We have returned from a needed get-away. Two nights away with no phone calls! Yeah! We traveled east to dry land and filled our eyes with the openness hoping it would offset our feelings of being overrun by vegetation. We appreciated the rolling land with the crisp well-maintained farms where you can see the edges of "everything."
Before we left town I turned in my donation for Marie Watt's Blanket project: http://www.tacomaartmuseum.org/Page.aspx?cid=9539
My blanket (quilt top) donation came via the Goodwill. I had stopped by the Goodwill (by the pound) this past week for potential art materials. It is unlike any other thrift store. I am not sure why I find the place so jarring. As I watch others paw through the mountains of "stuff" I go into research mode. I have so many questions, it is like a social experiment in progress. I want to write a book complete with photographs about this unique environment but typically I forget because of the stuff I find. This week I found an antique quilt top thrown into the fray. I snatched it up as you would a child running into traffic. I was surprised by my reaction. It was so immediate and strong. The quilt top shouldn't have been there! It was out of context. The stars had been lovingly stitched from fabrics worn thin by their previous life. The quilt was soft and muted; so unlike the quilts of today made from new cloth. I looked through the bin for more clues. Often when a person's life is up-ended into the bin the pieces fall there together. Yet there were no more clues. I had no personal need for this quilt top, but I just couldn't let it lay there to be thrown from one bin to another with disregard or worse yet to be bailed up and shipped off to some unknown destination. Surely being bronzed would be a better fate? I am not sure if it will meet with the artist intention or not but on this Memorial Weekend I pay homage to this unknown woman who stitched by hand these pieces worn thin by life. I pay homage too to the women before me who worked so hard to fashion a life out of what they were given. There on the hills of their little communities we found evidence of their lives, buried there with their tiny children. I prefer this to remembering all the wars.
Before we left town I turned in my donation for Marie Watt's Blanket project: http://www.tacomaartmuseum.org/Page.aspx?cid=9539
My blanket (quilt top) donation came via the Goodwill. I had stopped by the Goodwill (by the pound) this past week for potential art materials. It is unlike any other thrift store. I am not sure why I find the place so jarring. As I watch others paw through the mountains of "stuff" I go into research mode. I have so many questions, it is like a social experiment in progress. I want to write a book complete with photographs about this unique environment but typically I forget because of the stuff I find. This week I found an antique quilt top thrown into the fray. I snatched it up as you would a child running into traffic. I was surprised by my reaction. It was so immediate and strong. The quilt top shouldn't have been there! It was out of context. The stars had been lovingly stitched from fabrics worn thin by their previous life. The quilt was soft and muted; so unlike the quilts of today made from new cloth. I looked through the bin for more clues. Often when a person's life is up-ended into the bin the pieces fall there together. Yet there were no more clues. I had no personal need for this quilt top, but I just couldn't let it lay there to be thrown from one bin to another with disregard or worse yet to be bailed up and shipped off to some unknown destination. Surely being bronzed would be a better fate? I am not sure if it will meet with the artist intention or not but on this Memorial Weekend I pay homage to this unknown woman who stitched by hand these pieces worn thin by life. I pay homage too to the women before me who worked so hard to fashion a life out of what they were given. There on the hills of their little communities we found evidence of their lives, buried there with their tiny children. I prefer this to remembering all the wars.
Genesee Valley Lutheran Church and Cemetery
Saint John's Lutheran Cemetery and Saint Mary's Catholic Cemetery
The signs say a lot, don't they?
The view was grand and the wind constant.
And the best part -
we weren't caught in any traffic -
well, until we got closer to home.
But after consuming a 44 oz nobody better get between me and the barn door.
I find the Goodwill stores fascinating too. We have two nearby...very different in terms of who visits them and what they have...regional I guess. The quilt is beautiful...glad it found a good home. Your pictures are beautiful. The cemetery sign made me smile AND broke my heart. So glad in heaven these boundaries will be forever erased.
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