilts seems
relatively uncomplicated. The Reconstruction period, the
completion of coast-to-coast rail hookups, the rapid development
of advanced textile printing technology in the east, and the
The Quilt Journal
western expansion of the American frontier, were roughly
simultaneous occurrences. Freed by resolution of the conflict,
Americans turned their creative energies to the pursuit of a
better life. In the forty years that followed, they produced what
has been called by many our "Golden Age." Quiltmaking,
which was already well established in the Eastern states,
flourished elsewhere, one of the artifacts of an optimistic
outlook based on domestic order, economic growth, and
broadening cultural horizons.
It is interesting that another war a century later, the Vietnam
civil conflict, brought about, as had the Civil War, an American
national crisis. Though remote from us geographically, like the
earlier conflict, it highlighted and intensified many divisions in
American life. When those hostilities finally ended, a national
campaign to heal the divisiveness and restore America's self
esteem was undertaken ad hoc by the communications media.
A rallying date was already at hand: the American Bicentennial
year, 1976.
Five years earlier, the quiltmaking communities' self awareness
had been given a positive jolt, as well as tremendous validation,
by the exhibition, "Abstract Design in American Quilts," mounted
in New York City at the Whitney Museum in July, 1971, by
collectors Jonathan Holstein and Gail van der Hoof. This now
legendary exhibition subsequently traveled the country for
several years under the aegis of the Smithsonian Institution. The
articles and reviews by such respected art critics as Hilton
Kramer of the New York Times who attended it, performed a
miracle for quilts and quiltmaking by bringing them to the
attention of previously unexposed millions. This exhibition and
those which derived from it were seen around the world. A
love affair between the media and the quilt was firmly established.
The strong push given quiltmaking by the Whitney exhibition
helped promote the craft among those who had not done it
before. This was then furthered by the phenomenal publicity
about quilts generated throughout our popular culture before
and after the Bicentennial year.1 I am referring, for example,
to the Meredith Corporation's (Better Homes and Gardens) Craft
Club, which sent out several mailings of a million each offering
a small quilt kit project; and the Lane Publications (Sunset
Magazine, circulation 2 million per month) offering of a slim,
non-threatening, how-to-quilt book for $2.95. These micromarketing events and others like them, so lowered the threshold
of participation in quiltmaking that thousands of new quiltmakers
were created.
In the post-Vietnam rush to unearth images in our past that
engendered universal good feeling, the quilt's long-established
status as national icon was furthered. Quilts were emblematic
of those things Americans valued about themselves, their
creativity, industriousness, thrift, and, of course, devotion to
Page 6 Volume 2, Number 2 1993
family. Virtually every magazine that could stretch its content far
enough published at least one issue with a quilt on the cover.
Virtually every movie with a bedroom set showed a quilt, folded
at the bottom of a bed or spread upon it, even if inappropriate
to the rest of the set's decor. Quilting was hot copy.
I am not in any way suggesting that until the 1970s American
quiltmaking was dormant. Quite the opposite is true. Traditional
quiltmaking had never ended. In many communities it was
passed from generation to generation as a domestic art. And by
the 1970s contemporary quilting was already well established.
People like Molly Upton, Nancy Halpern, Michael James and
Nancy Crow, who had studio backgrounds and viewed
themselves as artists, were working in the quilting medium. In
fact, these two quiltmaking communities, the traditional and the
"contemporary," were in touch with each other. They exchanged
teachings respectfully and had a forum for their interest in
Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, which by 1975 had a paid
circulation of 35,000.
All of them needed fabric, and there was little available that
looked much like that in the now ubiquitous magazine photos
of late 19th century quilts. The emphasis in retail fabric shops
at this time was on supplying the price-conscious homemaker
with fabrics for herself and her family's apparel; and the
emphasis in apparel (besides the wools, silks and linings, etc.)
was on labor-saving, dirt-resistant, no-iron, easy-care, drip-dry
cotton substitutes with varying amounts of polyester in them.
Traditional quilters of the early 1970s, by the way, had no
objection to these fabrics, since part of the quilt tradition was
to use whatever materials came to hand. Similarly, the
"contemporary" quiltmakers were more focused on the pattern,
color, and texture of fabrics than on the fiber content, relying
on patience and craft technique to overcome working difficulties.
The possibility of a sudden and enormous demand for
cotton fabrics with a variety of small patterns and colors, to be
used in a craft application, was either laughable or unthinkable
to the denizens of the textile industry on the east coast. Their
cherished belief was that fabric existed for the purpose of
making clothing; or perhaps, if you pushed it, for upholstery
(clothing for furniture) and draperies (clothing for windows).
From this perspective, calicos were seen as a fashion item with
a dependable, if limited, range, intended mainly for women's
sportswear and children's dresses. Offshoots of these calico
lines from a handful of companies were marketed over the
counter at department stores like Sears, Penney's, Macy's,
Bloomingdales, and Zayre's. Calicos were also available at
Hancock, and, as a concession to their customers, at Calico
Corners Home Decorating Shops.
Calicos circa 1975 were mostly modest offerings of tiny bud
flowers spread on clean fields of colors that changed predictably
with the seasons: navy, red, and white in fall/winter, pastel tints
in spring/summer. The largest group emerged yearly from M.
Lowenstein Co.; the most elegant and various from Henry Glass
& Co. as Peter Pan Fabrics; the only exclusively cotton group (and
the one probably remembered with the most fondness by quilters)
was Ely Walker's 31 colorways on "Quadriga Cloth." Concord
Fabrics had a small "Traditional" cotton group with a suburban
design and color range, and Springs Mills, along with V.I.P., filled
out the market with emphases on cotton-polyester cloth.
The devotion to polyester by manufacturers at the time
requires some explication (popular taste has since turned against
it). Like Rayon before it, polyester staple represented an insurance
policy for the makers against unpredictable shortages of cotton
by cutting roughly in half the amount needed for dressweight
cloth. Made in 50%-50% poly-cotton blends, "blended" fabrics
had other attractive qualities, too — a slicker hand, a better
drape, and the tendency to release dirt easily. Unfortunately,
blends also released pigments and rapidogen colors more
easily, washing out or fading rapidly in daylight. Too, they
pilled in ordinary use, becoming dingy with repeated washing/
drying, and were ultimately judged less comfortable to wear;
the polyester/cotton blends did not "breathe" as well as 100%
cotton cloth.
The true demise of the polyester cloth fetish occurred in 1975,
however, when the public declined to endorse polyester doubleknit leisurewear as a style, refusing to go "disco." A large
number of full-line retail fabric shops which had made a
commitment to double-knits went out of business, creating
suddenly a sizable breach in the supply system which linked
fabric producers to the home-sewing customer. By the end of
1976, as the quilt Americana juggernaut gathered momentum,
the "quilt shop" had begun to move into this vacuum, fostering
and encouraging a growing interest in fabrics nationwide on the
part of both new and old quilters. The retail fabric industry was
reverting to pre-synthetic fabrics, those made entirely of cotton.
It was a pithy moment, one which gave quiltmaking increased
visibility even as it unwittingly imposed creative restrictions.
The need to invent a positive nationalism for the 1976
Bicentennial (following our hang-dog departure from Vietnam
and the near-disgrace of the American presidency) helped
define a new decorating style. Holdover hippies from the 1960s
and new "conservatives" from the rising sunbelt states joined
middle Americans everywhere in the embrace of (what else)
the "country style." More a marketing event than an actual
style, it amalgamated in one time frame antique pine "early
American" furniture, traditional crafts, pioneer femininity,
Victorian decor, and country music from Appalachia to Los
Angeles. Thus the calico granny dresses popularized by
hippiedom a decade earlier were now embraced by suburban
continued on Pa g e 8
Quilt and Fabric Stylings of the Later Twentieth Century
continued from page 7
matrons. The eclectic patchwork interiors of Marin County
became those of heartland America. And the flamboyant Victorian
excesses of Janis Joplin were redeemed by the virtuous
frontierswoman aspect of Emmylou Harris singing songs of
desperate love, drunkenness, and spirituals in equal measure,
while dressed in high-buttoned small print blouses. America
was awash with "instant old-timey," as folk purists called it, and
quiltmaking had caught the wave.
The gulf between supply and demand in American business
is seldom as large, or seldom goes unrecognized so long, as
that which existed between fabric producers of New York and
the quilting public in the late 1970s. While the Fashion Avenue
mavens decried the polyester debacle, a small but growing
army of privately financed quiltshop entrepreneurs were combing
the world for 100% cotton fabrics that could reproduce the look
of those in late 19th century quilts — with an emphasis on the
word "look." Though quiltshops embraced the notion that
quiltmakers were creative people, a large part of their sales
pitch was quite clearly "tradition" and domestic virtue. Tradition,
in turn, carried with it a sense of the durable, the lasting, and
the time-honored, all of which had a built-in stylistic bias:
quilters were looking for prints with finely wrought detail in
colorations that appeared, though brand new, to be 100 years
old; in other words, in ecru, brown, or "dusty" tints.
Such fabrics, domestically printed with pigment dyes, were
available, but not widely so. Most manufacturers had a small,
conservative part of their print line designed for the upscale
woman. To protect their primary customers, the garment makers,
these fabrics were not put into retail circulation. To give the
homemaker access to the same fabrics featured in new clothing
would have been a breach of business ethics within the textile
industry. Even jobbers of factory and designer close-outs were
encouraged to sell their goods in South America and the
Philippines to keep them out of the American market.
In a cyclical industry, however, no manufacturer wished to
forego the opportunity inherent in a growing demand for craft
materials, one that might make it possible to sell more fabrics at
better prices. As a result a back-door supply network, which
funneled appropriate cotton materials to retailers in the form of
first-quality "seconds" and prints which were unsuccessful in the
clothing market, slowly formed. Quilters gobbled this material
up. By 1979 enough quilting demand was visible for several
major producers - Concord Fabrics, Peter Pan, and V.I.P. - to
commit resources to style entries aimed primarily at quiltmakers.
Also in that year, Karey Bresenhan, owner of Great Expectations
quilt shop in Houston, Texas, felt the consumer demand potential
of the fledgling quilt industry was great enough to risk putting
on the first wholesale Quilt Market,2 which followed her successful
Quilt Festival show. Thereafter, quilting fabric supply and demand
marched along in lockstep for at least another ten years.
