COFFEE TIME: Harriet Powers Challenge

[00:00:03]Good morning and welcome back to Ribbon Candy Hooking. I'm Diana. It's great to see you this morning. Is it crazy there?

[00:00:11]Is it crazy there, too? After such a stretch of insane dangerous heat.

[00:00:18]We We've been getting crazy storms. I mean, we have we have apparently a shield over this town. I'm not kidding.

[00:00:23]There is like a known shield over Collinsville. And we get we don't get really wacky weather, but when I tried to move the car yesterday, half of the streets in in this part of the world were closed because it was like super Wizard of Oz. Crazy. Hope it's not crazy where you are. I know some people have been getting tornadoes and worse things.

[00:00:42]But man, it's crazy right now. I have h I'm sitting in this window instead of in the studio where I would normally do the morning show to watch my husband at the bottom of the driveway because let's just say he's not great with like chainsaws or let's just say saws. Let's say let's just say tools. He's not great with tools. And I'm kind of looking at him at the bottom of the driveway because somebody tried to pull up and um there was a branch that was too low. So, it needs to be dealt with and he is not the person to do. Let's see what happens. I I've got an eye on him in case anything crazy happens. I'll be able to see it from where I am sitting.

[00:01:19]It is great to see you. My mouth looks really crooked. I hope that I hope that I'm okay, too.

[00:01:26]It's great to see you. Happy Monday, everybody. I miss being on last week.

[00:01:30]We'll talk about all the business stuff at the end of the show. It was great um having a week off while Jocelyn was at camp. Um, I hoped to do a Friday show, but I was look I was hoping to do this as a Friday show, but I was looking at what that Fourth of July traffic was like growing evolving into. And it was evolving into a real thing. I thought, "Oh, maybe I'll just slip away right after camp." And in the end, the traffic wasn't too bad, but just judging from the previous days, it was like really hard to even pull out of a parking lot and get on the street. So, I thought I better not do that because I would only have had minutes to make a transition. I thought today let's start talking about the great Harriet Powers and about the new challenge at Ribbon Candy Hooking and and we'll continue we'll conclude this conversation on Friday for cocktail time. So, let's plan it that way because it's more content that I can do in one episode and I don't want to um be chintzy about this content because this is really great content and this is our this is our next challenge. Um so, more on that in a minute. I want to say good morning to Kirsten. It's great to see you. Happy Monday. Glad you made it home in time from errands. Oh, is it still warm there and very pretty in Vermont? I have It's actively raining. I have a feeling as soon as it's over, it's going to get very warm again. I just want to remind everybody Kristen is working on those Cheddy Camp things and I am going to start the dying for them this week.

[00:02:57]So, um that's about for about I think well 40 40 kits or or so, right, Kristen? Um you have put together like one of each kit. So, it's been a bit of a time-consuming thing. A lot more people jumped into the Cheddy Camp project than expected, but so it's taken uh a bit of time to figure out what the colors are and for me to dye the right colors and all of that stuff. So, I'm going to be doing some more dying this week. Um hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday so that I can get those yarns to Kristen. She can get them packed and get those Cheddy Camp projects out to you.

[00:03:27]Um otherwise, um the Rose books are in, the Magpie Times are in, all of that stuff is shipping now. If you ordered a Harriet Powers square, if you are right at the front of the challenge, that's coming to you, too. I'm working on those today. This is my first day sort of back every since I've been back. It has been non-stop, right? So, I'm going to get all of that stuff out to you today. And if you haven't joined in with the Harriet Powers Challenge, um, does my mouth always look like this? Like, did I I'm thinking because I'm so crazy. Did I have a stroke overnight and I don't realize it? I'm telling you. Um, I'm going to put the camera a little ways back so there we go. Um, you can see that the mess that the room is, but maybe that looks a bit more normal. It's making me nervous. I'm going to diagnose myself on camera here. Uh, all of that is coming to you. So, that's all making its way now. And just a quick reminder, we're going to do this at the end of the episode. Just a quick reminder that the autumn uh magpie times deadline deadline is coming up. So, the official deadline is June 15, July 15th. Uh, so we know that we were very relaxed and late with the last issue. So that means dominoes, but we want to catch up a little bit because as we inch our way toward the winter issue, we can't have that issue come out late because that has got winter holiday content. So, um, if you're working on a project for Magpie, if you logged on to that Zoom I did, like the quarterly Zoom to talk about what are we doing, who's got an idea, all of those great ideas that came up.

[00:04:55]If you're doing one or you've thought of something since, make sure you work on it sooner rather than later because it does take Judy a while to put this stuff. Understandably, it's a very difficult program um to put that stuff uh together so that magpie looks perfect.

[00:05:12]And she will be working on uh the fall issue, the Christmas issue, and then we are on our own after that. So, you'll probably see some changes to the way the magazine looks. Um I'm hoping to push everything in the right direction according to your content. Um it has been it has been a treasure and I think a great magazine and um it has been wonderful to have so much support with Magpie Times in the first couple of years. It's only a quarterly. We've only gotten a little practice in so far.

[00:05:36]We're not National Geographic, but we are really getting to a good point I think and we're getting quite long as well. We're like uh we're getting toward like the 100 100page on a regular basis issue kind of content which I'm really happy about. So, make sure that you participate in that because we are we've already lost the sort of paper version of Rug Hooking Magazine. Let's try to keep uh Magpie Times in the marketplace and I will need help as time goes forward. So, be thinking about what you might contribute to that Diane. Great to see you. Good morning. Happy sunny day in Illinois. I wanted to follow up with you too about Harriet Powers. I'm going to be covering uh some of this book and I'll introduce this in just a second in today's episode and Friday's episode. Um Diane, you gave me a suggestion for a place I think in Chicago that might be a good place to um um to offer to show the Harriet Powers rugs once we're finished with them like next year. I still have not heard from the first place I wrote to. So I suppose this can happen particularly in the summer. It is it is it is hard. I have to admit for somebody like me who's super type A and busy, always answering emails. I'm trying to get things done as quickly as I can. Got a hundred things going on at once. I try to keep them all at an even boil and it's hard to not get answers back within weeks and sometimes months. So, I'm still working on that.

[00:06:55]And as you watch this episode, if you think of some places near you where um some places that might want to have a Harriet Powers Hooked Rug exhibit, um I my guess is that it would be between I would say about 70 rugs. Uh might be a little more, but about 70 rugs. Um, I would say 70 to 100 because that's what we that's what we got ready for the Caswell carpet. Still waiting on them.

[00:07:20]Um, so if you can think of a place near you that you think can accommodate that kind of a show. These are mostly small pieces like 12, 13 in. Few people have the larger ones that are more toward 15 or 20. Most of them are small. So, if you can think of a place near you that has like um African-American history or a historic general historical society, um let me know because maybe you reach out or I reach out, we reach out together and try to put the products of this challenge um in as many places in as many parts of the country as possible, possibly going to Canada as well. So, let's see how that all goes.

