The man on the far right…what’s that he’s holding in his hand? That’s my grandfather, here with three of his brothers. When I find a photo in which he is included, I’m always intrigued by how the photo was taken, since he was usually the one behind the camera.
I recently wrote about the coincidence that both my husband and I had maternal grandfathers who were professional photographers. Sometimes we can find a cable in the photo leading to a remote shutter release. Those were available from as early as 1918 in advertisements like this one found here.
In this case, zooming and examining (you can click on any image to enlarge it) reveals no cable, and in the 1940’s when this photo was probably taken, there was no timer built in to cameras as we have now. However, my Grandfather did have a son who helped him with his photography business by that time. Homer, Jr. went to work in the darkroom at age 7, in 1935. It is likely that he, Jr., is the one taking this photo. And, GrandDaddy is probably holding the remnants of a cigar.
I printed this photo on fabric from a vintage linen tablecloth, painted some elements, layered it on wool batting, and stitched around the figures with silk thread. It is layered on cotton fabric, a layer of old burlap, and then on an old quilt remnant. The resulting piece measures 14” x 17”.
The process of stitching these photos sometimes yields as interesting an image on the back as on the front. Here you see what one viewer considered the shadows of these brothers.
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In 1952, he was four years old and wanted to fly a kite. In this photo, he watched as his Daddy held the string and the kite climbed higher and higher. The air was crisp, the wind pulling the string quickly. At the moment the photo was taken, the boy sensed disaster on the horizon.
When asked for appropriate titles for this art quilt, he said, Childhood Trauma, or Hold Tight, Daddy, or Don’t Let Go, would all be appropriate. In truth, he barely remembers the day, and probably wouldn’t remember it at all were it not for the photo. This is exactly the kind of experience I love to capture in cloth. A memory. A story. A moment frozen.
I appliquéd the kite using a bit of French General red fabric, and hand embroidered the kite string and tails. When I added machine quilting stitches, I used dark thread to emphasize the fence posts and trees.
The piece finished at 16” x 22”. A vintage doily serves as the label.
It’s a beautiful fall day, the sky is blue, gingko leaves are at their peak of golden, so we head to the cemetery. Isn’t that what all families do on a glorious day? They do if they live where we do and have a more than 200 acres of serene beauty to stroll.
My latest art quilt is the result of last Saturday’s stroll. Jim took the photo of Galadrielle, an angel at the foot of Duane Allman’s grave. I printed it on vintage linen fabric, added some stitching though layers of wool batting, more vintage linen, raw silk, and an indigo-dyed remnant of an old quilt. A few buttons and a bit of angelic lace came out of my treasure bins for this project.
I used free motion machine stitching to define the shape of Galadrielle and add dimension and detail. Hand stitching was used everywhere else. Some unknown sewist had done some hand stitching on the remnant I used as the base. Her hand quilting and cross stitch has a new life. The worn quilt has been cut up and used in several of my favorite pieces. I’m loving the blue ones best! I wonder if this unknown colleague did her hand stitching while visiting with friends, or perhaps while listening to the television (or radio, in her day) as I do.
Neither of them ever married. This photo was taken sometime around 1912. They were 18 and 15 at the time. Within ten years, their mother would be confined to a wheelchair, their older sister would die in childbirth, leaving two young daughters to their care.
During WWII, the teacher was offered “script” as her paycheck (a promise for money from the state someday), so she traveled further to work in a naval ordinance plant. The younger worked as a switchboard operator and in so doing, connected many families to news of their beloved ones. She was the first in town to get the word that the war was over, running down the stairs of the downtown office to spread the news.
Details of quilt: A vintage photo (circa 1912) of two unmarried sisters was printed on a remnant of a vintage linen tablecloth. Hand-guided, free-motion machine quilting was used to add detail, lace collars and beading were added with hand stitching. The linen background for the photo was attached to a vintage linen log cabin quilt made from silk. A vintage cotton doily was used for the label.
“This has been so good for me today. I’ve been so down in the dumps lately. I lost my best friend and have been unable to do anything. Now I have new ideas and I’m going to make….”
In the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron advises artists to “take your inner artist on a date once a week.” Go to a museum, or a movie, or the beach, to feed your soul. Go alone.
That’s where you see me in this photo. Shuffling though family memories. Not my family, but a family for sale. Well, their memories are for sale.
Usually it was the child alone with the cake, sometimes sitting on the ground, many times with the cake on a stool from inside the house. Later there was a picnic table added, and the cake sat there.
Ollie Jane Wheeler Hasty was my paternal grandmother. She grew up in the foothills of north Georgia, married my grandfather in at the age of 17, bore him seven children there. Then they bundled up the six living children and household goods, drove a wagon to the flatlands of south Georgia where she gave birth to three additional children.
But I own an exception. I have the quilt that she made prior to her marriage. It was on her bed on her wedding night in 1890 and on every anniversary night for sixty-eight years. Some of the binding is worn and replaced, which indicates that it was used more than sixty-nine times, but I suspect as time went on and it was beginning to wear, this quilt was put away to preserve its story.
This gentleman is Mr. Luther Glaze, a peddler who sold fabric to my husband’s grandmother, Zelema, in the 1920’s and 30’s. Once a week, Mr. Glaze arrived in his truck, his wares protected with a canvas cover. “Granny Zee” never paid him with money, but with butter and eggs from her farm.
