Our Past our legacy

Morning,


Purple monstrosity



As I look outside into my garden resting under a coat of snow it makes one reflect on the past and whats to come next. Spring is just around the corner and all those buds waiting to pop up from under the cold blank of winter. I am not one that reflects on my genealogy but I love history and the artifacts that have survived . In my teens I worked for the Cranbrook Railway museum  restoring  the train cars. Peeling away the paint, dirt and grim of so many years. It was a dirty job but wow looking at the end results and knowing you saved something for the future made my heart sing. Now many years later looking at my life makes me wonder about what one will leave behind for the next generation to restore , preserve or just enjoy. Spent morning reading a couple of

history research papers hence the reflection.

Last month I made a Baby Jane quilt , it was nice but nothing special in my eyes. Not like Jane A Stickler's quilt from 1863 or Harriet Powers bible quilts from the 1800's. Mrs. Powers sold her quilt back then for five dollars so she could feed her family, Ms. Stickle made the quilt while she waited for the men in her life to return from war. Did these women know that a hundred years later women would be making their quilts in ah of what they had made with the tools and fabric of the day.

While my family was in New york we went to many museums, and yes we enjoyed it but the one item that stuck in my head was a piece of fabric that was painted and stitched from the 1700's. Fabric and working with it is part of a women's DNA . Thinking this is why I took to quilting like a duck to water , it's in my DNA.



Mermaids song
Made it into National Juried Show 2010



We all have a creative side somewhere, will someone be holding one of my quilts or my mothers painting and wondering what  where we thinking while making it. After the trip back from New York I came to the conclusion that yes I was an artist like my mother and grandmother. These ladies paint and draw cause it's part of them. Are they famous no will their works survive who knows. Put they loved doing it. As for myself my quilting friends can spot one of my pieces without being told who made it. Do I love what I do silly question and the answer is yes. Am I an artist yes because I am creating something to express how I am feeling. So while my mother thinks its just sewing ( She has one of my quilts & she has it on her bed with the back side showing not the front with all the work)  I think yes some pieces are functional  but others are works of Art.

Now here is the question of the day, do you think of your work as art, or just functional ? And in a hundred years when someone is holding it what will they think about it? I am thinking they will think it's Art what do you think?


Nana's Parlor
Just made after my grandmother pasted.