16. Spring Thaw

After making "Ambivalence," Lynne and I returned to themes of nature. We set out to make a companion piece to "Forget Me Not," featuring a pieced background, a "window" area containing floral motifs, and suggestions of a landscape. One thing we knew at the outset: there would be no curves this time. Leafing through the many "idea" scrapbooks that we kept to inspire us, we happened upon a magazine ad featuring a narrow, vertical shaft of light on a dark background. Thematically it had nothing to do with what we wanted to work on, but it was a compositional starting point. We began with the "landscape" background, working from the top down, beginning with small rectangles and gradually increasing the size to give some abstract sense of perspective. Also in the scrapbook was a color image, torn from a magazine, which depicted an alpine setting with colorful flowers in the foreground. I have a dim recollection that our subject matter and color palette were influenced by that clipping. So much for the background.

Then the question became: what exactly do we add to give this quilt its reason for existing. After all, it wasn't imagined as a bed quilt with an obvious utilitarian purpose; we wanted it to have a focal point. We experimented with a number of ways to fill our "window" area, and abstract flower blocks were our answer. We then composed a vertical panel of pieced strips and set them at a diagonal angle to provide additional contrast between them and the background. Somewhere along the line we began to perceive the design as that which our title suggests: a spring thaw, an icy-cold mountain gradually giving way in color and geometry to a river and a springtime burst of flowers and greenery. Choice of design for the quilt stitching then became clear: snowflake-like shapes quilted with silver thread within the vertical shaft, "landscape" contour lines in mountains, river, and field areas, and flower-like shapes dotting the "grassy" part of the landscape.

The finished quilt hung at a number of venues, the most memorable for me being the Vermont Quilt Festival. The previous year at the same show, Lynne and I had celebrated winning awards by enthusiastically enjoying the champagne reception; the year "Spring Thaw" hung, we commiserated over the fact that it hadn't won a ribbon by energetically partaking of the champagne reception.

Our last joint art quilt effort, "Spring Thaw" is intertwined with beginnings and endings, with life's ups and downs and unpredictable paths. By this time, Lynne and I had done a lot of teaching together. There were many innovative attempts at "promotion" and marketing, many grant proposals and letters and articles written, many ribbons won, many shows mounted. We had drunk many a cup of coffee as we pondered the problems posed by living the "artist's life." We had shared many a chuckle as our dogs raced after each other. Our work had been featured in art galleries and fine craft venues and even a Japanese magazine. We had taken an art class together at RISD in the continuing ed department. We had worked craft fairs together, and eyed each other sympathetically and silently as we heard the inevitable comments of potential customers who wanted to do just what we were doing--if only they had the time. And how much time DID it take, anyway? Hearing the answers, the customers would often completely support our charging a fair price, all the while signaling that they themselves would not be spending that sum on work they could imagine themselves doing--if only they had the time.

But over time, we found ourselves in an era when imported quilts had begun to overwhelm the market, appearing for impossibly low prices in department stores. Though we were offering custom design, our prices for traditional quilts were now being compared to prices of quilts made in countries where wages and materials costs were far lower than in ours. And though we were still selling art quilts, made by one or the other of us, they were often the smaller pieces at smaller prices.

During those same years, our children were growing up. My first son was preparing to go to college, and there were financial pressures and life issues to address--including issues I thought I had already figured out but had really just placed on hold for a time. I was working with our local conservation commission on a part-time basis as well as doing QuiltEssential commissions and teaching. And most often, it was a commission or teaching, not making art. One particular job proved to be the last straw, at least for Lynne: two identical, traditional, queen-sized quilts forced her to ask herself if she really wanted to be spending her artistic energies in exactly that way. Our goals began to diverge as we fell under different kinds of pressures and expectations, and with the writing of one final check, QuiltEssential was in my keeping.

Lynne and her husband own "Forget Me Not." "Ambivalence" lives in my house and is often featured in the lectures I give. We donated "Spring Thaw" to the local art museum for its annual fundraising auction, where it raised a worthy and gratifying sum.

Our quilting connection endures; I still look to her for the occasional critique when I get stuck or want a trustworthy reaction to some new effort. She drinks less coffee these days than I do, but we, along with another old friend from the early days, regularly meet over mugs of something hot. And QuiltEssential goes on.