[upbeat music]
- Well, my name is Marquetta Johnson.
I'm a native of Atlanta, Georgia.
And my family hails from Macon, Georgia.
That's a little bit outside of that metropolitan area.
I grew up in a household of seamstresses,
tailors, and quilters.
My mother was an excellent seamstress.
She made wedding gowns and she made prom outfits,
and she made just many beautiful things for me
and for my sister to wear.
We were all very popular
because if there's a party, I could just run home
and tell my mom, and she'd whip me up a mini skirt.
[group chuckling] And I was ready to go.
And so, that was my foundational knowledge base.
Being in a home with people that used needles
and loved fabric.
And so you know, I hear people often times say,
you know, "Quilters are like hoarders."
But I say, "Quilters are collectors."
And we go after that beautiful fabric.
And that we collect fabric from different eras.
And our quilts are historical objects
that tell a lot about what's going on in society,
just based on the designs
and the colors that you find in the fabric.
Now, I call myself a multi-sensory artist
because of the fact that I try to create artwork
that can be appreciated by people that can see,
but also, I try to consider people
that are living with no sight
or low sight as I create my work.
So the question came to me,
what is beautiful for a person that has a visual impairment?
Something that has texture, something that has weight,
and something that has temperature.
And if you're using embellishments,
you'll find that if you use shells and glass beads,
they are cooler than buttons and some other kinds of things.
And whereas people that are sighted
that interact with a quilt,
they're able to see all these beautiful things.
But for a person that is living with a visual impairment,
to be able to recognize the different textures,
the different temperatures,
and the different weights of the things
that you have on your quilt.
Now, being a multi-sensory artist,
I can't be finicky about people touching my quilts
because I want you to engage with them.
So I give people full access to my artwork.
Just so that they're able to truly experience
all the layers of creativity
that I'm trying to incorporate in what it is that I do.
Now, I'm a STEAM-ready teaching artist.
And I have been blessed to be able to take quilting
into the classroom.
And teach children about math
and technology and engineering through quilting.
Quilters are mathematicians.
And here at the show, you're gonna see quilts that people...
It's quilters with a PhD in quilting.
And that really know how to use color, line, shape,
form, and texture to be able to tell their story,
even without words.
Now, a multi-sensory artist,
this whole idea came to me as I worked with students
from the Center for the Visually Impaired.
Going in the door, I noticed that
the things they had on the wall
were black and white, or black and neon green.
Because high contrast is what you can put in a quilt
that makes your quilt more accessible to people
that wear glasses, people that are living with low vision.
So, I see myself as a multi-sensory artist,
trying to do quilts that appeal to your vision,
quilts that appeal to your touch.
And this fall,
I'm gonna be going to Utah State University,
in their Chaos Lab,
that's what they call their technology lab,
to learn how to put sound into my quilts
so that people could engage with them
just by touching them, and hearing what it is
that I wanna share about my quilts.
Now, these are some of the tools of my trade.
I love embellishments, and my grandmother,
the first thing
that my grandmother taught me how to make
was a quilt embellishment called a yo-yo.
And my grandmother said, "Child, you too fast.
I'm gonna teach you something that's gonna help you be still."
Now, this was in the '80s,
and this was before I even understood
what a mindfulness practice was.
But as time went on,
I saw that my grandmother gave me
a mindfulness practice with quilting.
She gave me something to help me learn
how to center myself and how to be still.
And this is what I try to take into the schools.
I taught over 1,000 children how to use a needle,
how to thread a needle, and how to make yo-yos,
and I might have some in this.
But I use hand-dyed fabrics that I dyed myself.
I like buttons, I like beads, I like to put yo-yos on things.
I like hexagons.
I just love layers of creativity.
And I try to put this into the work that I do.
Now, go back to the '80s.
I was doing workshops for different quilt guilds,
teaching people how to do fiber-react,
how to use fiber-reactive Procion dyes.
Those are cold water dyes.
