Newsletter — Helen Geglio

Selections from my sizeable collection of mid-century tablecloths and cutwork napkins are the backdrop for one chapter in the History of Toil series. Think about those stressful holiday meals, with mothers, daughters, sisters and sisters-in-law all swirling around a small kitchen, orchestrating a culinary production that will take days and hours of effort, and be consumed in only minutes. Families are complicated, and often these meals, though tasty, come fully loaded with undercurrents of conflict and unspoken tensions.

These works each make reference to traditional quilt patterns and structures. In Broken Dishes, I used the hourglass block form, repeating it in various sizes and positions. The white tablecloth with blue and magenta print was stained and mended, but I preserved parts of the corner motifs (a woman in a hoopskirt, holding a parasol in one hand and the leash of a small dog in the other). The linen napkin has been solar-dyed. My palette of fabrics include cheerful checks, polka dots and apron prints; accented by deep indigo and black shards, the darker side of women's work.

A History of Toil: Broken Dishes (detail)

Centerpiece uses another print tablecloth, over-dyed in indigo, as well as fragments from a found grandmother's garden quilt top. There is a spiderweb embroidered over the hexagonal block, maybe to emphasize the connections between women, maybe to suggest an element of entrapment? The idea of a busy hive of workers, with a central, unquestioned matriarch, resonated for me. I was never that woman. In fact, in almost 40 years of marriage, this past Christmas Day was the first I have spent in my own home. We always traveled back to Michigan, where I was happy to play supporting cast in the annual mealtime dramas. "Why don't you bring a salad, Helen"?

I loved the depression-era pink of the quilt top background when I saw it hanging on a line at a yard sale years ago. I used this as a bedspread for a few years, but all the lovely yellow rayon pieces soon began to deteriorate. This is a big quilt top and there is a lot left over, so other fragments will likely appear in future works.

Both of these pieces are included in the juried exhibit , Stitch: Contemporary Textile Art from Kentucky and Surrounding States, at the Claypool-Young Gallery at Morehead State College, Morehead, KY. https://www.moreheadstate.edu/News/2017/May/STITCH-Contemporary-Textile-Art-from-Kentucky-an

This exhibit will be on view from June 5 through August 30, with a closing reception on August 30, 5-7 PM, followed by a talk with juror Nick DeFord

Books:

This month I have been reading Lucky Us, by Amy Bloom, Anything is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout ,The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, by Michael Chabon, The Stars are Fire, by Anita Shreve, and The End of the Wasp Season, by Denise Mina.

This past few weeks have been a plunge into twenty-first century thinking for me. I traded my flip-phone in for an iphone, started a personal website, and published a first blog post. I plan to post about once a month, share some of my cloth stories, and post news about where my work can be seen. Big learning curve.

Curiously, my artwork focuses on using materials of the past, made and used long before the internet was even imagined. This is cloth with narrative locked into the fibers, fabric that has passed through other hands. The textiles for much of my work come from the basements, storage areas and closets of my family and friends. I especially value things that are stained, damaged or repaired. This sensibility is at the heart of the Lost Art of Mending and History of Toil series.

In the first quilt of the Toil series I used cotton bedsheets (the ones my mother would wash, hang out to dry and iron) colored in ochre with solar dyes. I tore small pieces, brushed on the dye, sprinkled them with grains and threads then exposed them to the sun outdoors. I thought this gave them a "dust bowl" character. Meanwhile, in the dark of winter, I bid on an ebay lot of small scraps from around 1880, and when the small sandwich bag arrived it contained a deconstructed dress sleeve, with a sweat stained armpit. A small piece of that rust colored plaid appears at the bottom left in the photo. These fabrics started me thinking about the endless cycle of domestic toil that mapped the days of our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. This quilt, Housetop, is part of the Surface Design Association exhibit Shifting Landscapes, showing at form and concept Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, through June 10, 2017.

Books:

This is what I have been reading this month: Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders, The Shadow Land, by Elizabeth Kostova, The Woman Next Door, by Yewande Omotoso and A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles.