Page 31 - MyMomHadAQuiltLikeThat

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This is my catch-all entry in the documentation of the quilts for my
opinion of a quilt, reason for collecting it, or its historical environ-
ment, such as mentioning the availability of cigar silks in the 1930s,
or the Democratic Donkey pattern’s popularity coinciding with the
term of FDR from 1933 to 1945.

Curator’s Comment

Driving down a highway near Mom’s house in the late 1990s, we
spotted a colorful hand-painted sign along the side of the road with
the text “Woe to thee,” likely a reference to a biblical psalm. I didn’t
think much about it at the time, but Mom saw it as folk art. The hand-
painted sign ended up in her house. Mom has always had an eye for
novel and unique pieces of visual art. Her collection includes over-
looked pieces of folk art, pottery, Indian baskets, deco era furniture,
and jewelry acquired as bargains. She has an eye for uniqueness and
a feel for unappreciated value. Her eclectic taste in folk art has grown
on me over the years. My brother and I have benefitted from the hand-
me-downs as she downsized her collection, parting with treasures only
because we agreed to keep them.
How does one begin to curate such a stunning collection? It started
when I moved the collection to the spare room in my house simply
because I could not stand the idea of her storing the collection in
the crawl space under her house. Although the quilts were carefully
documented and stored in plastic bins in a dry crawl space, I feared
that varmints would eventually invade it. I also hated the potential of
Mom hurting herself by crawling into the space to lift out the heavy
bins. There was never a question that I was willing to care for the
collection. I have long believed the pieces needed to remain together
as a collection. I became the collection’s curator, dedicated to its
aesthetics, preserving a craft, and creating an educational array.
My first tasks were to seek an insurance appraisal and start reorganiz-
ing the collection based on pattern design. This book is the result of
that reorganization.
Mom has always enjoyed visual art, whether in galleries, museums, or
flipping through the art columns of reception room magazines. Buying
a major work of fine art is beyond the means of most people, especially
a single mother while raising two sons. Instead Mom turned her
attention to the often-overlooked genres of folk art and textiles, where
bargains could still be had. Ironically, I was with her in an antique mall
when we, after hemming and hawing, passed up on finer art, a Picasso
lithograph that we could have had for under $50. She didn’t have wall
space for it, and I didn’t think the design was great.
Mom has focused on American crafts and genuine folk art fashioned
typically by self-trained artists that are highly expressive and not re-
productions or “cut-outs” intended to look “countrified.” She acquired
a 4’ tall red-faced cigar-shop carved Indian, large poster-sized wood
paintings of Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane, a soapstone carving