And I would teach all of these people about dyeing.
Simultaneously, Georgia was having a water war with Florida.
And here I was, teaching all these people
how to use this water.
And so it dawned on me, I needed to find
a more sustainable way to work as an artist.
So I started using products that were considered
pigments instead of dyes.
I used Jacquard Airbrush Colors for fabric.
I used Createx Airbrush Colors for fabric.
And I used Jacquard Textile Paints
in doing the work that I do.
It's eco-friendly, because when you're using
this airbrush color to do your dyeing with,
you could dye 10 yards of fabric
with less than two liters of water.
Because all you're doing is taking the product
and diluting it with water,
and you're directly applying it to the fabric
with squeeze bottles, and pouring and stuff.
And then, once it dries, you're heat setting it.
You're not rinsing it with all of that water.
Now, I encourage anyone that buys hand-dyed fabrics
to place their fabric in water with a mild soap,
like a Castile, or something like that.
And let it sit for a moment.
Just to make sure that it isn't gonna run.
But with my dyeing, this product, the manufacturers say
that it cures in 28 days.
So what I do is, I heat set it, and I dye it a year off.
So the fabrics that I have here today,
I dyed those fabrics in 2020 and 2021.
Now, I just wanted to give you a brief,
I wanted to open the door to my studio.
And let you see actually where I'm doing this dyeing.
Now, I'm doing my tie-dyeing and my hand-dyeing
in the little space in the apartment that they have
for the washer and dryer.
So it's really small.
And then, you'll see in the middle,
you'll see how I create my bundles,
and I directly apply the dye,
but I'm not trying to do a ton at a time.
I'm giving each fat quarter, each half yard
its own time, its own love.
And that helps me to achieve really vibrant, strong colors.
Because it's just like I was cooking.
I'm attending to every bundle,
just as if you were cooking burgers,
and you're taking care of each burger.
The last picture on the left, I think,
is a picture of where I actually do my printing
and my stamping and my stenciling.
In my wildest dreams, I hope for a 10-foot table one day.
But right now, I'm just working off of this card table.
And it is really sufficient for what it is that I'm doing.
Now, I'm an artist that works with a purpose in mind.
I enjoy what I do.
I am inspired by what I do,
but I wanna use quilting as a way
to make the world a better place.
In the schools that I service,
they're what you call Title I schools.
So a lot of the kids at these schools
come from families that have modest incomes.
A lot of the kids spend a lot of time on video games
and not very much time outside, or having different pastimes.
So one of the things that I'm hoping
that I can do with my work,
is to be able to take my work and share it with young people
and inspire them to take on the idea
of doing something creative.
You might not necessarily want to sew,
but you could just be inspired by being
amongst creative people and their work,
to find a way that you can share your voice as well.
Now, as I have said before,
my grandmother showed me how quilting
can promote this mindfulness, this stillness, this quiet.
And it's something that I really, really appreciate
even though she's no longer with me.
Now, my grandmother taught me how to make
a yo-yo in her own style.
Many people have seen yo-yos made,
and it's a circle, and people turn in the edge,
and they sew, and it's a little space in the middle,
and it's very beautiful.
What grandmother did, though, she didn't turn the edges under.
She just created the circle and sewed it,
and it had a little fuzzy navel.
And so, I said, well,
"What can I do to take this to another level?"
So I started doing multiple yo-yos and stacking them.
I started using beads and buttons to embellish them.
And this particular yo-yo was a discovery that I found,
it just really excited me,
and that is that you can actually sew with pom-poms.
Most teachers when I go to schools, they hate pom-poms.
They think they're just so crafty,
not necessarily arty, but when I discovered
that you could actually sew a pom-pom onto something,
it opened the way for me to do a lot
of interesting things with pom-poms.
Now, this yo-yo evolution began in me
once my grandmother planted that seed
about making a yo-yo.
I do yo-yos out of all kinds of fabrics,
and I embellish them with glass beads.
