Coffee Time/Afternoon Conclusion to Harriet Powers series

[00:00:02]Good morning and welcome back to Ribbon Candy Hooking. I'm Diana. I'm just looking to see if your Zoom with Kirsten this morning has ended. I know some people are coming off of that and coming straight to me. So, I am here for you, but I know there will be a moment of transition while people make that jump.

[00:00:22]In the meantime, I will say welcome back and it is great to see you here at Ribbon Candy Hooking. Um I'm just looking to be sure that some people are jumping on and that I'm not jumping the gun. Um every Tuesday and Thursday Kirsten does a Zoom event that is associated with Ribbon Candy Hooking where she hosts a Zoom group.

[00:00:46]And so, a lot of people, if you're new to the brand, a lot of people come and visit with her on Tuesdays and or Thursdays. So, um I know by doing a show on a Tuesday that I run the risk of butting up against that. There we go.

[00:01:00]Linda's here. Um Linda, I think you were probably on the Zoom call. So, you made your way over. Good afternoon in New Jersey. Great to see you. Okay, I can see there's people logging in now. Sorry to come a little bit too close. Maybe I should have staggered in between there.

[00:01:14]I certainly hope I didn't rush at anything exciting that was going on on the Zoom call. Great. I will give it I will give it a second to see that everybody um everybody comes on over and I will remind you that today we are concluding I think we are concluding our conversation about um the eternally great, forever revered quilt fiber artist uh called Harriet Powers.

[00:01:39]Um okay, here comes here comes Teddy right at the beginning. Hey buddy, I'm doing a show. You coming to say hi? He's coming to say hi.

[00:01:46]>> I'll stop you there.

[00:01:47]>> Okay, you can get a soda. Don't knock Here we go. There we go.

[00:01:50]Um come and say hi and then and then don't knock over the cords.

[00:01:54]>> No problem.

[00:01:55]>> And he is he is just waking up. It is summertime. Well, you did do your duck and get on camera, baby.

[00:02:02]>> Oh.

[00:02:02]>> There he is. There he goes. You just did your call with your counselor and you are ready for some fun, right?

[00:02:09]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:02:09]>> Yeah, do it. Hey, you can just go this way. Just don't don't pull the computer. Yeah, don't pull the computer out of the socket. I don't know what's on my mind.

[00:02:17]Okay, Sharon, great to see you. Dave, great to see you. Ice coffee for a very hot day in Toronto. Linda is there. I see some other buddies are on. There we go, Susan, great to see you. Good morning. Hello to Teddy. He'll see it on his way back through. Isn't it funny how I start a show and he immediately needs a soda or an ice cream from the garage.

[00:02:37]Amazing. I'm in the breeze I'm in the breezeway, that's why.

[00:02:41]All right, baby, have a great morning.

[00:02:43]>> Have a good day.

[00:02:44]>> So, today we will I love you, too. Today we will conclude our conversation about Thought he was locked out for a minute there. about Harriet Powers because for the last I think two episodes, including Friday night's gallery night, it was a Friday night, yes, it was.

[00:03:03]We talked about Harriet. We were talking about her life story. Which is so eloquently written and explained in sort of cultural context in this I don't want to say it's children's book cuz it's it's definitely not a children's book. I would say it's more of a young adult book by Mary Lyons about her about Harriet Powers' life and it's called Stitching Stars. And as you can see, this is something that I got from a library. So, it had once belonged to a library. It is out of print, but it is possible to find it. So, something to think about because if you've watched the last two episodes, I think last Monday and Friday, you already know that um Sorry, I'm just distracted cuz I'm looking at the library plate and I'm thinking I hope that there was a card here and people took it out cuz if this is the card and no one took it out, everybody's lost, right? Because this really is a great book, and this is a very complete biography of someone who was an enslaved person, and her history was not recorded for many, many years.

[00:04:05]We know a few things about her, um like we know from Friday's episode that at a certain point, she entered her artwork, her quilt, her first quilt, the Bible quilt, into um the Cotton States Exposition. Remember that from Friday?

[00:04:21]And um she was so, so, so, super proud to um to see it hanging there. And of course, it caught the attention of a young woman, a young school teacher named uh Jenny Smith, who years later ended up buying it. Jenny didn't have the the right amount of money. She had to save up for it. Um Harriet at first did not want to sell it, and then times were rough, so she ended up selling it. And Jenny allowed her to come and uh visit it whenever she wanted. Jenny also recorded the things that Harriet said about that first quilt, the Bible quilt.