The huge success of quiltmaking marketed in the "traditional"
design forms became, in and of itself, a main deterrent to the
ongoing stylistic development of the late 20th century quilt. It
countered the idea central to the Holstein - van der Hoof
exhibition of 1971, that artistic concepts and notions of domestic
craft had once been, and could be, essentially unified. Evidently,
earlier quiltmakers considered themselves "contemporary" no
matter what style they used. The numbers of new quiltmakers
in the later 20th century devoted to 19th century quilt styles far
outweighed, and were even hostile to, those pursuing
"contemporary" design ideas. Though contemporary quiltmakers
entered the quilting public's consciousness beginning in 1979
through Nancy Crow's Quilt National exhibitions and
publications, their most prominent members made a costly
tactical error by emphasizing the use of plain colors almost
exclusively as the quilt "artist's" substitute for paint. Thus, when
"art" quiltmaking went big time in 1979 it contained a faulty
aesthetic premise created by its own successful
commercialization. Michael James, Nancy Crow, and Yvonne
Porcella, the most widely known and established of the
contemporary school, taught "thou shalt not use prints." Even
greater celebrity attached to Jinny Beyer, whose "Ray of Light"
design, winner of the 1979 Good Housekeeping national contest,
became the most widely publicized quilt in history. Ms. Beyer
further rose to prominence through her appearance as featured
speaker at the 1979 Continental Quilt Congress. She became the
champion of the traditionalists by teaching "Thou shalt use only
prints" in her book Patchwork Patterns. This prepared the way
for her to become the first quiltmaker with a signature line of
cotton prints designed specifically for quilting. These were
produced first by the V.I.P. company in 1982-83, and thereafter
and until the present, by RJR Fashion Fabrics. The list of such
signature lines is now quite long and it is growing rapidly.
In my opinion, Jinny Beyer's overwhelming success
perpetuated, as a marketing tool, the idea of contemporary
quilts as re-creations of those of an earlier age. Overshadowed
by the sheer volume of "traditionalist" publicity, contemporary
quiltmakers pursued the notion of art quilts into the 1980s by
forming alliances with the other fiber arts, the studio craft
movement, and feminism. These alliances produced work which
kept before the quiltmaking public a vision of brighter, more
complex color work and up-to-date design concepts not set in
the 19th century. When by 1983-4 other fabric manufacturers
based on the west coast, and printing mainly in Japan, turned
to the burgeoning quilt market for new customers, they had a
much wider stylistic target at which to aim. They also brought
a new set of production parameters to the game: the use of
fiber reactive dyestuffs and advanced screen printing techniques
involving nine to 14 separate color positions (compared to the
maximum of seven roller positions used by domestic producers
on the east coast).
Screen prints and fiber reactive dyes would not by themselves
tell the story of many late 20th century quilt fabrics. Reference
need also to be made to the attitude toward fabric production
of the companies now producing lines in the Orient, (including
Korea, China, and Asia Minor as well as Japan). 3 I would
characterize that attitude as competitively innovative from both
a design and technical point of view and utterly without
condescension to the customer. While a certain percentage of
today's cotton print design reflects 19th century styling
modernized, the best of them embody design concepts
developed during the 20th century.
In short, late 20th century quilts will reflect the choices of
a competitive fabric industry as did their forebearers of a
century ago. Unlike the commercial considerations of the late
19th century, however, those forced by participating quilters
and quilt business people themselves will affect style. Future
historians will thus need to establish a "works of commerce"
category of judgment, along with "works of art" and "works of
domestic craft." The retail market for cotton prints is so
crowded with producers today that there is a knock-em-down
slugfest to create the most fantastic product. The producers, for
their part, once again draw no distinction between the retail
and the manufacturing customer. Quiltmakers, who are the
beneficiaries of this process, have responded positively to the
outpouring of magnificent prints, though it remains to be seen
how this process can continue.
A century hence, the multi-screen oriental-made prints will be
easily recognizable because of the general cleanliness and
brightness — perhaps "presence" would be a better word — of
their color and the number of colors used per print. They will
also be easy to identify because of their use of photo processes
and other partial-tone techniques which screens permit; and for
their feeling of a full spectrum of colors. Finally, the Japanese
have a deep reverence for textiles, a superb textile design
tradition, and a craft tradition which celebrates significant
craftspeople as national treasures. Since Japanese quiltmakers
were, in the mid-1970s, among the first outside the United States
to embrace American style patchwork quiltmaking, it seems only
fitting that they should be adding their sensibilities to what
Americans, and quiltmakers worldwide, are making today.
Jeffrey Gutcheon earned a B.A. from Amherst College and a
B. Arch. from MIT where he taught design in the late 1960s
and early 1970s. Mr. Gutcheon first became interested in quilts
as a potential art form, "an opportunity to work with pattern
and color," and began designing and making quilts in 1971.
One of his early works, "Card Tricks," was published in 1971 in
McCall's Needlework and Craft magazine. In 1975 he founded
Gutcheon Patchworks, Inc., which marketed quilt kits of his
design. In 1982 his book Diamond Patchwork was published,
and in the next year he founded The American Classic
Line(TM) of all-cotton fabrics. His column "Not for Shopkeepers
Only" has appeared since 1982 in Quilter's Newsletter
Magazine. He is the former President of the Board of Trustees of
the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and continues to serve
the school as an advisory trustee. His talents extend also to
music; he has played jazz and rock piano professionally, has
had two books on rock piano technique published, and is one of
the authors of the Broadway show, "Ain't Misbehavin'!"
