April 2024 – Sandy Gilreath

The Camera Museum

My GrandDaddy Youngblood was a big part of my earliest years. I was three years old when he moved away from Georgia, but I do have memories of him, visiting his photography studio, and enjoying his visits to our house. There were letters, phone calls, and visits over the years, but his presence in my life was always associated with photographs.

A photo GrandDaddy made of me on an important day in my life.

In recent years, since I’ve become interested in photography and have read about photographers like Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange who were contemporaries of my GrandDaddy I’ve been curious about what cameras he used. Well, now I’ve seen some of them!

GrandDaddy in the doorway of his studio in Ashburn, GA.

Jim and I visited the camera museum in McDonough, Ga. You’d think that with Jim’s interest in photography, we would have been regulars. Jim did know about the place and had planned to go, but the impetus that got us out the door and on the way was learning that my GrandDaddy Youngblood’s cameras were there!

This building was first a church, then used as a municipal building complete with courtroom, and now houses workspace for the Image Doctor and the Camera Museum.

Yes, there is a display with information about my grandfather and his son and their photography! When we learned that some of GrandDaddy’s cameras had been donated, Jim and I were anxious to see them! When we arrived, and told them who we were, the owners greeted us with delight and led us right to the display.

I think of this as the Youngblood Corner…we were so excited to see everything and Scott was so excited to share details of the cameras with Jim that we didn’t get a photo of the original presentation…the camera fanatics (Scott and Jim) had moved the big camera to a spot where they could examine it more closely.

There are two of GrandDaddy’s cameras on display along with photos and a brief history of his photography. Both cameras are view cameras, where sheet film (preloaded in the darkroom) (for one or maybe two exposures) is inserted into the camera in a holder, then into the back of the camera. After the film is exposed, it is removed and set aside for developing. The large camera, an 8” x 10” view camera, was patented in 1890, the smaller of the two on display is 5” x 7”.

closeup of GrandDaddy’s 8″ x 10″ camera- frontview

GrandDaddy and his son, Homer Youngblood, Jr., had a studio in Georgia in the 1940’s and ’50’s. Prior to that, GrandDaddy worked as a photographer and reporter in Seneca, SC, and later had a studio there, as well.

GrandDaddy’s 5″ x 7″ viercamera frontview

Interviews with family tell me GrandDaddy began work as a photographer sometime after 1918. That’s the year his first wife (my grandmother) died. He had served in the Army during WWI, so i wonder, if like Jim, he learned photography skills as a soldier.

portraits of my GrandDaddy and his son who worked together as photographers

My GrandDaddy as he worked in Seneca, SC as a reporter and photographer. He and I were pen pals once I learned to write and his letters to me were always typed on onionskin paper. He signed them, “Love, Grandpappy Doodlebug”.

The Camera Museum is a passion of Scott Evans. After 40 years as a photographer, Scott now works to restore old photos, convert old movies, slides, and photos to digital format (as the Image Doctor). His lab is in the same building as his museum, which houses his vast collection of cameras of all sorts and anything camera related. There are displays of spy cameras, simple box cameras, folding cameras, twin-lens reflex cameras, 35mm single lens reflex cameras, and more.

a display of Kodak Brownies and similar cameras along with figurines of photographers

Scott has a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm about all things camera. We will have to visit again and again for me to take it all in.

Displays of paparazzi and some of their famous shots are displayed in the restroom of the building. The area used as holding cells when the building was used as a municipal court space now display famous mug shots (including Johnny Cash, Elvis, and others you will recognize). Scott and his wife welcome you to come visit. Check out their website, make an appointment for a tour, or go for a night of fun on one of their scavenger hunts! You can find them at www.camera-museum.com or www.imagedoctor.com..

My GrandDaddy with all four of his children. The girl on the left is my mother, her sister on the right. The two younger ones, Homer, Jr and Myrtle are children from his marriage to “Miss Catherine” after his first wife’s death.

When I’m making the art quilts where I print an image in black and white on fabric, then add color using ink or watercolor, I think I’m channeling my DNA into art. GrandDaddy made photos in black and white and his son and daughter would sometimes add hand tinting to them.

You may recall an art quilt I made with my GrandDaddy in it: https://sandygilreath.com/four-brothers/

One more exciting tidbit: My hand touched something that touched something that was in the room when this portrait of Abraham Lincoln was taken. Matthew Brady was the photographer. Yes, that’s the profile you see on pennies every day. This is in a collection of direct prints made from the exposed negative in Brady’s camera. This will soon be protected under glass, but we were able to touch something that touched….

Putting on a Show

I’ve written before about how special my quilt guild (the Heart of Georgia guild) is to me. I recently celebrated my 20^th anniversary as a member and the sisterhood just gets stronger. I spent this past weekend with those sisters at our biennial quilt show. If you are local, I hope you had a chance to attend.

This year’s show displayed nearly 200 members’ quilts. And the 58 quilts hanging on the rails above the floor level were made by our guild for residents of the Methodist Children’s Home. Each resident receives a quilt when he/she moves in and keeps it for life. Our guild makes many quilts for this endeavor.

Quilt Show weekend is a special time for us. We work together to present some of our latest work to friends and family – and to visitors who may be quilters, but not members of a guild as well as those who want to become quilters. We want our sisterhood to grow!