I even use plastic
because we know plastic is gonna be around forever.
So when I'm making my quilts,
I'm always thinking about the longevity of them and stuff.
So I use glass beads, plastic, wood, shells,
and I stack yo-yos in different sizes
and put them together.
And then also,
I love making yo-yos like my grandmother made,
and I think I have a quilt here
that shows how my grandmother made her yo-yos.
And they're really, really tactile with a lot of texture.
Now, dare to be different.
Behind me, over my shoulder,
I have a quilt that is made of yo-yos,
but before I started making the yo-yo,
I would sew strips together.
And then, once I sewed my strips together,
then what I would do,
I would cut out the yo-yo and it would be two colors.
I would tack it at the ends before I would start making it,
so that the two pieces of fabric wouldn't come apart.
And I just loved making those yo-yos that have two colors.
And some of them even have three.
You see a hexagon.
Someone taught me how to do that at a show similar to this.
And I knew that once I learned how to do a hexagon,
and especially if I could do it where
all six sides were the same, that I could use that as a way
to teach children about geometry and about tessellations.
And so I say, "Dare to be different."
I say, you know, "Do something with these ideas,
these things that we learn along the way."
That will add something wonderful
to what we're doing as quilters.
Now, my grandmother said to me one day,
"Marquetta, I'm gonna sew something on my quilt."
Now, my grandmother was 85 years old
before she saw a quilt magazine.
She just knew, "I'm gonna sew something on something."
So she had her own technique.
She wasn't doing needle-turn appliqué.
What she would do would be, she would draw a shape
on the fabric, she would take two pieces of fabric,
right sides together,
and she would sew around her shape.
She would trim it close to the edge,
put a slit in the back, turn it inside out,
and she would sew it on her quilt.
But what I did with her technique was,
I started taking that little appliqué piece,
and once I slit it, I put batting inside of it.
And I would quilt on those little objects,
like it was a little mini-quilt.
And then, I would apply it to my quilt.
But that was just another way that I was able to
take what my grandmother gave me and build on it,
to preserve and to maintain our family's legacy
of creativity.
Now, the quilt, the long quilt with the chickens on it,
this quilt has some of my sister's quilt blocks
as the little quilts that I'm hanging on the clothesline.
My sister is no longer with me,
but my sister, before she passed, gave me everything.
All of her blocks, all of her UFOs, all of her fabric,
all of her sewing machines.
And so again, this is one of my missions,
to take what my sister gave me and take it to the next level.
So you see how beautiful her little blocks are
as little mini-quilts on my quilt?
It's just so exciting and outstanding.
And the next quilt is a picture
of my grandmother's house.
My grandmother lived in what we call in the South,
a shotgun house.
And that was a kind of a house that was built,
so that if you stood in the door
and you shot through the door with a shotgun,
the bullet, or the little thing, would go out of the back door.
You know, it's just three rooms,
but it was a little house full of love.
Now, put all of these hexagons and yo-yos in the front,
because my grandmother had the reputation in Macon
of having one of the most beautiful gardens.
And she had a garden kind of like a French garden,
where you just, everything is just growing
wherever it's growing, you know.
She had perennials and she had annuals,
and so stuff would just come up.
And she would take a bit, transplant it over here,
over there, and so her yard was just like that,
just full of stuff.
Now, one of my missions, as I said before,
is growing the next generation of quilters and crafters.
When I travel around the country and I visit guilds
and I talk with people, I see a lot of people my age.
But rarely do I see a 20-something.
And I might see a teen
whose grandmother or mother brought them.
But I want to be instrumental in really bringing quilting
into the classroom as a two-dimensional art form
that is using collage and all types of techniques
that kids could really find joy in.
And one of the things that really struck me
with all the places I'm going, I'm finding more male quilters.
More young boys that are interested in needles
and sewing, and the quietness of it.