"Lapptacken en Kulturskatt" ("The Quilt: A
Cultural Treasure"): An Exhibition Review
by Julie Silber
Quilt curator, historian and lecturer Julie Silber was one of
three guest curators chosen to select works for the exhibition,
"Lapptacken en Kulturskatt," mounted in the Liljevalchs
Konsthall, Stockholm this past summer. We asked her to give us
her impressions of the exhibition, and these follow this
introduction.
The exhibition included quilts from four countries, Sweden,
England, Wales and the United States. Sweden's representation
was the largest single group, 142 quilts, a significant step in
investigating that country's quilting tradition. Great Britain
alone among European nations had until recently given its
quilting tradition serious attention. Sweden with this exhibition
joins Holland (See The Quilt Journal, Volume 1, Number 1,
1992, "A New World in the Old: European Quilt Scholarship.")
in what will be a growing trend internationally to survey
quilting history. There was no attempt made by the organizers of
this exhibition to satisfy an overall theme, or to draw specific
thematic conclusions from the material shown. However, as
more such international exhibitions are mounted, we will have
the opportunity to compare different traditions. It is axiomatic
that significant insights will result.
—Editors' Note
In June of 1992, I received an invitation to participate in a quilt
exhibition quite unlike any other I had known. As curator of
the 350 antique Amish quilts once held by Esprit De Corp. in San
Francisco, I was asked to choose twelve pieces to be included
in a large exhibition of quilts from several nations, "Lapptacken
en Kulturskatt" ("The Quilt: A Cultural Treasure") to be held in
Stockholm the following year (June 11 - September 5, 1993).
I was intrigued: quilts from "several nations," including
Sweden? I had not known old Swedish quilts existed, and it
sounded as if there would be numerous examples. Additionally,
my exposure to British quilts, which were to be included, had
been limited to examples I had seen pictured in several books
and a few I had actually examined. What was this exhibition
to be? As it turned out, it was intellectually very exciting,
visually beautiful, ultimately both informative and inspiring.
The exhibition was conceived and organized by Asa Wettre,
an independent Swedish quilt researcher and curator, and
Philippe Legros, First Curator at Liljevalchs Konsthall in
Stockholm. Liljevalchs is Stockholm's city art gallery, a handsome structure built in 1919 specifically for temporary exhibitions.
The Swedes, along with other Europeans, have begun to
explore their own quilt traditions. As part of their search, they
chose to look at their own older quilts, but also at those of
other nations. "Lapptacken en Kulturskatt" featured antique
quilts from Sweden, England, Wales and America, including
Amish quilts. In addition, there was a large display of contemporary Swedish quilts and several large sections of the AIDS
Quilt. To my knowledge, this is the first major exhibition to
include older quilts from a number of nations and cultures.
The show was also unusual in that it brought together guest
curators with different agendas. The three of us were given a
great deal of sovereignty over our particular show areas; we
chose the objects from our collections and designed our own
spaces. Working separately from floor plans, we were not in
touch with one another until we met for the installation. Each
was in contact with Philippe Legros at Liljevalchs, whose task
it was to oversee the complex project and orchestrate the
varieties of quilts and other objects, accommodating to diverse
curatorial styles.
I designed my room to be especially spare. The twelve examples
of Lancaster County Amish quilts were evenly spaced on matte
white walls, accompanied only by unobtrusive identification
labels and brief interpretive comments. In displaying Amish
quilts alone, I hoped the room would resonate with their
essential qualities: elegance, strength, drama and restraint.
Londoner Ron Simpson added dimension to his rooms by
adding a few objects (such as sewing tools, traditional Welsh
costume, and a Bible printed in the Welsh language) in glass
cases. He also installed large photomurals on walls next to
some of the quilts. Vivid images of Welsh women, families,
sewing machines, farms and factories helped establish a broader
social and temporal context for the quilts and their makers.
Ma Wettre went further in establishing a context for her vast
collection of antique Swedish quilts. She designed warm, inviting
spaces by combining the quilts with familiar items and creating
"homey" vignettes. Quilts displayed flat on the walls were
accompanied by cases brimming with sewing materials (tools,
scraps, unfinished blocks), letters and diaries and family
photographs. Asa arranged cozy groupings with quilts displayed
on beds, cribs and couches and combined with chairs, dollhouses,
rugs and such.
Although our curatorial styles differed, the three of us had
some things in common. First, of course, we shared a deep and
enthusiastic passion for textiles. It was also clear that we all see
quilts not only as beautiful objects, but equally as social
documents, "maps" of women's lives. Additionally, each of us
has a special fondness for everyday, utilitarian pieces, especially
those with strong graphic impact. Many curators select only
"outstanding" examples of workmanship, the most elaborate
and the fanciest quilts, for their shows. It was refreshing to
discover that each of us found as much significance, beauty,
and power in plain quilts as in fancier works.
When I was asked to bring twelve to fourteen examples of
Amish quilts, I assumed that each of the five or six cultures
would be equally represented by approximately the same
number of quilts. It was, however, apparently not the intention
of the organizers to do a numerically representative exhibition.
(And it seems I was the only one of the guest curators who
attempted to do a "survey," a representative sampling of quilts
intended to demonstrate those things which best define Lancaster
Amish quilts.) Here is a breakdown by categories of the quilts
in the exhibition:
Antique Swedish
Contemporary Swedish
Antique English
Antique Welsh
Antique American
Antique Amish
AIDS Quilt Panels
Other Swedish (doll quilts, etc.)
142
56
12
34
15
12
72
40
Quilts were organized in different rooms by national or cultural
origin. In some instances, further distinctions were made by era
and style of quilt. Rooms led gracefully one into the next,
helped by the especially wide openings between them.
I would like to walk you through the exhibition as I
experienced it. The large entry room was filled with a colorful
group of Swedish quilts of all shapes and sizes. As with the
Japanese, French, and Dutch, the Swedes' current interest in
quiltmaking has apparently been fueled by considerable recent
exposure to American quilts. The influence is evident; in general,
the Swedes have only begun to experiment with and expand
upon our patchwork traditions and quilting techniques.
The next room was devoted to appoximately half of Ron
Simpson's antique Welsh quilts. Ron's quilts filled three rooms
(two of antique Welsh quilts, one of English), though the
spaces were not all contiguous. He chose to organize his two
Welsh rooms by types of quilts. This first one held sixteen or
seventeen (mostly) wool, "rough and ready," turn-of-the-century
pieces which I found exceptionally exciting. Simple geometric
piecework in rich, dramatic colors was embellished with
unexpectedly intricate quilting. Constructed primarily in the
one-patch, central medallion or "strippy" (bars) format, these
quilts glowed with extraordinary intensity and visual power.
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Amish quilts (our twelve
examples) filled the adjoining room. These quilts were made
by the women of that tightly-knit religious community from
about 1870 to 1960 and, intriguingly, they bore some striking
similarities to Welsh wool quilts. Typically square, the Amish
quilts are pieced of large fields of solid colored wools, often in
jewel-like tones. Certain aspects of the quilts provide
counterbalancing tensions: elaborate and often curvilinear quilting
seen against the simplicity of the large pieced format, and lush,
saturated colors against the sharp angles of the starkly geometric
patchwork. Amish women chose from only a handful of
traditional designs, and I decided to display a few examples of
each of them: Center Square, Diamond, Bars, Sunshine and
Shadow, and Double Nine-patch.
Ron Simpson's second Welsh room followed. Here we saw
examples of more sophisticated urban quilts, made in Wales
between 1800 and 1930. Except for a few distinctively Welsh
quilting patterns, these quilts were generally indistinguishable
from their contemporary urban English cousins. Thus there were
early examples of central medallion-style cotton quilts and onepatch types (typically hexagon and Baby's Blocks); also exhibited
here were pieced calico quilts and red/green floral appliqués
from the turn of this century. In one piece, a whole cloth, solid
colored ruffled quilt made in the 1930s, we saw the Welsh
tradition of highly elaborate quilting carried into this century.
The adjoining "English" room had quilts which were very
similar to the Welsh, but it included also several Victorian-era
crazy quilts. The relatively small sampling (also from Ron
Simpson's collections) did, however, include a few examples of
North Country-style utilitarian pieces which were especially
interesting to me. Like the country Welsh pieces, they were not
selfconscious, but were straight-forward, and visually powerful.
These turn-of-the-century works are typically made of such
sensible, hard wearing materials as suiting fabrics and flannels.
Central medallion style and bars type ("strippy") formats
predominate.
In asking an English and a Swedish collector to lend examples
of American quilts, the coordinators of the exhibit made a
problematical decision. Although visually interesting and varied,
the approximately fifteen examples the two collectors chose for
the next room were not typical or generally representative. As
a student of American quilts, I knew that it would have been
impossible to draw valid general conclusions about American
quilts from this group.
The next three rooms were devoted to Swedish quilts made
continued on page 12
"Lapptacken en Kulturskatt" ("The Quilt: A Cultural Treasure"): An Exhibition Review
continued from page 11
before 1950. The first of these had only a few pieces, most of
them quite early and borrowed from Swedish museums. Low
lighting and protective display apparatus contributed to a
formal, old fashioned "museum-like" feeling. Dating from the
late 18th century to around 1850, these quilts were wool or felt,
primarily lap size quilts, cushion covers and bench covers.
Asa Wettre's collection of old quilts made in Sweden was
astonishing to me: Asa has single-handedly gathered nearly two
hundred examples from all over Sweden in the past six or
seven years. My surprise at seeing so many Swedish examples
alerted me to some of my narrow thinking about quilts. I
realized that I have had the impression that European quilts
exist but are very rare. When I had the opportunity to stand
before the abundance of material this exhibition offered, I
knew that my assumptions had to be questioned. The picture
was larger than I had imagined. In recent years scholars have
begun to map connections, especially design heritages and
cultural links, among American and English quilts, those from
native American and African cultures. Although it is not clear
how significant the large number of so many Swedish quilts
was to the bigger picture (was it possible that the 150 old
Swedish quilts I was seeing were the only ones ever made?),
I definitely experienced a shift in my perspective. Suddenly,
there were many new questions.
Generally, I was unable to distinguish these later Swedish
quilts (most dating from about 1880-1950) from American utility
quilts of the period. However, I had a sense of some overall
differences: Swedish quilts seemed typically smaller, and the
designs were more centrally focused than their American
counterparts. Although there were a few examples of fancy,
Victorian crazy quilts, simple, cotton patchwork quilts dominated.
Numerous examples of a few patchwork designs were
represented: the windmill or hourglass types, one-patches, and
an extraordinary number of log cabins.
Most of the remaining rooms had more examples of
contemporary Swedish quilts, all of which were similar to the
quilts in the first room described.
One large room, however, was devoted to the AIDS quilt.
