The Length of the Stitches

 

My quilt show opened at Campus Gate Gallery, Young Harris, Ga last night with banjo music (as appropriate to the setting!).

  Many local visitors, college faculty and students came – including the ex poet laureate of Georgia (I’d love to think she rushed back home and composed a poem about the quilts!) and the president of the college – a nice honour.   It’s great to have quilts recognized as a real art form -worth visiting and respecting.  Of course the students came because it would help their grades!!  Good to think that art quilts help grades – another reason for making and showing!  

One of the local quilters asked me if I knew about the new sewing machines that had stitch regulators as she didn’t think the AQS judge would have liked my work as all my stitches weren’t exactly equal in length.  It was a kind thought….but I must admit I asked her why…now why should stitches all be of equal length?

I’ve always believed in asking “why?” when people tell me “and the rule is…”…..of course the answer was quite clear in this case? “because the judge wouldn’t like it”!   Ah yes…..I asked if she’d heard if they measured the brush strokes when painters submitted their work to a juried show.  No, she had not.   But a musician there told me that when banjo players enter competitions they too are held to a strict “traditional” standard.   Banjo music (and presumably quilting) as folk arts are now strictly defined.  Even though…the original folk artists had the freedom to make up the rules as they went along…we’ve actually taken the “folk” out of the equation and sterilized the art forms.  Sterilized  - as in no more creativity…..hmmm….

well…I for one will continue to be creative in my stitching! In all its ugly uneveness!

If you have been, thanks for listening – and remember those rules (if only to break them!).  Elizabeth