And so, you'll see I have lots of pictures
of young men sewing because I just want to show others
that quilting is a art form that all people
can find enjoyment in,
and use as a means of creative expression.
Now there are many schools in Georgia
that I'm taking quilting to.
Often times, we might do sewing,
but then sometimes my hope is that I could get children
to look at a quilt with a mathematical mindset.
Where they could see fractions, where they could see geometry.
And they're able to use the language of mathematics
to be able to describe what it is that they're doing.
And so I had the opportunity to make paper quilt blocks
with the whole fifth grade at the Lovett School.
And it was an amazing experience.
And you could tell from the various patterns
that the children are showing that they were really inspired.
Now, what I had done was,
I took a quilt from a local Georgia artist
that was what you call a Underground Railroad quilt.
Y'all might of seen those,
but I say a Underground Railroad quilt is like a sampler
of many different kinds of traditional blocks
that people have used, not just in the South,
but throughout the world of quilting.
Another wonderful opportunity that I had
was to be able to write a blog for young people
for the Modern Quilt Guild
about STEAM and STEM, as it relates to quilting.
So I did something about tessellations.
I did something about strips and measurement,
and that was about architecture.
And then I did one about geometric transformations,
which is just how shapes move on a two-dimensional plane.
And so, I would write these blogs that would talk about
how we see these types of things in nature,
in industry, and in quilting.
I also used my quilting skillset to try to bring comfort
and solace to people that are grieving
with the loss of a family member or friend to AIDS.
And so I worked with the AIDS Memorial Quilt Foundation,
traveling and working with groups
that are interested in developing panels
for their loved ones that might had passed from AIDS.
And the AIDS Memorial Quilt is the largest piece
of folk art in the world.
It is comprised of over 60,000 panels
that are three feet by eight feet,
but that are put together in larger segments
to create these big quilts.
A lot of it is simply appliqué.
A lot of it is quilting.
And I've seen people put all kinds of memorabilia
from their family members onto a quilt.
One day, I even saw a quilt that someone had actually
appliqudé a bowling ball to it, and it was amazing.
So this is one of the other things that I do
with my quilting expertise.
Now, I'm also a textile artist.
I dye and I print, and I paint, and I stencil on fabric.
And I sell it to other quilters.
And I kind of liken it to being a background singer, okay?
The quilter is the star, in the middle of the stage,
singing or dancing.
And I'm a background singer.
Doing the * Bop, do-bop, bop
And then, I fade into the background,
and I quietly go home.
And I really love the idea of having other quilters
to take my fabric, and to be able to do something with it.
Now in 1980, I met Faith Ringgold,
and I was living in San Antonio, Texas.
This is when she first started doing her story quilts.
To just to show my appreciation, when I went to her workshop,
I took her several pieces of hand-dyed fabric.
And she loved my fabric so much that since 1980,
she's been using my hand-dyed and tied-dyed fabrics
in her quilts.
So as background singer
that is in the background harmonizing,
Faith, to date, has worked all over the world.
Someone just recently went to Oslo,
and they took a picture in a museum of one of her quilts
that had my fabric in it.
And it was just so exciting to know
that my fabric is in museums all around the world.
And she did put my name on a couple of the quilts.
But nevertheless, I'm just so happy to have added
a layer of creativity to what it is that she's doing,
and she's taking this all around the world,
sharing with people,
and I get to support her as a quilter
in her goals as a maker.
Now, I say, "Have suitcase, will travel."
As a person living with a disability, using a wheelchair
for mobility, it's not real easy traveling here and there.
I've traveled so much that I kind of have a system.
And I know that kindness and good manners
will get you in any door.
Okay? [group chuckling]
So, I am very accommodating and kind
and patient when I'm traveling.
And that, because of that, I think it helps me
to be able to go and travel on any airlines
and it'd be a successful trip.
Now in the fall, for the past five years,
I've been going to Utah State University.
I teach a methods class.
That's a class for aspiring art teachers.
And because of the fact,
and I think I might've left this out, I'm a museum educator,
okay, at a fine art museum.
And as a teaching artist, I have to teach
so many different kinds of things,
that I have so many lesson plans, and so many projects,
that I'm able to go to Utah State and share them
with other aspiring art educators,
and they're able to take what I've worked out
and add it to their toolbox.
So you'll see I have a picture of one of my trips in Utah
'cause whenever I'm there, I try to go to a state park
or national park, to see all the beautiful mountains
and scenery that is there.
And the last picture you'll see,
I went to Flint, Michigan after the water crisis, okay?
And I saw people that were determined to live their lives
in the best way that they could.
People that loved creativity,
and that weren't being adversely affected
mentally and emotionally because of what
they were having to go through.
So I took my work there, I did an artist talk,
and it was an amazing experience.
Quilting is beautiful to me because,
everywhere I go, I hear quilt stories.
Everybody has a quilt story.
And as a quilter, it's an ice-breaker.
As soon as people find out that I'm a quilter,
then they tell me their stories about their mothers,
their grandmothers, their aunts that quilted.
And it's a bonding moment.
And I'm just so appreciative of it.
Now, when I'm going into schools,
I do individual projects with students,
but also I do collaborative work.
One of the things as a STEAM-ready artist,
I'm trying to encourage children in collaboration.
So we'll do a lot of collaborative projects.
So the long one that you see
is a view from a reservoir in Utah.
And it has native plants and birds,
and, you know, it was just such an interesting
and exciting experience to work with kids doing this.
Teaching them how to make yo-yos.
Teaching them how to sew, so that they could make bird nests
and all kinds of interesting things.
And so, this is one of the other things
that I do as I travel and share in schools.
This last picture is a view from Logan Canyon.
And when you're going up to the University of Utah,
you can kind of feel it in your ears
that you're going to a higher elevation.
You're surrounded by these beautiful mountains,
and this wonderful, wonderful nature that you see.
When I was there,
and I never seen this before, I saw a moose.
And it was just so exciting; I didn't know they were so big!
I didn't know their antlers were so wide.
And that's one of the perks of being able to travel.
You get to see a new sky, new trees, new animals,
and interesting people.
As I had mentioned before, I love teaching children
about needles and about sewing.
When I'm in Utah, I have a sewing machine
that I can take to schools,
and I could give students an opportunity
to use a sewing machine.
In front of me in the middle picture,
you'll see a whole bunch of yo-yos that the classes
that had come in that morning had made yo-yos.
And I showed them how to sew a big bead on them.
And I wasn't critical.
Some of them weren't quite circular,
they had moved into being angular.
But I was just so pleased and happy to have kids
with a needle in their hand.
That's what meant the most to me.
And then, you'll see this young artist.
I wanted to especially share
about the experience that I had with her.
Because it was in November,
it was almost time for Christmas.
And so all of the students
that were in this particular class got a chance to sew.
And many of them said,
"I know what I'm gonna ask for for Christmas.
I want a sewing machine."
Or, they say that they wanted a trip
to go to the quilt store in Logan
and buy them some quilting supplies.
So I feel that in Logan, I have laid a foundation
for dozens of children to be makers,
to be craftspeople and quilters.
And people that sew.
Now, the quilts that I make with kids
often times aren't just beautiful patterns.
A lot of times, I use quilting as a vehicle
for teaching the curriculum that the teacher
wants to be able to share.
And that's called arts integration.
And so what I do is, in these particular quilts,
the bigger one, we were studying the life cycle of plants.
So I did this little quilt that shows plants
going from a seed to a flower.
The smaller quilt, I did that in a situation where
we were studying about birds that lived in our community.
I felt really positive after this workshop,
because kids would come up to me in the hallway and say,
"I saw a cardinal in my backyard!"
Or, "I saw a bluejay!"
Or, "I even saw a finch," you know?
So quilting can be used as a way
to share foundational information with children.