[00:04:53]And the reason that we know anything about these blocks, or about the story behind them, or about Harriet in general, is because Jenny recorded it. So, the sad part is Harriet parted with this quilt that, you know, she regarded as a as a family member. And um Judy, great to see you.

[00:05:13]And um that's the sad part, but the good part is that because Jenny owned it at that point, she was also able to record Harriet's history and her personal stories, her thoughts, her opinions, in her own words. Um and she was probably she probably also did not use it as a quilt. I'm guessing she displayed it as a piece of art. And uh for that reason, it's in very good shape. It It no longer is that bright watermelon color that all of it all of the squares were in the background. That's the first quilt. But um it is in remarkably good shape. And it, you know, it wasn't used for its whole life. So, that makes it quite a big deal, doesn't it?

[00:05:51]So, I want to pick up where we left off, and I'll do business and news at the end of the episode while everyone's logging on. I will try to hold your attention with um some interesting bits and pieces. I think we left off on Let me just check our slides from the show.

[00:06:06]Yeah, we left off on this image, which is a block called Adam and Eve in the garden. Eve was tempted by the serpent, Adam's rib by which Eve was made. So, that's that big white thing to the right of Adam's hand below um the sun and moon, God's all-seeing eye, and God's merciful hand.

[00:06:26]The hand, eye, sun, and moon in Harriet's picture are similar to figures in an African story. So, we know already from previous episodes that she borrowed a lot from her African heritage, and you probably also remember that she was born into slavery. So, Harriet was born into slavery, but of course she lived with all of these stories of West Africa, where her family was actually from.

[00:06:50]Um and it's interesting that in so many pieces, including this one of Adam and Eve, that she includes God's merciful hand. This is not the first time we see God's merciful hand. I think it is remarkable that um she is even able to say the words God's merciful hand uh considering that she was born into slavery and, you know, her family was captured and and dragged from their homes and lives uh to be put to work endlessly. So, um it's remarkable that she even had that sentiment within her. Uh remember that one of her great heroes is Job, right? And all of the trials of of Job. And um she could easily relate to Job and his life and that whole concept of endlessly feeling endlessly forgiven.

[00:07:39]Uh being able to forgive people for the most extraordinary injustices.

[00:07:45]Mandy, great to see you, my friend in Nova Scotia. Great to see you.

[00:07:51]So, I'm going to move on to this next slide.

[00:07:55]And I will do just a synopsis in case anyone is joining us or joining us later. Um again, we are looking at a book by Mary Lyons on the life of Harriet Powers. And the reason that we're doing this And did you see today's thumbnail was a little bit different? I tried to use I used uh the one we just looked at, Adam and Eve in the garden, still in the garden with the serpent. And I did a I did a watermelon colored background for that, just so you could see what that might look like. And of course, you don't have to do yours with watermelon colored backgrounds um just because Harriet's originally were. That was the cloth she had, and she liked things to be bright.

[00:08:30]Um you do your squares however you want.

[00:08:32]By your squares, I mean that there are a collection of I think 23 of Harriet's, the complete set of Harriet's squares from both of her quilts, the Bible quilt and the second quilt, which is the story quilt that we're talking about now, that still includes some squares from the Bible, like some storytelling from the Bible.

[00:08:50]So, Harriet made two quilts in her lifetime, and they were like family members to her. They were like scrapbooks to her. And as I just touched on, she sold the first one to a young teacher called Jenny Smith, and that was the Bible quilt. And she did not want to, but her husband Armstead um required that she did, because they really needed the money. So, she sold it for half of what she was reluctant to sell it for. So, that must have been an awful day and an awful time for her. And as a result, um Jenny ended up offering her, and we don't know the details of whether this ever happened or if it happened all the time. Jenny said that she would give her lots of clothing scraps, of her own clothing, and things that she came across, so that she could make another quilt. And Harriet does make another quilt. It's the story quilt that we're looking at today. But because she'd already lost the Bible quilt because she'd sold it unhappily sold it, she repeated some of the motifs in the Bible quilt, but the squares are not the same. So we do see two of them Noah's Ark motif and we do see two of the Garden of Eden motif. We see two of the baptism motif and there might be others that haven't clicked with me yet, but they are nothing alike. And I noticed that a couple people took like both like the two Noah's Ark one, the two animals ones like as a pair. And I think that's interesting to you know, cuz you're kind of sticking with the theme at that point. But at the brand Ribbon Candy Hooking, a lot of people are downloading or buying these squares on backing that I have done drawings for.