[00:07:54]Let's brainstorm. Um Mandy, great to see you. Happy Monday. My rose book is in the mailbox. So, it's coming. It's coming to you or it's in your hand. Is it arriving soon? Mandy has so many beautiful pieces in that book. The rose book is looking amazing. I have to say the content was always fantastic. It was the printing that was the problem. And I think we've got that fixed. So, um, let me know. Diane says, "For lovers of clean 1970s style harlequinn romances an audio book while you work on your magpies fall submissions, White Haven Witches by TJ Green." That sounds fantastic. I'm going to take a picture of that. That sounds right up my alley.

[00:08:35]Thank you for that. I'm always looking for that kind of a book. That sounds fantastic. Um Oh, I love listening.

[00:08:41]Kirsten, yes, about 40 of the Cheddy Camps. Great. Lynn, great to see you.

[00:08:45]Lynn, I still owe you the rug thing. I have not forgotten. I swear that's my next thing. As soon as I catch up from this trip, that's my next thing. Uh, great to see you. It's super hot in Eastern North Carolina today. My newest Magpie and Roses books are in the mail for delivery today. Fantastic. Love the Harriet Powers. Me, too. I have so much to say on this subject. Jessica, great to see you. Welcome back. Happy Friday.

[00:09:08]Susan, great to see you. Aim high. That is it. Um, Katherine, great to see you.

[00:09:14]Good morning. and and um Susan and I are going to make a date for me to go to her show in Fitchburg. Remember she won that award for the Caswell Square. We'll do all of that very soon, too. Uh Katherine, good morning. My Rose Book and Magpire out for delivery, too. How amazing that they all come at the same time. Is that That's so strange, isn't it? You know what? I bet everything is kind of like a c like a cork popped, right? Like champagne um because of the holiday, right? I bet everything was like slowed down and then it was like boom blasting out of a cannon. Um, Joyce, great to see you. Rainy there in Pennsylvania, but the heat wave and crazy storms are over. I'm so happy to hear that. It was absolutely crazy. Um, the MFA has the quilt. The Museum of Fine Art has the quilt. The Museum of Fine Art has the quilt. The quilt. Um, do you mean um um do you mean the Har one of the Harriet Powers? There's There's two. There's the Bible and then there's the daily life. Um, or do you mean the Granny Donaldson's? Let's see.

[00:10:14]Um, I will look for that response and I'm going to get going because we have so much of this to talk about today. You know, I introduced and I think I showed an image a couple of weeks ago before I was traveling with Jos and we did her camp last week. April, great to see you.

[00:10:28]Happy Monday. Um, I introduced this next challenge. I introduced it on uh Junth right on purpose. And the reason was that these Harriet Power stamps. Let me show you what I put into No, wrong one.

[00:10:44]Let me show you what I put into your um hold on one second. Let me come down here.

[00:10:51]Uh okay, that's today's thumbnail. We'll talk about that in a second. And that's actually a quilt. Okay, so let's not start there. Let's start here. I introduced the quilt squares. I think gosh, how many are in ribbon candy hooking? I want to say 23 or 25 of the Harriet Powers because I had a slide in one of the last shows. Obviously, I deleted it by accident, but you know, the USPS, the US Postal Service, um put out, I think, four of the Harriet Powers uh individual quilt blocks as stamps, right? As collectible stamps. And I posted this in our Facebook group, too.

[00:11:25]Rug Cooking and Punch Needle Club. Um Harriet in the museum. Susan, do you know if it is on display or if it's one of the many treasures that they have hidden in the back room? Um, that'd be a great thing to know for now, actually, because I'd love to go see that. We're going to New York next week for a day.

[00:11:42]The kids booked something. So, off we go on Sunday. Anyway, um the USPS has put out these Harriet Powers images as four postage stamps and reminded me that her work is number one long out of copyright and number two um so important because Harriet was uh an enslaved person, right? We're switching the language to enslaved because in the first episode I said a slave and we don't say that anymore because that that defines who she was and and being enslaved is not a choice, right? Nobody would make that choice. So, um she was an enslaved person and she still managed to have this wonderful um creative spirit that sort of overpowered all of the sadness and um uh like emptiness in her life. I can't, you know, I can't attest to the fact that life was empty, but I think when someone else controls uh the hours in your day for the rest of your, you know, foreseeable life, uh that could lead most people to a great sense of of hopelessness not on display. Um, Leah, great to see you. I hope you're having a lovely summer afternoon, too.

[00:12:47]Multitasking at work, so you can join for a little bit. Happy to see you. Um, and your country girl looks amazing. I meant to write back, but you know how much I love that piece that's going into the spill in the tea book. I'm putting that together right now.

[00:13:01]Harriet Powers did two quilts and uh made up of many patches. The first one we're going to look at today is um is the is referred to as I think this is the Bible. Yeah, this is the Bible quilt. So the these are stories from the Bible, each individual square. So disclaimer at the beginning of this episode, whether you are Christian or not, whether you like talk about the Bible or not, uh I typically don't like religious things spilling over into everybody's everyday life, but in this case, we are talking about stories from a book. And in this case, it's the Bible and um in in the context of folk art, right? because these individual quilt blocks are out of this world in terms of their value as folk art. Now, at at the time, things that look like this were not necessarily considered folk art or art at all, right? Um Harriet was a a naive artist, which means untrained, right? Just means untrained. And she put stories together. She was doing her storytelling through her quilt blocks.

[00:14:05]Of course, it was not um it was reading and learning was not encouraged for people who owned slaves did not promote their intellectual life, right? Or knowledge, right? Because knowledge is power. So, um she was able to tell stories through her quilt blocks and then she puts her quilt blocks together into these two very famous and iconic quilts. And the first one has a Bible theme. That's the one we're looking at in this episode. I might not get to all of it, but um takeaways when you look at the cover of this book. Now, I'm using this book as a guide, right? This is the first episode that I've mentioned this book. This is the Mary Lions book that is geared for children, but it really is for everyone. It's a hardcover book.

[00:14:48]This is a library reject that I got ages ago, maybe on a books or eBay. It's going to be on one of those. I feel like I checked when we first started talking about Harriet what the price point was for this book because this is the book.

[00:15:01]I I actually have this um image on the cover of several of the books on this bookcase behind me. One of them is a book of poetry, just random, and the other is a book on religious essays, but neither of them have anything to do with Harriet. It's just the cover design that was used because, of course, the image is out of copyright. So, not the photograph, but the image, if you see what I mean, right? We're not going to go there. So this book in my mind is the book if you want more information on Harriet Powers and um again Mary E.

[00:15:34]Lions l yo ns the book is called stitching stars the story quilts of Harriet Powers and um this is a Charles Scribner book and it came out in 1993.

[00:15:47]So, you should be able to find it. Even if you just take a screenshot and you put it into your Google lens, it's going to come out, right? So, I wanted to kind of look at some of these quilt blocks in today's episode because some of you are on Ribbon Candy Hooking ordering. Thank you. And I'm going to do all of those orders today. Uh, and any others hopefully that come in. Um, I want to talk a little bit about her life and what some of these squares mean because as you're sitting there looking, scrolling through what the different choices are. Sorry. Ah, weird cut on the neckline. Um, while you're scrolling through what the different choices are for the images that you might hook. Um, you know, they all look mysterious and and folky and it's very hard to tell. I have the titles, I think, with them, but it's hard to tell exactly what is going on in the image, particularly if you're not super familiar with the Bible. I mean, I am because I went to Catholic school for so many years. So when I look at them, I go, "Oh, look at that Jacob's ladder. How cute is that?" No matter how abstracted they are, I It's so embedded in my brain that it all makes sense. But there's a couple of things that still don't make sense even when I know what the image is. What's that on my lip?