Seventy-two individual panels hung proudly on the walls and
were laid flat on platforms in a space also occupied by the
gallery's bookstore and gift shop. Bodil Sjostrom, the Swedish
coordinator for this section, worked closely with The Names
Project in San Francisco to borrow sections of the Quilt containing
panels memorializing Swedes who have died of AIDS. I was
moved to see once again how affecting, poignant and
transformative this remarkable piece is to the people who view
it, no matter where in the world.
"Lapptacken en Kulturskatt," a grand show in its numbers,
had ultimately an intimate, accessible quality. The layout was
like a good quilt, successful in its individual units as well as in
the multiple ways they related to one another. I particularly
appreciated the variety of contextual formats and the relational
interplay of elements throughout the exhibit. The many levels
of meaning in quilts — practical, social, ritual, aesthetic, etc. —
were suggested or revealed through accompanying wall text,
or the manner in which a quilt was displayed (on a bed, on
the wall), or through its association with other materials.
The show was a wonderful experience for me personally.
I had the opportunity to work collaboratively with European
textile experts, and to participate in a project which collectively
broadened our knowledge of quiltmaking in a multicultural
context.
Although the exhibition was in some ways uneven (and for
me frustrating in that all of the text was in Swedish), it was an
ambitious and important project, bringing together for the first
time a diversity of cultural materials to compare, study, and
enjoy. This sort of exhibition is both exciting and provocative.
We need more like it, preferably with clearer underlying
intentions and, perhaps, more representative cultural balance.
Such projects increase our awareness of other world quilting
traditions and the work of other scholars; through these we will
ultimately understand more of our own tradition and its place
within a larger context.
Julie Silber graduated with a BA in American History from
the University of Michigan in 1969. For the last twelve years,
she has served as curator of the Esprit Quilt Collection. Julie has
written and lectured widely on the subject of Amish quilts. With
Pat Ferrero, Julie co-produced the films, "Quilts in Women's
Lives," and "Hearts and Hands." She is co-author of the book
Hearts and Hands, The Influence of Women and Quilts on
American Society, and of Amish: The Art of the Quilt.
Exhibitions she has curated include "Quilts in Women's Lives,"
"American Quilts: A Handmade Legacy," and "Amish: The Art
of the Quilt." Julie is currently curating traveling exhibitions of
Amish and other American quilts.
The Quilting of Narrative: Playful Subversion
in The Robber Bridegroom
by Marjorie Ingall
The patchwork quilt has been for more than a century an
icon of American life, emblematic of a "golden age" in which
domestic virtue created orderly, tranquil, thrifty and happy
homes across the land. Long before the 19th century had ended,
quilts and quilting were accepted symbols of those qualities in
art and literature, here and abroad.
The women's movement, roughly coinciding temporally with
the quilt revival of the later twentieth century, has brought new
sensibilities to the investigation of the symbolic values of quilts
and quilting. Women artists and writers find in the subject apt
metaphors for their, and their sisters' lives, for their interaction
with American culture. Generally the use has been positive, as
metaphor for creativity and a perceived feminine way of
approaching and organizing life, though some have argued it
carries still connotations of the once-inescapable tyranny of
sewing and the rigid, sexually-determined roles of which it was
a manifestation.
In the article which follows Marjorie Ingall discusses symbolic
parallels between the quiltmaking process and women's writing,
using as her central example American writer Eudora Welty's
1942 novel The Robber Bridegroom. Ms. Welty, as she points
out, was familiar with quilting, and quilts appear in other of
her novels.
—Editors' Note
I propose to illustrate the way in which quilting can be viewed
as a metaphor for women's writing. Eudora Welty's The Robber
Bridegroom is a particularly apt example. In her short novel,
published in 1942, Welty incorporates many different genres—
fairy tales, myths, legends, ballads and biblical stories—piecemeal,
without letting any one element control the narrative. Welty
chops up, reorders and chooses which pieces of earlier narratives
she wishes to use; her act of truncating and plucking fragments
out of older contexts, giving them new meaning, is inherently
similar to the quilter's art. It is a way of demonstrating mastery
and control of earlier sources.
The Robber Bridegroom is set in and around Mississippi's
Natchez Trace circa 1798. Mississippi still belonged to Spain; the
Indians presence is waning. The novel tells the story of the
courtship of Rosamond Musgrove, beautiful daughter of an
"innocent planter," and Jamie Lockhart, who is a New Orleans
gentleman by day and "the bandit of the woods" by night. Each
is mistaken about the other's real identity; each mislabels and
misrepresents the other. The story itself is extremely fragmented,
with resonant but ambiguous images that recall more than one
genre. And The Robber Bridegroom playfully points out its own
structure; in addition to references to individual tales, it constantly
compares itself to a fairy tale (for instance, Welty writes, "at first,
life was like fairyland"). Rosamond herself deconstructs the act
of storytelling; she herself tells elaborate tales containing "lessons"
that Welty labels "lies." Welty pokes fun at the notion of being
a writer, a tale teller. Isn't fiction merely a form of lying?
As a genre, the novel is extremely receptive to periodic
"borrowing" from other genres. As Mikhail Bakhtin writes in The
Dialogic Imagination:
The novel parodies other genres (precisely in their role as
genres); it exposes the conventionality of their forms and
their language; it squeezes out some genres and incorporates
them into its own peculiar structure, reformulating and reaccentuating them.'