And I'm just so pleased to have that opportunity
to be able to do it.
Now, I also work with children that are on the autism spectrum.
And sometimes I have been in schools
where children on the spectrum, or they might have a aide,
and their aide is doing the artwork, not the kids.
But when I go into a school, I'm not being critical.
I'm not saying "You have to do it this way,"
or, "You have to do it that way."
I will show them the process,
but then I will kind of give them the freedom
to take it where you want.
Now, when I went to this school, the funny thing about it was,
I had given them a supply list.
And I asked them to get burlap,
that's what we were gonna work on.
But what ended up happening was, they got some kind of netting.
And I was flabbergasted, but I went on, you know,
because that's what we do, you know?
I went on, and I had fabric scraps,
and we had canvas paper,
and these are some of the quilts that my students
that are on the autism spectrum made.
I love sharing them because I saw
that they think differently, they might move differently,
but inside of themselves, they are makers.
They are lovers of beauty.
And even though they might not be verbal,
they're still hearing me.
And they're being inspired by the quilts I bring.
And these are some of the things that they came up with.
With really deep messages,
and wonderful ways of putting things together.
I had mentioned earlier that I'm a multi-sensory artist.
Now, I had the opportunity to have an amazing adventure
with first-graders at an elementary school
in my neighborhood.
They do what they call "explorations."
So they came to the museum and had a workshop with me.
And then, I came over to their school
and did a three-week residency.
And during that time, we made this.
We didn't make the cabinet; we bought the cabinet.
But the cabinet is filled with things
that the children made that could be like a fidget.
Okay, now, a fidget, you can find different kinds.
There's this fidget that was really popular called a spinner.
All kids love them, okay?
And then they had these little things like an hourglass,
that had some kind of colored oil in it
that would come out slowly.
And students that live on the spectrum,
students with learning disabilities,
they could use, the teachers could use fidgets
to kind of help them to steel themselves for a moment.
But what we did was, we created a lot of unique,
different kinds of things for children to be engaged with.
In the long part, we made rain sticks that make sounds.
We took hangers and made them into a string instrument.
We made snow globes, and on the top,
you'll see they painted fabric.
And I made what we call friendship pillows.
And so, they're big enough for you and a couple of friends
to sit on and read.
And so, they put these in all of the reading stations
for the first grade.
And the sensory cart was able to be rolled
throughout the school,
and different classes could have an opportunity
to have it visit with them for a while.
In my job at the museum, I'm a teaching artist,
and I work with students when they come
for a visit to the galleries,
and the teacher might ask for a hands-on experience
to go with that.
Now, another thing that the museum
gave me an opportunity to do,
was to create touch objects for their sensory room.
So you see, I've made texture boards
that have all kinds of different things on them
that you could touch.
I've taken books and made them tactile.
And I've made quilts that could help students
with visual impairments have a deeper understanding
of the elements of art and the principals of design.
And I used quilting and sewing to pursue that whole idea
of creating hands-on touch objects for the museum.
And this was a sensory commission
I got from the museum.
The museum has recently acquired 40 quilts
from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation.
And those are, that's the people that promote
and support the Gee's Bend quilters of Alabama.
So when the High Museum acquired these quilts,
they don't want you to touch their quilts.
I created touch objects with one of the Pettway quilts
that's called "Birds Flying in the Air."
And you'll see, they use half-square triangles
to create that illusion of birds flying.
This was a workshop that I did
for The Center for the Visually Impaired.
And you'll see the fidgets that I've made.
When I did those, not only was I thinking
of something that you could touch and feel on,
but something you could interact.
Because the orange one and the yellow one
that are on opposite sides, has a marble in it
and channels sewed in it,
so you get to push that marble through the channels,
going from one end to another.
And I think that those make for really nice fidgets,
instead of plastic,
and just the kind you buy at a store.
And the middle has some little objects
that the children were making out of cardboard.