[00:16:59]It's a piece of gum. Sorry about that.

[00:17:02]That looks gross enough. Yeah, I was chewing gum. That's weird. That's weird.

[00:17:06]Bazooka. Bazooka. You did me in. Um, so let's look at what some of these squares are. Um, I'm looking at like the devil right now and thinking that's a weird one, but you know, someone has to do the devil because if we're putting all of this together into Sorry, Arian, be looking out for Alyssa. She's coming to pick up Joselyn. So, make Joselyn.

[00:17:26]Did you get the branch out?

[00:17:28]>> Okay. The branch is safer and he survived that. I forgot to look. Um, so let's let's look at what the meaning is behind some of these and and maybe if the idea of doing something with a religious theme isn't particularly interesting to you, um maybe some of the individual stories are, right? Because all of the stories in the Bible for for for whatever they are, for however you take them, um if you if you take them like it's a book and the book is fold filled with uh like moralistic stories that try to make you into a better person, great. Done. Right? Religion aside, the book is filled with beautiful stories that that teach us how to be better and remind us how to be better.

[00:18:12]So with that right you can look at some of these and say well kind of do like that is quite a beautiful story however I feel about God and religion right so because half of her work more than half of her work is religious I want this challenge to be available to everyone so I want I want people to be able to look at works and say I love it for what it is I love it for the story the favorite story that was inside Harriet and the fact that she loved the story so much that she had to um uh create it, right?

[00:18:45]Create it visually. Um and then and then that's where our interest really comes in because we're then we're talking about textiles. So um let me start with a little bit of Rita. Great to see you.

[00:18:58]Um U Diane says, "Your earrings are fun."

[00:19:02]Oh, thanks. The lobsters, I forgot about them and it's I better wear them now that it's summer, right? They are quite heavy. Betsy Johnson, TJ Maxx, right?

[00:19:10]all of those good Betsy Johnson's at TJ Maxx. So, let's look a little bit about her life because um knowing that she was an enslaved person already adds a sort of layer of interest, but also um undeniably sympathy, right? And I'm not sure that for such a for such a spirited person, for such a sassy person, I'm not sure I I I want to I want to keep repeating that she was an enslaved person because it's remarkable that she got this work done, that she was allowed to do this work um and that she was able to be quite prolific in her in her limited free time. So in that regard, I think her being an enslaved person is remarkable. But I do want to get away from that particular angle because um I want to talk about her being an artist, right? Being an artist first and foremost. You know, the circumstances of her life are are interesting and compelling in the context of all of this great work she did, but first and foremost for us, she's an artist, right?

[00:20:16]So, uh I'm reading a little bit directly out of this book by Mary Lions, right?

[00:20:22]And I'll let you know when I'm using her words. And again, this book is geared for children, but it it's not a kids book, right? It's it's not a kids book at all. It's uh much text. Let me just flip through it. Lots of color. Nothing black and white color. And uh Oh, good.

[00:20:37]Buttons almost knocked the fan down. And um she got an amazing periodical in the back. I'm doing a live show in here.

[00:20:47]Um anyway, um and it is it is about 40 pages, but it it's 40 chalk full pages.

[00:20:55]So, highly recommend. Um yeah, and again, I don't have a price point for this book because it is not in print.

[00:21:01]So, I'm going to cover as much of it as I can on these shows without being ridiculous. So, Harriet Powers was the mother of 11 children, nine boys and girls, and a pair of story quilts. Those were the twins, I guess. Uh, one by one, most of her babies grew up and left home, as children usually do.

[00:21:23]Harriet felt a little lonely when they moved out. Uh, the little Georgia farmhouse seemed too quiet and empty.

[00:21:31]Sometime around 1886, she decided to start on another child, a story quilt.

[00:21:36]1886.

[00:21:39]She had sewn many other quilts in her 49 years. So, she's 49 in 1886. Each has made each was made from scraps of old clothes and held together with thousands of stitches. Each had been a loyal companion, always there to cover her chilled bones. But the new quilt would be more than just a coverlet. It would be made up of all those earlier quilts.

[00:22:02]Would be more than just a coverlet. It would be a diary of her spiritual life.

[00:22:06]Harriet was a person of deep religious feelings. She had grown up hearing Bible stories about the Garden of Eden, the baptism of Christ, the last supper. The people in the Bible, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Jacob and Judas, were so familiar that they seemed to be part of her family. Making a quilt of their stories would be like putting down her own history. Instead of using pen, ink, and paper, she would write with a needle, thread, and cloth.

[00:22:35]And let me show you this and read the caption for it. The first big image we've got here.

[00:22:44]Oh, wait a minute. That's not it. I'll come back to that in a second. Harriet's first story quilt was broken into vertical strips that divide the pictures. So, we can see that, right? In other words, there's a bunch of cells or pigeon holes where individual stories are taking place. Similar designs can be found in woven cloth from West Africa where some believe that evil travels in straight lines. That's a quote. Crooked lines will startle any spirit that may be lurking about.

[00:23:18]Such surprises are common in African-American culture. The congregation calls out amen to agree with the minister's sermon. The guitar player suddenly plays a hot lick. a dancer quickly breaks to the ground uh breaks in parenthesis to the ground um then returns to an upright position. So in other words, um the idea that straight straight lines or things happening uh without unexpected twists and turns either in life or quite literally um are considered culturally suspicious because of this belief that quote uh evil travels in straight lines.

[00:24:01]So that's really interesting to know because we are looking at a lot of not straight lines here, right? were looking just like the G's Benz quilts. I wonder if we we've done a lot on the G's Benz quilts and I never sort of equated this saying um to those quilts, but I I bet there's something to that, right? I bet that there's the same sort of tradition or original culture uh that those ladies came from that would give them the I the idea that straight lines are not desirable. So we see a lot of crooked lines and we see a lot of broken lines and we even see some characters if you look at the top row um going from the left right well going from the left the first sort of elephant shape is right up against the line but go to the right of the same pain and you see that the back of a gosh I wonder what that is. I guess we'll find out. could be like a camel or a moose or not a moose can't be a moose something that brown thing right that breaks the border that goes over the line and breaks the line. Um and then on that same pane right the not the devil on the right but the second over from it with the two blue figures and the three creatures below there is uh a yellow bird that breaks that line too. Do you see what I mean? His feathers break that line. So, we see instances uh uh we see a lot of instances of not at all straight lines in this piece. Maybe a lion. Oh, that makes sense. Probably a lion. At least, you know, in context, that would be a known animal, wouldn't it? That would be like um a lion is a biblical animal, isn't it? Do they appear in the Noah's Arc story? Lions.

