Quilts: Icons Of Our Matriarchs
Quilts: Icons Of Our Matriarchs
Oklahoma City Museum Of Art
Hanging through February 7
405 Couch Drive
okcmoa.com
I’ve never wanted to touch artwork more than when I walked through the media preview of “Quilts and Color from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.” No photo will ever do a quilt justice. The plush and subtle designs, the soft artistry as remnants of hours upon hours upon hours of dedicated work, and the memory of warm quilts on frigid nights. My fingertips actually tingled as I studied them from just out of reach. The sprawling works of art begged to be touched, were designed to be touched, but now they are museum pieces retired from the roles they filled for generations.
Since I was a child, the quilt symbolized womanhood, the noble lineage of my mother and my grandmothers. Warmth, stability, pride that, if something needed to be done, it needed to be done correctly and sometimes that meant doing it pretty. Quilts survived wars, famines, dustbowls, blizzards, droughts. They were resilient and strong, just as the women who made them. My mother, Teresa Martin, survived a brutal childhood disease, partly due to a quilt.
“My Mother, Maxine Wilhelm, loved needlework. When I was in the third grade in 1952, I caught strep throat which turned into rheumatic fever. In those days, this meant your heart would be damaged. But, our doctor told my parents that if I stayed constantly in bed for six months and I took medication to sleep most of the time, he thought I might recover fully. My Father, Olin Wilhelm, was a farmer and these six months spanned from spring through fall, the busiest farming time of the year. I would often wake to find a family friend, my grandparents, a teacher, a neighbor, or the pastor sitting by my bedside as my Mother and my brother, Larry, were endeavoring to help my father with the farm. All this time in bed made my skin sore and my Mother decided I needed a quilt made of satin and velvet as it would be softer. It was called a ‘Crazy Quilt’ as the pieces were many different sizes with multiple fabrics and decorated with colorful embroidery. I would often wake at night and find my Mother would be sitting by my bed lamp sewing on this quilt.”
Maxine was a talented and stubborn quiltmaker. Large pieces would take up to a year to create with quilting stitches less than 1/8 inch. After Maxine and Olin sold their Honey Farm & Candle Factory, they built a small building in the back of their new house where Maxine would host a quilting club that “sounds like a bunch of chickens next door” as my grandfather would tease. Maxine would be working on at least two quilts at a time and Teresa estimated that her mother made at least 35 quilts of various sizes for family members, from doll quilts to king sized bed quilts. There were countless others that she made for friends and for charity.
“My Mother loved people and she was very kind to all types. Her special quilts given to family and friends were a way to show her love for each of them and a legacy for her future great-grandchildren. The quilts she gave to charity were more durable as they would be needed to be used, not displayed. She felt that the charity quilts were a way for her to thank God for the opportunity to bring beauty and warmth to those who need to know that they are not alone, that someone cares for them. These quilts were mostly given anonymously.”
Maxine survived depression-era Oklahoma and, like the quilt-makers featured on the walls of OKCMOA, she was a true artisan. My first realization of her skill came when I saw a piece she’d built as Olin was beginning his long, brutal, and losing battle against Parkinson’s disease. My grandmother began collecting his ties as well as from other kin to make what would become known as the Tie Quilt. My mother always insisted that Maxine’s quilts where no less art than what I saw at museums and it was the Tie Quilt that made me truly believe her. Black bordered with a spectrum of ties that swept across with colors balanced between coordination and spontaneity, a delicate act of enforcing her will on the design but also bending to the reality of what materials she had on hand. She couldn’t just go out and buy ties to fit her needs, she had to work with what she could find. Artistic progression through improvisation.
And that is the key to understanding the importance of the OKCMOA exhibit. Quiltmakers were achieving with fabric what painters attempted with light and color studies. The quilters were playing with vibrations, optical illusions, and gradations in ways painters wouldn’t start experimenting with for another decade.
They were ahead of their time, not because they were classically trained, but because they were creating a necessary item for their family’s survival. When firewood ran out and the deadly chill of winter crept in through the cracks of farmhouses, these grand works of art would be unpacked and laid over shivering, sick children. They were used to insulate the homestead to keep it alive for one more season.
But just because they were essential, didn’t mean they couldn’t also be lovely.
To read the full interview with my mother and to see my grandmother’s work, CLICK HERE.