Reformulating and re-accentuating is precisely what goes on in
The Robber Bridegroom. Welty takes bits and pieces of older
narrative and older narrative forms and subordinates them to a
new whole, one that embraces all of the old forms without being
overly reverent about their sanctity. The amount of incorporation
and adaptation in The Robber Bridegroom is extraordinarily
extensive and overt. This novel calls attention to its acts of theft;
that is its point. "In The Robber Bridegroom I used fairy tales and
real folklore and historical people and everything alike and
simultaneously," said Welty in a 1977 interview. "I think it's
there; I think it's right there —s o why shouldn't I avail myself?"2
"Everything alike and simultaneously" means that no one
genre is given more inherent weight than any other. An image
lifted from the Bible — that of Jacob wrestling with the angel, for
example — is juxtaposed with the blustering figure of Mike Fink,
legendary flatboatman on the Mississippi. The timeless fairy tale
characters are juxtaposed with the time bound setting of the
novel. Welty deliberately allows the reader's awareness of the
impending history of the region — the Civil War, ante-bellum life
and post-industrialism — to cast a shadow over the putatively
happy ending. By chopping up scraps of various sources and
genres, shuffling and recombining them in different patterns,
Welty creates a narrative pastiche that is irreverent and freewheeling;
no one element is inherently more valuable than another.
Welty's seemingly incongruous stitching of many different
elements into a coherent whole can be compared to the act of
making a quilt. Quilting involves cutting small pieces out of large
sources, incorporating the pieces into a pattern, and (often)
stitching the result to a backing. According to Jean Taylor
Federico's American Quilts: 1770-1880, the two most popular
quilting methods during that time were "applique (the application
of a cut fabric onto the top of the quilt) and piecing (the
combination of many small fragments of fabric to form a design)."3
Welty uses both. Her various sources — different genres and, in
continued
from
page 13
a narrower sense, different fairy tales — are pieced into a design
within the novel. The resulting design is appliqueed to a backing
of historical time and place — the area from Natchez to New
Orleans, circa 1798.
The metaphor of quilting is appropriate for The Robber
Bridegroom in a number of ways. The pieces from various
genres and specifically from various fairy tales are too small to
dominate the whole narrative. They are individually but one part
of a pattern. As Rachel Blau DuPlessis says, "An art object may
. . . be non-hierarchic, showing 'an organization of material in
fragments,' breaking climactic structures, making an even display
of elements over the surface with no climactic place or movement,
since the materials are 'organized in many centers'." 4 The pieces
are cut free from their associations and placed in a new context.
For fairy tales, this means that they are cut free from the
confinement of many generations of editors, from Charles Perrault
to the Grimms to Andrew Lang, all of whom served as censoring,
taming and moralizing influences. Frequently, this meant silencing
and civilizing the tale's heroine.
The metaphor of quilting is obviously resonant in terms of
women's writing in general. Elaine Showalter discusses the issue
at length in her article, "Piecing and Writing." 5 She argues that
the fragmentation of women's time is reflected in the writing
they produce.
Because of the structures and traditions of women's time, the
dominant genre of American women's writing has been the short
story, the short narrative piece. As the novel became the dominant
genre of nineteenth-century American writing, women adapted
the techniques of literary piecing to the structural and temporal
demands of the new literary mode .
Piecing and writing in narrative, reflecting women's perception
of time, indicates the many responsibilities (other than writing)
of the woman writer. In a 1978 interview with Martha Van
Noppen, Welty reflects on the process of piecing together her
novel, Losing Battles, while facing financial hardship and while
taking care of her dying mother:
MvN: I think it took Tillie Olsen a period of twenty years,
writing on little scraps of paper which became her first and
only novel.
Welty: Well, Losing Battles, which I wrote among difficulties,
took about ten years, and it was written—
MvN: On scraps of paper?
Welty: On a combination of scraps of paper and a lot of
things. You can write it any way. At the same time, I was
doing lecturing to earn money. I just take for granted you
have to manage. You have to learn some way!
This little snippet of conversation reflects Welty's determination
to create despite the different demands on her time. And in fact,
Welty's very writing style is a process of "piecing and writing":
Welty: I never heard of cut-and-pin. I just made it up for
myself, but I suppose a lot of other people must have thought
of it too. Have you ever worked on a newspaper?
MvN: No.
Welty: When you throw something away, you just tear the
strip across the bar at the top and throw it away. I got in
the habit of tearing off the strip, both what I wanted to save
and what I wanted to throw away, so that I ended up with
strips — paragraphs here, a section of dialogue, and so on.
I pin them together and then when I want to cut something,
I cut it with the scissors. . . You can move it, you can
transpose. It's wonderful. It gives you a feeling of great
mobility.
MvN. How did you get the idea? Were you ever a seamstress?
Welty: Oh, I have cut out things with patterns. No, I'm not
a seamstress, but I have made things, and that is the way
you make things, of course. On a dining room table, too.8
Like quilting (also an act often performed in the midst of a
domestic setting, at the dining room table — not to belabor a
parallel) women's writing often fails to receive due respect as an
art form. As Alicia Ostriker has pointed out, certain diminutive,
condescending words are often used to describe women's writing:
graceful, subtle, elegant, delicate, cryptic. Seldom does one hear
forceful, masterly, violent, large, true.9 That is certainly reflected
in the critical response to Welty's work. When The Robber
Bridegroom was first published, The New Yorker called it "gay,
soaring, without a breadth of nightmare,"° in spite of the fact,
that, like fairy tales, it is full of rapes, murders and chopped-off
fingers and heads. Perhaps because Welty used older, established
sources — and because those sources were viewed as essentially
frivolous in and of themselves — what she accomplished is not
seen as true "art."
