If you cannot stand one more minute of the current presidential contest’s amazing ugliness, we recommend checking out these sweet, respectable and well-behaved presidents of pretty.
The Clark County Quilters’ featured-artist show for 2016 is actually a review of works by 21 different artists: the nonprofit guild’s presidential pantheon, across 31 years of history. Works by 21 past presidents of the Clark County Quilters will be on display this weekend at the H.H. Hall Building in Hazel Dell (near Bortolami’s Pizzeria, off 99th Street).
Expect to see the whole sweep of quilting history and the diversity of techniques and motivations on display: from newborn baby gifts to “passing” quilts for people nearing the end, and from randomly “scrappy” assemblies of loud and clashing fabrics to high-art designs of real sophistication and subtlety.
“There are extremely artistic quilts that will always hang on the wall and never grace a bed at all,” Sandie Hollister said. “They show the ingenuity and creativity of the quilter.” But then, she said, there are also big, friendly, unpretentious quilts that are made for nothing but “snuggling under.”
Many of the artists will be on hand throughout the exhibit’s opening day, which is today; an artists’ reception is scheduled for 3 to 8 p.m. The show will also be open 10 a.m to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
Places in the heart
Quilting is a way of life for the approximately 500 members of the Clark County Quilters, Hollister said. “It is such a wonderful lifestyle, because no matter what you like to do, there’s something there for you. You’ll get such a warm, snuggly feeling. That’s why people keep coming back.”
But, warm and snuggly feelings are exactly what Diana Cruz’s grandmother did not associate with quilting, she said. To her, homemade quilts meant a different way of life: hardscrabble poverty and fleeing the Midwestern Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. “She was an expert seamstress, but she didn’t like quilts,” Cruz said. “I learned to sew from her, but I came to quilting on my own.
“It’s a definite creative outlet,” Cruz said. “Sewing two pieces of fabric together is very creative and very therapeutic.”
It was similar for Hollister, who could have learned quilting from her experienced mother and grandmother — but didn’t. She did other sorts of sewing, she said, until she moved into a new home and had “this huge space above the fireplace. I just couldn’t figure out what to hang there,” she said. She rejected many art pieces and finally decided to take matters into her own hands.
That meant signing up for a quilting class and buying about $75 worth of supplies, she said. She said walked out of the store thinking, “I’d better like quilting a lot.”
Not a problem. “It really has touched a place in my heart,” she said. The thing she likes best is knowing that her labors will make someone else happy — whether that’s a family member or a stranger.
The Clark County Quilters meet on the second Thursday of each month to host a guest speaker and try out new techniques; workshop ongoing personal projects or help with group-wide charity efforts; dig into fun exercises like “round robin” quilting, where you add your square and pass it along to the next person, and “mystery” quilting, where you follow directions, step-by-step, without knowing what the final design is supposed to look like.
“Whether you do something very planned or very scrappy, each one has a beauty of its own,” Cruz said. “I love all the different styles. They’re all wonderful.”
At the exhibit, Cruz plans to unveil a brand-new quilt of her own that was made over the course of a whole year in “bitty-block” style. Each month she added a new row made of a new block pattern and different fabrics. It’s a real dazzler, she said.
“It sure is one wonderfully scrappy quilt,” Cruz said. “It’s my happy quilt.”