And then you could see one of the students
in her shawl that she made.
I had put Velcro on the back of all the pieces of cardboard
that they embellished.
And the shawl is made from Velcro,
I think the female part.
And then the little embellishments
has the little males being sticking out,
that they stick onto that Velcro.
Now, from my experience working with the students
at The Center for the Visually Impaired,
I began to ask myself questions about
what is beautiful to a person that has visual impairments?
And so these are some of the things
that I came up with doing.
I would sew seed beads around the binding,
so as they ran their hand across the quilt,
that they could feel that.
I took the yo-yos and I might've put dozen of beads on them,
so that they have a real tactile kind of feel to them.
I took the pom-poms and sewed them on.
And with all of these quilts, they have layers of creativity
that you could actually feel the different layers
and textures, and just create an amazing situation.
As I mentioned before, I use quilts across the curriculum.
I do quilts that have historical references.
I do quilts that
might be composed of geometric shapes and things.
And then in the middle,
this was something that I did around architecture
for young artists.
And this is, I call it "Strip City"
because each one of the buildings in the background,
and the street, and the grass, they're all composed of strips.
I'm a textile artist in addition to being a quilter
and a teaching artist.
And I use my tie-dye fabrics in my own work,
and I sell them as well.
And here are some samples of them.
Now in the middle, you'll see these racks
with the fabric hanging over them.
And I'm doing this in a really small space, you know.
And trying my very best not to get paint on the carpet.
But you know, I wasn't successful with that one.
[group chuckling]
Other textile processes that I love doing,
I love stamping and using block prints on fabric.
And I have my own way that I approach this.
Because of the fact that I'm paralyzed
from my chest down, my balance is kind of off.
And things that people that were, that could stand,
could work on their work in ways to help them be successful,
I had to develop some ways that I could do my work
that I could be successful as well.
I like to do wearable art from time to time.
And you see, I have the outfit.
That came from a meeting that I was having
with teaching artists.
And so I told them that when I present to people,
that I wear stuff that has lots of color in it.
Because if you're talking over 18 minutes,
sometimes people would kind of lose a little focus, okay?
But if you're presenting and you have lots of color
and you're moving, and you're being expressive,
you could keep people engaged.
And so, when I told my colleagues about the outfit,
'cause when they said they were presenting,
I would say, "Well, what outfit are you gonna wear?"
So they thought it was a girl thing, but it wasn't.
It's an artist thing, knowing how colors create a mood
and affect your audience.
So I always try to wear something really bright,
and I make bright stuff.
I did a demonstration of this at a quilt guild.
And so I left this slide in there,
even though I'm not going to do a demonstration for you.
So I'd just like to tell you a little bit
about stenciling like a champion.
If I were to go home with many of you,
I'm sure that if I crept into your studio,
I probably would see paint, dye,
brushes, stencils, stamps,
all kinds of things that you've collected over time
to add to what it is that you're doing as a quilter.
But sometimes, you will buy them,
and you might not jump on them right then.
But I just wanted to give you a little bit
of information about stenciling
that could help you stencil like a champion.
Now, the first thing that I do is,
I use a repositionable spray adhesive on my stencils.
That keeps them in place.
I'm not, I don't just take that for granted.
I put a little tape around the edge, too.
And when I'm stenciling, I try to resist the temptation
to do these kind of movements.
But I use this kind of movement.
Because, I'm sure you all know that with all of the quilting
and art-making techniques we have,
the gesture is important.
So when stenciling, if you're doing up and down,
if you're just, you getting a little paint
at the beginning, and you're being patient with your work,
it will allow you to stencil like a champion.
Now, if you're interested in purchasing any of my artwork,
you can get in touch with me through my Gmail account.
But, I'm gonna be here today,
so you can personally come by my table
and see some of my textiles.
Now my friends, I'm so happy to have people here
to see my artwork.
So much so, that if you just come to my table
and have a little viewing pleasure,
I'm happy with that as well.
