When I last visited my parents, I found my father’s Sol LeWitt catalogue and fell in love with his work.  He had a long career of interesting art, and pioneered what’s called “wall art” or the drawing of art directly on the wall (above).  I’d seen some of his works when I’d visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

from the website Field:

Wall Drawing 130
Grid and arcs from four corners. (ACG 103)
March 1972

In 1972 he created a book, “Arcs, Circles, and Grids,” for Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, which contained pen and ink drawings depicting all possible combinations of the three elements in the title. These combinations take into account both the type of line (arc, circle, grid) and all the possible points on a wall from which an arc can emanate (the center, the four corners, and the four midpoints of the sides.) Many of the combinations in the book also were used as plans for wall drawings, both before and after the book’s publication.

And here’s another interesting one:

Again from Field’s website:

Wall Drawing 797
The first drafter has a black marker and makes an irregular horizontal line near the top of the wall. Then the second drafter tries to copy it (without touching it) using a red marker. The third drafter does the same, using a yellow marker. The fourth drafter does the same using a blue marker. Then the second drafter followed by the third and fourth copies the last line drawn until the bottom of the wall is reached.
October 1995

Why is this interesting to me?  Because before he did all this, he did this:

The man was enamored of the grid, and tried to use mathematical calculations to vary the grid.
I don’t know about you, but to me, that sounds like making a quilt.  I can hardly wait to draw some of my own, or else use his, in homage to this great contemporary artist.

And again, from the back of the re-constructed stash closet, I plan to use these in making the blocks.

Are you inspired by artists?  I’ve seen lots of quilts done with the Impressionists in mind — soft washes of ethereal color laid down with fabric, instead of paint — quilts in honor of Monet.  But has there been a contemporary artist that has caught your eye, and your design sense? Sol LeWitt has caught mine.

I showed this picture in the last post, of the books I’d picked up at a garage sale.  The three smaller ones are interesting, and I’ve found a few new blocks to try sometime. The other was intrigued me because it reminded me of the Farmer’s Wife blocks that are being made by several around the blogosphere.  The authors, Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Buferd, created what they called “a unique oral history” of the quilters of Texas and New Mexico.

I started reading some while standing in the driveway at the garage sale:

“Back in the old days we had to make the quilts so thick.  You know in those old dugouts the wind would come through so bad that you really had to be covered to sleep.  Papa would bring the cotton back from the gin, you know. Just how ever much Mama needed.  It was all clean then. . . . We stayed busy every minute we had quilting.  We all worked in the fields and mother didn’t have any idle time.  If anything let up, she was working on her quilts.”

I was hooked so I bought it and took it home.  But after skimming some of the book, and reading the introduction, I was kind of angry.  Here were all these “oral histories” of women talking about hard times as farmer’s wives, as women on the prairie, quilting whenever they could, yet the authors didn’t identify ANY of these women.  Not one.  How is this preserving oral histories?  As the poet Lowell said, “the gift without the giver is bare,” and so likewise these oral histories are just ephemeral without the women’s names.

The authors make an apology, of sorts:

“In the interest of brevity and continuity we have often condensed conversations, monologues, and run-on conversations on similar subjects without indicating that the speaker has changed.”

Yuch.

And then this horrifying note: “We take full responsibility for editing the tapes and our notes in this way.”  Is this because someone at the publishing house raised an alarm?  I hope that some editor did, somewhere.  My sister, who is a REAL historian, would cringe at this.  As I do.  I still enjoy reading the accounts, but I trust them less.  It’s like that old Aunt Jane stuff we read so often, quoted as if Aunt Jane of Kentucky was a real person.  She’s not.  She’s fiction, and I’m afraid that some of this is like fiction too.

On balance, the play Quilters was taken from this book, and I found that extremely moving the first time I saw it.  And the next time, too.  Perhaps scholarship meant something different then?  That the very fact that these women’s voices — albeit anonymous voices — were published was a Huge Deal?  Maybe.

You bloggers are documenting your quilts with your voice, whether you post one day or four days a week, whether you make a quilt a week or a quilt in a year.  Your blogs and writing have authenticity as you document your ups and downs, your WIPs, your completed quilts.  You have a voice.  You are not like these unknown, silent women from the prairies.  You put a face and name to your creativity and it enriches us all. Keep writing!