[00:25:42]Um in any case, straight lines are are a big no nos. So that's interesting because sometime you know so much of folk art is from Africa right is like the artists are from Africa so a lot of these ideas are taken from that culture and um you know however you got here and obviously in most cases it wasn't it wasn't the good way was it? um you would have brought those stories with you even if it wasn't stuff that you yourself were saying in at at that moment in time. Maybe your parents, your grandparents, you heard things like evil travels and straight lines. You'd be thoughtful about it. Uh Jane says Daniel and the lions in the Bible. Good one.

[00:26:25]Thank you. So yeah, that makes sense to me. The lion, right? Because that's we're going to look at these closer up today and we're going to get a lot more information, but I think lion sounds really good to me. Lion and maybe what?

[00:26:36]donkey or horse and like chicken or rooster. Susan says 1886 is the date in the book she starts quilting Emancipation Proclamation. Oh, 1863. So that almost 20 it's almost 20 years afterward. Okay. Yeah. Interesting.

[00:26:51]Right. Because she's so far away from the Emancipation Proclamation in the Civil War years. She's much further along. So the question is was she an was she enslaved at that point or a free woman? You know, that's a great question. Um, let's find out because I bet that's going to be in this part of the book. I'm going to come back to Mary's book and let's look a little bit more about her life. So, that's just a quick snapshot of that first quilt. Um, let's first look at 1837 to 185.

[00:27:25]So, Harriet Powers was born into slavery, right? So, she she was not she was not take who cares, right? was all awful. But she was born into her situation. Um, she was born on October 29th, 1837.

[00:27:41]Nothing is known about the first 18 years of her life. Like, uh, like the pink and green colors in her first story quilt, details of her younger years have faded with time. Interesting. So, pink and green, uh, the classic preppy colors years later, you know, a century later, um, were present in that quilt that we just looked at, and they have faded. So, we'll have to see if we can figure out what what fields those were. But, uh, let's see. The census records show that Harriet lived over half of her life in Clark County, Georgia. It's likely that she was born there or in a nearby county. This section of the state has been called the plantation belt. A plantation was a farm. Okay, I'm not remember it's a children's book. I'm not gonna read all that. Harriet Powers was probably born and raised a plantation slave. When she was there, when she was three years old, there were 71 plantations in Clark County alone.

[00:28:39]It was these planters who held more than half of Clark County's 5,000 African-Americans in slavery. Wow. The rest of the I'm going to change to enslaved people lived on small farms um or in Athens, the only town in Clark County. We can be certain that Harriet learned how to sew when she was a young girl. Slave women were always involved in the making of textiles. Whether on a plantation or a smaller farm, Harriet grew up watching older women card cotton, spin thread, weave and dye cloth, and sew clothing and bedding.

[00:29:18]Uh um there's a lot of quotes in here that I'm not going to do because the language is phonetic. So, if I read it the way that it says, it's going to sound like I'm doing like sort of El Json. So, we're not going to do that.

[00:29:28]But, if you get the book, you'll be able to read many of these quotes. And I don't think any of them are from Harriet, but from other women living at that exact time in that place.

[00:29:38]Um, since many black women were expert needle workers, Harriet surely learned to sew from her own mother. One daughter of a former slave proudly remembered her mother as a fine seamstress. The planters's wife also might have been her sewing teacher. Young girls must be taught to sew, is a quote, wrote the mistress of whole plantation in Clark County. And the plantation hands must be provided with clothes. Well, I should hope so. Uh, often the wife did not sew hersh herself, but supervised the sewing like supervised the labor. Uh, the mistress of Hull Hul uh remembered that after breakfast work was cut out for the seamstresses. So they would cut out the pieces and just give the uh patterns whether they were probably quilt patterns, bedding, curtains, clothing uh to the seamstresses to just sew. Um and um again some quotes that are right on the borderline of being inappropriate, so I'm going to let go of those. Um some plantation owners provided a yearly change of clothing for the slaves. Um but these soon were out.

[00:30:50]To be fair, this um this was the for people who didn't who weren't wealthy people, we would be talking about the same kind of clothing situation. I mean, maybe maybe one set for church and one set for work, but really most people did not have a a third set in their lives.

[00:31:06]Sadly, um only at night could she make additional clothes for her own family, so that might be possible if that material wasn't spoken for. Fabric was scarce, so enslaved children like Harriet usually owned only one set of clothing at a time. In the summer, she wore a homespun cotton dress over a pair of underwear called draws, right, which were like little white shorts. Um, in the winter, she wore a sack like that sack style dress. These shape the this shapeless overcoat was made of heavy yarn uh or clo cloth woven in one strand of wool and um one strand of cotton. So this could be something that looked like a burlap sack, right? And it was like um you know like um the kind of dress that my grandmother wore in the 70s and 80s like a shapeless kind of shift, right?

[00:31:57]Um so that you could move quickly and easily that wouldn't hinder your movement.

[00:32:03]I'm going to fast forward a little bit.

[00:32:05]Wait a minute. What was that? That sounded cute. Sewing didn't end with the making of clothes. Some former enslaved people remembered that the master gave them one blanket a year, often at Christmas. Uh but one blanket could not keep a body warm on a frosty January night. Um most enslaved women had to make extra coverlets and quilts. Quilts were as common as cornbread, and they were just as essential for survival. As a little girl, Harriet slept on a Georgia bed made of hard planks, thick ropes served as the springs. The mattress was stuffed with scratchy straw called Georgie feathers.

[00:32:42]At least these uncomfortable cutlight bed cutlike beds had plenty of quilts and covers according to one uh ex slave enslaved person. Quilts often quilts softened Harriet's rough bunk. They also kept her from freezing in the winter.

[00:32:58]Harriet washed her quilts and clothes by hand. Imagine taking a bath like the one she would have given her quilt. First, she filled an iron pot with water from the well. Then, she poured strong lie soap from a jug into the water and lit a fire under the pot. When the water boiled, she added the quilt and stirred.

[00:33:18]After the suds foamed, she removed the quilt and beat it on a block with sticks to fetch the dirt out. One Georgia enslaved woman remembered, "On wash days, you could hear them batt battling sticks, pounding every witch away." As he Sorry, I didn't mean to do that quote because that was another one of those.

[00:33:38]As a little girl, Harriet would have waited for the water to cool, then climbed right into the pot with bare feet and stomped the dirt out uh of her poor little quilt.

[00:33:48]Wow. So, let me just show you a couple of these pictures. This is not Harriet, but this is the kind of dress uh Harriet might have worn. This does have a waistline. Um, so I mean that is like one step up from a basic sack dress. And this is the kind of bed that the author Mary Lions is showing. And again, this is not uh Harry, but you can see quilts helped Harriet sleep as soundly as this little girl. So that's an image in the Library of Congress. So yeah, um let's see.

[00:34:25]Um quilts had to be sturdy to endure years of hard use. Um because they were made so well, they were as valuable as money, and some of the enslaved women were allowed to sell their quilts for cash. Quilts were often given as prizes at buck dancing contests um held by enslaved people. When northern soldiers raided southern farms during the Civil War, they stole horses, gold, and quilts.

[00:34:56]Quilts were precious items. Uh but they also provided beauty, fun, and even romance uh to to ease the hard days.