But, you know, artists live by their art,
so we love to sell it as well.
Now, I'd like to thank you all so much
for giving me this opportunity to share
about my artwork and to tell you a little bit
about my family and our creative legacy
that we're carrying on in my family.
So with that being said, I'd like to thank you
for giving me the opportunity to share.
And it is my hope that I was able to share something
that you'll be able to take away and be inspired by.
If nothing else, I hope you're inspired by the fact
that I'm here,
I'm sharing,
and I'm feeling powerful and inspired
by all of the beauty that is in this place that we're in.
So, think about me.
You can always check out what I'm doing
on Instagram and Facebook.
And I'm always available to answer any questions,
or to talk, or any concerns.
So make sure that if you come by my table,
that you grab a card
so you can have my phone number and email and everything.
And that you could get back with me
when you're ready to pursue some of these
really amazing textile techniques.
So, I'd like to just thank you again,
and I'm opening the floor for any questions
that anyone might have. [group applauding]
- Guest 1: Did you dye all of the fabrics
in these quilts?
- Yes, I did. - Guest 1: Oh, wow.
- Yes, I did.
I've been dyeing now since about 1970.
I had the amazing opportunity to actually work
with a dyer from Africa that didn't know how to sew.
And because I knew how to sew,
she was willing to barter classes with me to,
for me to sew stuff for her.
So I kind of took it from there,
taking her technique, building on it,
eventually landing on my own technique
of using airbrush colors for fabric with my dyeing.
- Guest 2: What kind of fabric do you start with?
- Well...
- Guest 3: Can you repeat the question?
- She asked me what kind of fabric do I start with.
When I'm working, I exclusively like to work
with cottons and silks.
I use many different kinds of cotton.
I like flannel, I like corduroy, I use light canvas sometimes.
But the majority of the time, I'm using Canna cotton,
or I'm using print cloth,
or what my dyeing company calls quilter's fabric, okay?
So being that they call it quilter's fabric,
you know, it's easy to needle.
And it's easy to tear on the grain,
and all of those kind of things.
But I dye and print and paint on my fabric.
And I'm always hoping that a quilter or a maker
will be intrigued by what I do
and decide that they're gonna take it
to the next level in their work.
- Guest 4: Yeah, I was gonna say that,
they're so vibrant, first of all, and just lovely.
But, I wonder if you could tell us about
the one that's just on the end there,
because the colorations are so different
from the other work. - This one?
The question was, "Tell a little bit about this quilt
"because the coloration is different
from the other quilts."
Most of the time when I'm quilting,
I quilt with what I love and what excites me.
However, it's a big, wide world,
and a lot of people like many different things.
So I went through a period to where
I was doing a lot of stuff with brown.
I love brown, because brown makes you feel secure.
Brown is a color that sort of makes you feel protected.
And it makes you think about family,
and it makes me think about growth,
because good soil is kind of dark brown, you know?
And so, I kind of fell into that brown for a moment.
And I do that.
At one point, everything had blue in it.
At one point, everything had brown in it.
And so, you know, we have artist discretion.
And I just work in accord with what I'm feeling.
But also sometimes,
I think I might've threw a little brown in there
because I want people to feel comfortable with the quilt.
Sometimes, really colorful stuff
might not necessarily work with people's decor.
But, something that's neutral and muted,
they might be excited about.
Now, this particular quilt, I call it the Maverick quilt.
Because there's a block in there
that didn't turn out like the other blocks.
And so I was feeling so, oh, crazy about it.
And then someone showed me an article about Maverick quilts,
where quilters actually intentionally put something
in there that doesn't go along with the pattern.
And so, I grabbed onto that really quick,
and I said "This is a Maverick quilt."
[group laughing] You know?
It's not a mistake; I meant to have that happen.
[group laughing]
And also, I'll be here all three days of the festival.
So, stop by and give me a little chat.
Thank you.
[group applauding]
[upbeat music]