I’ve written about several shows in the past and included photos of fabulous quilts. I’m doing that here for this latest display, but this time I remembered to take photos of some of the work that goes into getting it all together. This year, our quilt show leader was Helen. She did a fabulous job of organizing everything, but it’s not a one-person job. Everyone helped!

Here is Dewey demonstrating use of his longarm machine at the show. Yes, he loads all that in his trailer, brings it over, sets it up to demonstrate, and allows visitors to try it out!

Before the show can even be laid out, someone has to collect all the information on the quilts and plan the layout. This year, and for the past several shows, that person has been Dewey. Dewey is our quilting brother. A gifted artist at the longarm machine, Dewey is also quite the handyman and quilt show designer.

Dewey arrived and started setting up the poles (he had help from a quilter’s husband) and identifying which quilt would hang where. This is after two weeks’ work developing a layout on computer and then on the butcher paper.

Here Kaye is checking her quilts in. Each quilt is labeled and in a pillowcase. Data has already been sorted to assign a number to each quilt so it can be hung in the correct space.

As all those quilts come in, members resort by number to put them in place.

Here you see some quilts ready to be hung and stepladders ready.

And, the quilts are up! I took no photos in progress, I was busy on a ladder.

Sherry was busy (with some helpers) in the weeks ahead of the show making ribbons for the awards. These are the three ribbons to be awarded to recipients of votes by all viewers who attend the show. There were 18 more ribbons made to give to winners of votes by members on Thursday night.

While Thursday night’s votes were being counted, members and friends enjoyed food and conversation.

Julie’s farm-themed quilt was a big hit!

Carol’s Montana quilt was beautiful! By the way, there were many many beautiful quilts here…I shouldn’t share them all….just a representative sample.

Kathy’s scrappy quilt was fabulous…I had to share a closeup of her feather quilting on her longarm machine.

Deann won a ribbon for best hand quilting….for a different quilt…but my photo of this quilt shows the stitches more clearly.

Sheila’s masterpiece, Mimi’s Garden, won best appliqué and was quilted by Dewey on his longarm.

This is my Celebration quilt. It took home a ribbon for best quilting on a home sewing machine.

After everything was set up and ready, we welcomed visitors from 9:00 – 5:00 for two days. Then on Saturday afternoon, all this process was reversed. Quilts were dropped (gravity helped that process go faster than putting up), folded, reinserted into those pillowcases, resorted by quilter’s name, checked out, and carried home.

We’ve had a few days to put everything away at home and reflect on the fun we had. We are already thinking about the next quilt (it’s probably in progress) and planning how to make the next show better. I hope wherever a quilt show fits in your life; as a participant or a visitor, you make time to experience it.

The Rebellious Weathergirl

My latest finished quilt is a journal quilt of sorts. The background squares are color coded to the lowest temperature of a given day, the melon appliquéd on top indicates the high temperature. My quilt has more than 365 blocks, and they aren’t arranged chronologically, but the quilt still tells my story of 2023.

While I was sewing on the binding, I dropped the quilt to the floor to go get more thread, and I loved how it puddled…where the front and back are visible and melons of two sizes show in the same shot.

I knew from the start that my arrangement of blocks would not be chronological. I had seen quite a few photos of temperature quilts using various blocks to show the high and low temperatures of the day and with my love of journal quilts, I thought it would be fun to do. Some people even include stitches to depict rain, snow, wind, but temperatures seemed enough for me.

i decided on appliquéd melons as my quilt block and chose to use a range of Cherrywood hand-dyed solid fabrics already selected by another quilting blogger. I cut 3” squares of fabrics, made a melon template that fit within that 3”, and was ready to sew.

Each day in 2023, I checked the previous day’s temperature data, recorded the figures on my spreadsheet, pulled the fabrics from my dedicated stash, and appliquéd a melon. On days when we were away from home, I recorded the temperatures for Macon and for our physical location, stitching the blocks when I returned home.

Early in 2024, I assembled the blocks on the design wall in monthly arrays, and made photos. I also assembled two chronological arrays using 365 blocks; one for the temperatures at home, one for the temperatures in whatever location we had been. With trips to Scotland, Colorado, and Louisiana, there were visible differences in those two arrangements.

Here I’m removing days from the Macon arrangement and replacing them with our travel days.

This is the final layout I assembled…reminding me of the Dots and Vines quilt I made similarly with circles.

I used a variegated thread to stitch it all together with a meandering quilting line.

I uploaded those two photos to Spoonflower (an online digital printing service) and had each one printed on ½ yard of cotton fabric. I was then free to arrange the 400 blocks in a more pleasing arrangement than the calendar provided. So I spent a few days moving blocks and looking, moving again, and finally settling on an arrangement that pleased me.

The image on the top left shows chronological temperatures in Macon, GA 2023, the image on the right shows temperatures wherever we were.

The back of the quilt holds records of the two chronological layouts, and a strip that shows the temperature range assigned to each color. The label is a vintage doily overdyed with indigo dye and the title, The Rebellious Weathergirl, acknowledges the fact that I knowingly broke the rules of temperature quilting. The quilt measures 50” square and is finished with a ⅜” plaid binding.

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