[00:35:05]Saturday nights in winter were long and lonely. January was too late for corn chucking parties and too soon for pea shelling frolicss. So the women in Harriet's quarters went from one plantation to another for quilting bees.

[00:35:20]Everybody knew that a parcel parcel of women could quilt better than one. Down came the wooden quilting frame that hung by four ropes from the cabin rafters.

[00:35:31]Isn't that nice? They had it up on the ceiling. Then a great scraping of wood on wood commenced as the women shoved their oak splint chairs across the floor and up to the frame. Young girls like Harriet were allowed to help their mothers stitch and sing, gossip and giggle. Sometimes they even crawled under the quilt and lay flat on their backs. A perfect spot to watch quick hands work the needles up and down and down and up. This was one of the rare moments when women had time to themselves. The mistress supervised their cutting and their stitching during the day, but a quilting bee was was private. Each woman could be an artist with the scissors and the cloth. Even the men folk were not allowed in until the quilting was over. For a few hours, needle work set the enslaved women free.

[00:36:18]That is so sweet. Look at this picture.

[00:36:20]I mean, that is it's so awful. But that part is so beautiful. This is an example of again not Harriet, but people at the wash tub trying to get it in focus.

[00:36:34]Well, hopefully you get the idea. You get the scale of the tub anyway. And it was like Titanic effort getting this thing going.

[00:36:41]Um, usually they made plain quilts from large squares of fabric in a single color or print, right? These are called whole cloth quilts. They're all one color. And the the sort of prestige of a whole cloth quilt is the stitching, right? Is the actual stitching that attaches the quilt top to the quilt back and the batting in between. You quilt through it. The quilting is why the quilt is named a quilt. You quilt through it. It's the verb. And in doing that, um, you can make designs, right?

[00:37:09]The Amish knew this, too. So, uh, if even if you have a whole cloth quilt and it's just one color of fabric, uh, one on the front, one on the back, it's the stitching and the the actual quilting of it that could have been quite beautiful and, um, could have like set you above others in terms of your skill. So, um, other quilts, okay, uh, other quilts were fancy with scraps of fabric pieced into intricate patterns. Sometimes the women use the mistress's patterns, designs with names like flying geese and rising sun. We know those. Just as often, they made their own designs by piecing together long strips of cloth.

[00:37:48]G's bend, right? Every quilt was beautiful in its own way. an ex-slave said when she showed off her sunburst quilt.

[00:37:57]Um, I'm I'm sort of anglicizing this for my voice. It's poetry, isn't it? Some quilting parties were run as competitions. An appointed quilting manager was the coach at Quilting Bees.

[00:38:10]Uh, four people would put, I'm paraphrasing again, would put um were put at the corner of every quilt.

[00:38:20]These quilts have been pieced. So in other words, for these competitions, a quil like a smaller quilt, there'd be four four people in the corners and you would make a corner of it for the judging. That's a really cute idea, isn't it? A prize was given to the four which finished their quilt first. Okay, so maybe it's not about beauty and aesthetics, but about um finishing it.

[00:38:41]Refreshments went along with with this, too. Two or three quilts might have been made, oh my gosh, in one night. Only when the sewing was done could the men come in for a quilting feast of pies, cakes, chicken, and brandy peaches.

[00:38:58]Dancing followed the food. This is amazing. Uh, the inventive enslaved people had a knack for making something out of nothing, including their music.

[00:39:08]stretched cow hides over cheese boxes and you had tambourines.

[00:39:13]Um saw bones from a cow, knock them together, and you call then those are the um what do you call the things that you use to hit a drum?

[00:39:25]Do they have a name? The wooden things, right? The st like drumsticks.

[00:39:28]Drumsticks. Uh but bones. Um or use uh broom straw on fiddle strings and you had an entire band. Oh god, what a moment. Young folks like Harriet went to quilting to flirt as much as to sew.

[00:39:43]According to one former enslaved person, both men and women were glad to get together. Harriet may have met her future husband, Armstead Powers, at a quilting frolic. Um, they danced the buzzard, the buzzard lope sang and sang, "You steal my true love and I steal yours and fell in love along the way."

[00:40:04]Oh. Uh, when Harriet and Armstead decided to marry, they had to get permission from the slave holder. The young couple were married in a broomstick wedding. Don't know what that is. Everyone in the quarters went to the ceremony. First, a straw broom as big as an arm and five feet long was placed on the ground. Then, family and friends gathered in a circle for the service.

[00:40:31]uh an exslave recalled the words, "The preacher would say to the man, "Do you take this woman to be your wife?" He says, "Yes." "Well, jump the broom."

[00:40:40]After he jumped, the preacher would say the same thing to the woman. Uh when she jumped, the preacher said, "I pronounce you man and wife." How fun is that? A dance and supper usually followed the wedding. If Harriet and Armstead were were owned by the same slaveholder, they lived together in the same cabin. If not, Armstead had to carry a piece of paper signed by the master to leave his plantation. With this pass, he could visit Harriet twice a week on Wednesday and Saturday nights.

[00:41:09]Okay, so let's pause there. I saw a comment come in. Um Diane says, "Plaid giraffe." I think so. Diane says, "Straw stuffed ticking bags are not uncomfortable to sleep on while camping." Lol. 24 years. Uh, Revoir living history weekends, but every day maybe not comfy straw getting moldy and humidity. Yeah, you know, it's so it's so funny because um not to diminish the misery of this life and the unfairness of this life, but um let me take a drink of water.

[00:41:43]When I think about it right now, uh probably this is probably TMI, but we sleep on u an enormous bed that belonged to my parents and it's probably what you would call a California king now, but it's it's an old it's an old bed. It's probably like a 50s60s. It has like wicker on top that opens, slides, and there's like bookshelving on top of it.

[00:42:04]So, had to have this bed when my mom wanted to get rid of it because it's the bed that I always remember being in their bedroom when I was growing up. But it has two mattresses, which is great for so many reasons. And one of them is because my my husband could literally sleep like on a bed of nails, right?

[00:42:21]Like like a faker. And um he like he's always tired enough that he he could he could sleep in any circumstances, right?

[00:42:28]Not to diminish uh the the occupation of being a faker or the crime and punishment, right? depending on why you would lay down on a bed of nails. But, um, alternately, I have got like I've got the a soft the super soft mattress plus one of those duffel things that's about this tall and there's a piece of foam in there somewhere. Um, I had one of these things. I had to take it away because it wasn't working, but at the foot of my bed that it this is a this is a vintage tool. I wish I had it here to show you. It's so funny. It's like it's like a little metal stand almost like a like a folding table. it go that goes under the mattress and standing up on metal wires, rigid wires, is like this metal flap that has this picture on it of a woman getting into bed. And what it does is it holds the bedding I'm such a baby off your feet because I like when I when I sleep on my back as I like to try to do, I really can't because the blankets are I'm such a this is awful.

[00:43:24]I'm so are so like heavy on my toes because my feet are like this if I'm laying down, right? that like hurts like after a while it hurts. I wake up and I flip because the top of my toes, you know what I mean? And I know people who if you're thinking, does she have gout?

[00:43:39]Not that I know of, but I know people who have stuff with diabetes and all of these extremities kinds of problems.