Welty uses quilt images in several works. In The Robber
Bridegroom, Rosamond finds the silk dress that Jamie has stolen
from her, "rolled up into a ball like a bundle of so many quilting
pieces." In Losing Battles, Granny Vaughn's quilt features the
"Delectable Mountains" pattern, indicating a sense of place. In
Delta Wedding, a quilt is a wedding gift from family members,
a positive symbol of continuity. In Livvie, old Solomon huddles
under his quilt, clinging to the past and neglecting his young
wife. His quilt is pieced in the "Around the World" pattern,
though narrow, pinched Solomon has never been anywhere. In
a 1972 interview with Charles T. Bunting, Welty announces that
she knows at least 30 quilt names." For Welty, writing as quilting
fits in with her identity as a Southern woman writer. Quilting
stands for continuity, a sense of place, a skill passed down
through time, a communal — and quintessentially female —
activity. "The urge to create a thing of beauty from scraps of
fabric is a challenge, plus a tactile reminder of past generations.
My hands are moving the same way as my mother's and
grandmother's did years before," says a present-day quilter,
Karey Bresenhan, head of the International Quilt Festival.12
Showalter's article ends with a very brief caveat about being
too quick to welcome quilting as a feminist metaphor; quilting
may indeed be a burden, a symbol of a dead time and bad for
the eyes to boot. I like the idea of keeping quilting ambivalent,
though. Quilting was indeed difficult and frequently unpleasant:
Saliva was used to stop bleeding if one's finger was pricked and
alum was used by a few to help toughen the tips of the fingers in
anticipation offrequent jagging. Cold water and soap were applied
immediately to any blood stain on the quilt, those on the backing
or underside sometimes being missed.13
The often painful process produces powerful-looking, beautiful
results. The same might be said for the act of writing. The blood
is there, both in the process and in the product, but when
reviewers look at Welty's work, they often ignore the blood on
the backing. They run for their "delicate" imagery instead. In fairy
tales too, the dark side has been ignored in favor of moralizing
(often with anti-feminist sentiment).14 Beauty and violence are
stitched together.
To some extent, however, the violence in The Robber
Bridegroom is problematic and disturbing from a feminist
perspective. It seems to blame the victim. Jamie rapes Rosamond
at their first meeting; he does so repeatedly throughout their life
together in the robbers' den, until she learns his true identity. "But
when she tried to lead him to his bed with a candle, he would
knock her down and out of her senses and drag her there.
However, if Jamie was a thief after Rosamond's love, she was his
first assistant in the deed, and rejoiced equally in his good
success." 15 It is unnerving that Welty seems to blame Rosamond
for confusing rape with love, as much as she blames Jamie for
raping Rosamond. In her view, men can be reformed, but it is
up to women to do the reforming. This is an essentially conservative
view of the role of women: to tame and control an uncivilized
environment and an undomesticated man.
Quilts made with worn scraps of fabric can be seen as
essentially conservative too, for three reasons. They literally
conserve the past; their patterns are often prescribed and familiar;
there is no getting around the fact that the material (like Welty's
narrative material) has been used before. Of course, there is
always the potential for wildness in creation, even when using
an established pattern: Creativity can come in combining fabrics
and colors. And doing so, using the scraps one has to beautify
a harsh environment, is intricately tied to the notion of women's
role as civilizing influence. Quilting can be a form of empowerment;
it can also be a form of limitation and subjugation.
For the most part, though, I believe quilting and storytelling
are both primarily affirmative acts. Karen Rowe, in The Female
Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tale, writes of the stitching of fairy
tale heroines and its relation to female tale-tellers:
[T]he intimate connection, both literal and metaphoric, between
weaving and telling a story also establishes the cultural and literary
frameworks within which women transmit. . folklore and fairy tales
.. 'When later women became tale tellers or sages femmes, their
audible art is likewise associated with their cultural function as silent
spinners or weavers, and they employ the fairy tale as a speaking (oral
or literary) representation of the silent matter of their lives.16
The silent women creating textiles within fairy tales become
vocal women creating texts. Quilting is a regional metaphor, a
form of storytelling through stitching, which reclaims this activity.
Past quilters' names have gone unrecorded, been lost by
collectors or been deleted by museum curators. And the women
spinning fairy tales have, through history, been silenced just as
fairy tale heroines have been silenced. The Grimms adapted and
edited the tales they collected from oral spinners, and the names
of centuries of tellers have been lost.
With The Robber Bridegroom, Welty creates a pieced
narrative that self-consciously encourages the reader to
deconstruct it as narrative. Welty has her text point out its own
acts of theft, its own structure, through the humor and startling
recombinations. In a story about not knowing and not
recognizing the self as well as the other, the collision of fairy
tale and historical world reinforces the sense of playfully
serious disorientation.
Marjorie Ingall, a staff writer for Sassy magazine, has also
written for Fodor's Travel Guides and McCall's magazine. Ms.
Ingall adapted "The Quilting of Narrative" for The Quilt Journal
from her magna cum laude senior thesis in English and
American Literature and Folklore and Mythology at Harvard
University in 1989. She lives in New York City.