[00:43:44]That's what this thing was invented for was to lift your sheets like a tent. So your feet were under a tent and the weight of blankets that are like tucked tight because I'm a crazy tucker, too.

[00:43:54]Um aren't on your feet. So point point is um I'm I am like the princess and the pee on one side of the bed or my husband is like I don't know some like Rumple Stillskin right sleeping sleeping on a bed of nails on the other side of the bed and it just brings to mind the idea that that he doesn't have to he doesn't have to be like that right but he has no sort of sense of comfort. So, I guess my wish for people from past times, whether they were enslaved people or not, my wish for them, my retroactive wish is that they could be comfortable on bedding that we probably would nowadays, if you're not my husband, think was super unacceptable and uncomfortable and unsleepable. Uh, but funny what you get used to, right? Um, I'm gonna move. I'm gonna move. He's European, right? He's Dutch, so he's uh and and I was born there, too. But I'm I'm used to more comfort than he's used to. And and to your point, Diane, he was he's a big camper, right? So he would sleep like on the grass with ticks like walking through his hair and over his face. And that would also be okay. So comfort is a moving target, isn't it? Um I would I would say flat out um that that people who were enslaved probably had very little comfort in any scenario. It looks remarkably comfortable. that photo of the child, the slave child, sleeping on all of those blankets. I don't know that that was the norm. Um, and probably not in the winter because the blankets would have to be on top of you, not under you.

[00:45:25]But I'm hoping um that there was a time of the year when they could be happy and comfortable, you know, happy, right?

[00:45:33]That that's also obnoxious. So let's look at some of these and let's look at the meaning behind some of these because I will carry on with commentary on Friday. Let's come to this one first.

[00:45:45]I've got them out of order. So this is the devil. Um and the caption says and again the caption is by Mary Lions and from this book if you're joining us late from this book. Um oh Shay, great to see you my buddy. Um and Leah says I can't stand blankets on my feet either when I sleep on my belly. I have to go to the bottom of the bed so my feet can hang off. You need you need this thing. This the problem is it doesn't work for me because I have all those extra layers.

[00:46:13]So, it's not high enough. But if it was a foot higher, um I would be using that foot tent invention all all the time because it really is it's really something. Bet I could bet I could figure out how to make one of my own.

[00:46:25]But time, right? So, I'm looking at this Mary Lions book called Stitching Stars, the story quilts of Harriet Powers. Her caption for this square. This is the devil. Okay. So, Harriet's playful looking uh Satan is like the devil in AfricanAmerican folk folktales.

[00:46:44]He is a trickster, a conjure man, not an evil spirit. When Harriet identified this picture as Satan amidst the seven stars, so that's what this block is, Satan amidst the seven stars, she repeats the S sound five times. Poets often use the same trick to catch the reader attention. Uh, enslaved people too. Repeated letter sounds when making up religious songs.

[00:47:11]And then there's a quote from a song.

[00:47:13]Wrestle with Satan and wrestle with sin stepped over heaven and come back again.

[00:47:20]So interesting. Let me just have a quick look because I feel like there was an image in this book of um what a uh folklorish.

[00:47:33]Oh, okay. Oh, I thought I found it. No, that's a different one. What a sort of um um Satan character would look like in u African um uh folklore storytelling.

[00:47:44]Right now, I thought there was one, but I can't find it now. Anyway, that's something to look up. So, we're looking at something that's more like a a trickster human character uh with like obviously the face is distorted like more like an animal. So, bit of a scary character, but of course, you know, the idea of Satan being red, right? Like fire uh in a red suit with like the the the tail and maybe like the cleft feet or whatever and the hooved feet or whatever. Um all of those are iterations of devil's stories from many cultures over time. This one is uniquely African-American, right? So, this is a little bit different. So, um, this refers to the story of Satan and the Seven Stars. And so, that's what this block is about. Let me see if she says anything else.

[00:48:31]Um, it's a lot of biography here. Let me just Google really fast for our benefit because even even with my upbringing, I don't know the story. What is the story of Satan and the Seven Stars?

[00:48:45]Let's see. So, um, the story of Satan is is a prominent motif in Christian theology and biblical literature primarily referencing the cosmic rebellion of Lucifer, Satan. The stars are symbolic representations of angels.

[00:49:00]Um, so the foundation for this narrative comes from Isaiah, which describes the fall of Lucifer, son of the Okay, so we know the story of the fall of Lucifer.

[00:49:09]So, son of the morning, overcome by pride, he desired to be equal to God.

[00:49:14]stating, "I will raise my throne above the stars of God." Early Christian tradition identified this uh fallen morning star as Satan. So, he's I guess he's holding the morning star in this image. Interesting, right? So, that makes a lot more sense to me. I forgot about u Lucifer being like a fallen angel. Um so, he's grabbed a hold of one of the stars after he's made this boastful claim that he will be higher than all of them. and um he's surrounded by them in Harriet's depiction. Really clever. I mean, when you when you think about it, she she's heard these stories, right?

[00:49:53]She's been told these stories. They are not reading these stories. She's been told these stories. She remembers the story. And over the course of I mean, she starts these quilts when she's what, like 49 or something. During the course of the first, you know, five decades of her life, she's heard this story. And in her imagination, she has locked in the fallen Lucifer, fallen angel story.

[00:50:16]She's locked it in to look like this. So that in itself, I think is interesting.

[00:50:21]That's what's interesting about all of these in my mind is that we are seeing what she imagined. She was not looking at pictures, right? So she the the entire graphic on all of these squares is what she pictured in her head from years of storytelling. And I think the point that Mary Lions makes at the beginning of this book is so beautiful that she heard these stories told so many times that these people were like family members to her, right? All of these biblical characters were like family members. So she considers this first quilt that she makes, the Bible stories quilt to be um like a family album, right? She's telling the stories of these people and they are dear to her and close to her and this is how she pictures them. Here is Adam and Eve and in they are still in paradise in this block. So Eve has conceived a beared son, right? Uh and that's in quotes. So uh probably the son is the one on the right. Um he is wearing pantaloons um and petting a chicken. Okay, so that is him. So the younger figure is slightly smaller, right? Has the same sort of costume as the Adam figure, but he is petting a chicken, right? That sort of playfulness that goes along with being a child, that that innate love for animals that most children are born with, right? So he's petting a chicken.

[00:51:45]The bird of paradise is in the lower right corner, right? So that's the peacock character. The bird's original green and red colors have faded to pink and brown. So that print, right, that's like a Civil War era print for sure.

[00:52:01]That print was green, probably green leaves, possibly a pink background. Um or possibly a brighter uh pink rose has faded to red and the green to brown. So, um, this is known to be made up of different colors. I wish I could see the original colors. In the book, I can see it a little bit better. And it does look like the flowers were bright bright pink. And the leaves do have a hint of green, like they look like olive green.

[00:52:33]So, um, so this one is called Adam and Eve are still in paradise, right? Um, there are other motifs. I see the X's and of course those are not crosses.

[00:52:45]Those are X's. Um I feel like Hold on. I read something else about X's um that had more to do with African-American Yes. Um the cross, right? When you're seeing crosses and X's um um in West Africa, the cross is a symbol for Lisa, who Lisa is the son god. So the crosses are not references to the crucifixion.

[00:53:12]They are references to um the af African sorry the West African sun god Lisa. Um so for example, let me show you this image real quick that in this is not um Are you good, Ted? Oh, he's going for the windmill cookies. Um that is not a Harriet Powers, but you see that the cross in this piece of art refers to Lisa, right? So when we see those crosses, right, even though they're crosses, we we're talking about a different meaning. So let's come back here. Let's get at least one more in and then we will look forward to Friday night because we have got the rest of them to do and the um other quilt as well. So let me see which one is this one. Um I've got them in the wrong order, of course, because I was frantically putting this together. A scene. Okay, so this is uh Garden of Eden.

[00:54:06]Adam and Eve are are naming the animals in the Garden of Eden. Eden, if you're wondering how do we know this, it's because um Harriet um told what all of these squares were and that has been passed down, right? She described the stories during her lifetime. She died in 19 No, she didn't die in 1960. What year did she die? I'm crossing wires. Hold on. Uh let me look it up. Um, I know this was in the last episode, but hold on. What year did Harriet Powers die?

[00:54:42]1910. Right. And honestly, that wasn't that long ago, was it? So, this is Adam and Eve, and they are there naming the animals in the Garden of Eden. So, get ready for this because this is one that is really confusing to me. We are seeing the X's again and we have to assume that that is a ref that is a West African reference um because they also don't look like a cru crucifix they look like a cross. So we have got three camels and two of them are in polka dot and one of them is solid brown. An elephant which is quite faded on the far left bottom right left corner bottom.

[00:55:20]an ostrich which is in white on the right hand sideways tucked under the salamander, a serpent or salamander which is the striped thing, right? That's a really prominent thing. And a sea monster. So the sea monster by default has got to be um the beetlejuice critter. Yeah, I mean um serpent. So that's kind of up for grabs. The word serpent is used. So I don't know that in Harriet's lifetime she would have made the distinction between like a reptile, you know. Um I think anything that slithered or even slithered with legs was probably fell under the category of serpent. Um because remember like no education, right? No, no, she's not being taught.

[00:56:09]Um so a lot of things would be called a serpent. Remember in the Bible story, the snake in the Garden of Eden is called um just generally a serpent, right? Okay, we we're not saying snake, we're saying serpent. So um this creature too looks like a lizard or something, but um or salamander. But um yeah, the the odd man out is that beige colored thing. And we don't know that that's the original color with that kind of crab lobster head. Like it's almost like a weird fish with um a crabby face.

[00:56:44]So, um I think that that I think that has to be the sea serpent because you take away the three camels, the elephant, the ostrich, and the serpent, and the thing that's left is that thing that looks like a mannequin bodice with that red top. So, what was Harriet's um what was her experience with sea monsters? Um I guess it's probably comparable to the experience of any of us uh with sea serpents, which is like none, right?

[00:57:11]hopefully none. So, it it's a funny it's a a tricky motif. The particularly the sea serpent, I think this is a really really solid piece. I would be tempted if I did this piece to alter I mean I I'm not a super purist. I would be tempted to alter that one motif of the sea serpent and do something that was a bit more um fishy sci-fi with teeth kind of crazy just for clarity. But obviously with all of these, you do them however you want. You don't have to do them exactly the way that Harriet did them.

[00:57:47]And we'll talk more about that on Friday as well. I'm going to look at um these two pains and then I'm going to show you a preview to Friday night's show. And that will be at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Let me just check my calendar because it is summer after all. Uh Friday.

[00:58:06]Oh, shoot. I have something on the calendar. I'm going to see if I can shift it. Dang it. It just my this week is like insanity. Let's see how it goes.

[00:58:13]My plan is to come on on Friday, but let's we'll figure it out. Um, okay. So, Harriet uh said of the panel on the left, right? And again, Harriet said the one on the left, Cain is killing his brother Abel, "A dribble of red is the stream of blood which flew over the earth." in quotes. The shepherd Abel and his sheep are made from the same cloth.

[00:58:37]Sheep were always important animals in uh slave spirituals because they signified great wisdom. So those are sheep that you're seeing there. His poor flock, right? Oh, the old sheep uh done know the road. The young lambs must find a way. That's a quote. So yeah, I mean this this is one of the most um I think successful we are we are still seeing the stars right which is putting the storytelling in this on this mythic plane right it's not of the earth she's making no attempt to give us a horizon line just like Magdalena Bryer Eie right like no attempt things are in the air she's just using that flat surface as a blank canvas to do the storytelling right there is no perspective there is no vanishing point. There is no horizon line. The story happens in our imagination. It does not happen on the ground. So, we're seeing Cain up there with some kind of a stabby utensil and the tip of it is red and I think and so he has successfully um um knocked down Abel and Abel is lying on the ground, right? And the volume of this, I mean, this is just brilliant. And sorry to be um gross early in the morning, but the volume of blood that's coming out of him um is is in a weird way beautiful because what it's doing is it's coming out the red line quite thick. And again, sorry about this if you're squeamish, but in the story, the stream of red does uh fly around the world, like wrap around the world. So, it's got to go in different directions. And the fact that she was able to do this with this tiny strip of red material is kind of amazing, right? Kind of amazing. It's like the dab of blood on the needle, the blood that's coming out and it's about to make its way very actively telling the story is remarkable. You notice here too that at the moment of his death uh Abel is is is like sainted, right? He is becoming an angel because now he wears the halo of the angels. The stars represent the angels and now you see around his head, he doesn't have a normal normal human head. He's got a halo head. That crown that looks like a crown of thorns, it's not. It's the rays that are around a star, right? So that has like a halo angel connotation. So he is definitely dead because he has now got that um halo around his head and his sheep right look very lost. They are standing there very clumsy um thinking of what to do next. It's just a beautiful example of storytelling. On the right uh here Cain has gone to the land of Nod to get a wife. Harriet filled this picture with two bears. An elephant. Okay, let's look for the two bears. Yeah, the two bears are in black.

[01:01:38]An elephant. We see him down below, the brown bottom left. A kangaroo hog.

[01:01:44]That's in quotes. Um, so maybe that's a male kangaroo and that's in polka dot.

[01:01:49]And you see that little bit of polka dot dot in the frame of this one, too.

[01:01:54]A leopard. Oh, no. I'm wrong. I'm wrong.

[01:01:56]That's not the kangaroo. So, the kangaroo. The That's the leopard with the spots.

[01:02:01]So, what we have left over is a kangaroo hog and an elk. I'm thinking the kangaroo the kangaroo hog is um orange and the um elk is blue. So, what's that creature down at the bottom? Oh no, the lion has got to be orange.

[01:02:23]Gosh, I'm confused. We've got two bears, an elephant, a lion, kangaroo, kangaroo, hog, and leopard and elk. Gosh, that's a tough one. What do you all think that that blue thing is at the bottom? It looks like a platypus or something. You know what I mean? With the flat bottom.

[01:02:40]Um, the enslaved women had such great respect for the lion that they often included him in their folktales and hymns. He reminded them of the courage required to run away from their slaveholder as in the verse from run to Jesus shun the danger. So interesting interesting and dangerous territory too, right? Um that's really interesting. I'm going to have to look at that later because I can't I can't figure out what the division of the animals is with this one.

[01:03:11]Very strange. Um and Diane says has matis refined. It has a matis refined quality. Very efficient. It is. There is a massive economy of lines happening in all of these blocks. And that is what she is known for, isn't she? I mean, that is what folk art is, right? Is an economy of of lines. So, God, we have so much more to do, but I really have to get to work. I'm just going to fast forward. It might be that we we continue this again next week as well. I just want to forward to um something that Susan sent me this morning. Huge thank you, Susan. Um, wait a minute. Don't look. Nope. Oh, no. No. No. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Uh.

[01:03:50]No. Okay. Close your eyes. Sorry. No.

[01:03:53]No. No. No. No. No. Hang on. Danu. Danu.

[01:03:57]Okay. Got it. Um, that's for later. So, Susan said, Susan went sent me a great thing this morning.

[01:04:05]Um, I don't know if anybody's heard of the artist Grandma Donaldson. Her full name is Kate Clayton Donaldson. She's a really her her forms are very similar to Harriet Powers. Um uh Kate Clayton comes a little Grandma Donaldson comes a little bit later, right? Her life starts in the 1860. She's born I forget what the date is sometime in the 1860s, but she dies in 1960, right? At almost like a 100. So, um she is a similar artist.

[01:04:35]We're going to look at her work a little bit on Friday as well. This is a Granny Donaldson piece and what she did is mostly crochet or knit and then apply it to a fabric background. So, we are looking at applique. We are looking at textile applique when we look at Granny Donaldson. Um, and we're going to be looking at her work on I did that one Friday a little bit. And the reason is color because if you're looking to do some of the and and just to note the um Granny Donaldson images are even though they look very old they are not out of copyright. Remember she died in 18 she died in 1960 plus 70 for current copyright law in most countries plus 70. So that 70 8 9 10 11 12 13. So in 2040 um her most of her work should be available unless copyright changes before then. If it gets bumped to 100 then it's going to be 30 more years right but at the moment it's 70. So these uh her work as images for pattern ideas will not be available for a long time. So um this is a no no.

[01:05:45]But we can look at Granny Donaldson for color because you can see that the imagery, particularly with the non-biblical scenes, is quite similar to that of Harriet Powers. Um, but the color palette is very different. A little bit more spicy, a little bit more pastel. Um, right, she's doing a lot of the work at the at the end of her life.

[01:06:05]So, um, you know, we're looking at the early 20th century, the depression era.

[01:06:09]We're looking at a lot of pastel colors.

[01:06:11]Um, she's got a very different color palette and I thought it would be fun to include a conversation about her at the end of the next episode so that you know some of you just like with the cast castle carpet will want to hook these uh Harriet Power squares very literally, right? And that's maybe how it pleases you. That's the way you feel they should be. That's the way you want to see them.

[01:06:34]That's the way you want to frame them.

[01:06:35]Um, but others might want to do something completely different. So, color-wise, pattern-wise, technique-wise, right? You might want to do some of it in quilt, some of it in hooking. Um, all of that is going to be up to you. And I'm going to want to I'm going to want to use them regardless.

[01:06:51]But I think I will want to build the thing as a hooked rug thing. So, I think um the ones with more rug hooking elements, even if it's not all rug hooked, um will be the most likely to go into the shows when this thing travels, hopefully next year. So, um, stuff to think about for now. Just just an entry into Harriet P's world. Uh, and I will be back with you. I'm going to have to check my calendar because I have a um concert scheduled on that night, which is like a tough one. But then on Sunday, we're not here because we're in New York. Um, let me see how it goes. Summer is so hard, but let me see if I can figure it out. Um, I wonder if Saturday night is an option. Let me look at Saturday just in case. Um, just looking at my calendar really quickly.

[01:07:38]Yeah, Saturday night is an option. I might let Let me see how it goes. Let me see if I can move my Friday night thing because I think I have tickets, but the theater is um really flexible. I'm going to see if I can move and stay on Friday.

[01:07:51]I'll let you know whether we're going to go Friday or Saturday with uh Harriet Powers. And we might not finish because we do need to look at her um Bible quilt. And then we want to look at her daily life quilt that talks about meteor showers and the dark day and all of these weather and um mostly weather uh anomalies like things that happened really in history that were so frightening to people who didn't understand what was going what was going on uh right through the 19th century.

[01:08:20]Right? There were many days that were uh that seemed like a sign, right? That things things were not going well or that the world was about to end. a lot of those kinds of things happened and now we would say well that was an eclipse or that was that or whatever but um at the time right there were a lot of days that stood out in history as being really frightening and Harriet covers at least two or three of these in her second quilt so we'll want to do that we'll want to look a little bit more at her life and the answer to Susan's question when she was working was she an enslaved person can't imagine she was in 1889 my god uh people were like um you know fighting starting to fight for the to for women to vote. I mean, in most places it wouldn't happen anytime soon, but we are really I was going to say evolved, but then I look at the news and I think are we um Oh, Cardinal's out there. If you hear that those tweets, that's Cardinal.

[01:09:12]Oh, Cardinal, are you coming? I wonder if Cardinal's going to come. I wonder if I can show you him, please.

[01:09:19]Can you see him out there? He's on the corner of the porch. I think you can see him.

[01:09:26]He's making all those cute little noises.

[01:09:29]Anyway, I will be back with you this weekend and I will let you know when.

[01:09:32]And in the meantime, be looking at ribbon. Oh, one of the um I think that's a finch um is there. That's going to be upsetting for Cardinal. I think he's trying to make his way to the bird. We have our bird stuff very high, just so you know. It's not down there for all you can eat buffet for the bears. Um it's up high on these um suction cup things that are really, really strong.

[01:09:52]So, it's not going to fall and attract bears. We know. We know um if you're making your way over to Ribbon Candy Hooking to get some of these patterns, fantastic and thank you. They're available on any backing or as PDF if you're further away and you want to transfer them yourselves. But I hope that doing this um episode and the ones that I'm about to do, at least one more, if not two, helps you with choosing colors, making decision, choosing which ones you want to do. If you're doing more than one, fantastic. I know some of you will do all. I know because Jessica, I look at I look at the work you do and and you usually do so many of something just to get a real feel for and often put many together. In fact, Shannon ordered a whole bunch uh all on the same piece of material. So, I'll be like putting those together in one piece so it can be made as one piece. So, if you want to put requests in like that for backing and say, Diana, I'm getting four of them. Can you put them all on one piece so that they're connected? Just let me know. just write that in the notes because I do read the notes and I'll be able to do that for you so you have it the way you want it. Think about how you plan to display your uh Harriet Power squares in the future or if you're going to donate them somewhere. Be nice to do several and have them on something even like two or three across right hangs nice over a door and like a museum or something like that. You know what I mean? All right, I will let you know uh what day the next show will be. I'm going to figure that out right now. But um yeah, and I will see you next time at Ribbon Candy Hooking. Take care everybody.