[00:10:28]Like I've tried to interpret them according to you know, I've changed a few lines here and there so things make sense. Like make literal sense and look sort of like an elephant or sort of like a pig a little bit a tiny bit right not overstepping but a tiny bit and I've spaced things a little I've made a few small changes that for us as rug hookers, right? Even if you're working with the fine cut, you might need a little more room than a needle and thread would need, right? To make transitions and things like that.

[00:10:57]So So I have redrawn all of the squares in a way that I think would work best for us and ensure your success as a rug hooker doing these pieces in our medium.

[00:11:07]So those are all available right now at Ribbon Candy Hooking. And and a lot of people have started working on those. We'll be working on this challenge all through this year and early next year. And I will be actively looking around and writing to places where we might be able to display this exhibit once it's all done. So you have well over a year. Well, you maybe not well over a year, maybe about a year to work on these before I want to start displaying them in 2026.

[00:11:34]So, that is the backstory to this if you're watching for the first time. So, we are looking at some of Harriet's squares from her second quilt, the story quilt. So, let's with that in mind, let's come back to this square, which is another one of the Noah and the animals squares. So, in this one Harriet repeats the story of Noah and the animals that survived the flood by going aboard the ark two by two.

[00:11:59]Repetition is important in both African and African-American music as seen in this religious song. I'm looking at the book by Mary Lyons right now. The song lyric goes like this, "Will run and never tire. Will run and never tire.

[00:12:14]Will run and never tire. Jesus sets poor sinners free."

[00:12:19]So, we were talking on Fridays well about spirituals because Harriet got her inspiration both from Bible stories and I don't mean reading it, I mean storytelling, right?

[00:12:29]Telling and retelling the stories from the Bible, but also those stories were brought into song in the form of spirituals that African-American people would sing, right? As a religious experience, as part of a church experience, on their own to pass the time, at quilting bees, right? Everybody knew these songs. So, let me see if there is anything about this particular one.

[00:12:58]I don't think there's anything more about this particular one, at least as written in Mary Lyons book. So, let's look at it together and see um what do we think? What do we think we've got here? It it looks like we might I I I want to say it looks like we have two giraffes because they're spotted, but of course the reason that they're spotted is because they have polka dot Civil War era material, right? That they are made out of. So, they're made out of a Swiss dot. Um Oh, Diane, great to see you.

[00:13:32]Uh too warm for you in Illinois. I'm a whiner, but I know but I want the snow.

[00:13:36]I know how you're feeling. Oh my god, I know how you're feeling. We were in New York City this weekend. It was such a busy time. I'll just pause for a second to visit. Uh it was such a busy weekend because on um on Sunday um I did the sermon at church. I did the church service. I'm often part of the church services in our church and I did the I did the service this week and many of you I think watched it. Thanks for watching. I hope it was fun and inspiring. And um so, I did that and of course as much as much as I love it and I love it so much. I love doing the services so much. After the serv- I mean, it's exhausting to do and I sang and there was a lot of music and there was a lot of poetry. And the sermon was a bit um exha- exhausting and emotional for me.

[00:14:20]And but it was great. It was great to do it. It felt great. And then we kind of stand in our receiving line.

[00:14:26]And um I so, I stood there with my buddy Carl who was the WA, that's the worship associate. And um and people kind of come through because some people want to get a hug and give a hug and say, "I really enjoyed that." or whatever. And so many I mean, I always do when it's someone else giving the sermon. And um and and so many people came through who were still crying and saying, uh "Oh my god." Like one woman said, "Oh my god, my daughter just lost her job and I wish that she was here because everything you said spoke to that and made sense and I wish she was here in person because if she could have, you know, felt felt the sentiment and the vibe here. I mean, she can watch the recording.

[00:15:06]Um and you can all watch the recording, of course, but it'll it'll be there for like a month. But she said, "I so wish that you would was here. It would have made a big difference to like the the place she's in right now with you know, being being in this sort of in between miserable space."

[00:15:21]And other people came through. There's a lot of like emotion and tears and a lot of people came through and said if I felt like you were speaking only to me, right? Like that song like Killing Me Softly, right? Like the singer's like singing and the person is sitting there shrinking feeling like the singer is calling her out on her life and her embarrassments and the relationship and so a lot of people had that feeling but not not in the a negative way like that in sort of a good way. And so I thought, wow, you know, you know it's a good you know it's a good service when people feel like you were only talking to them. And for so many people to feel like that meant it was a great service. So I was very very pleased. But man, when I left we I stayed for a couple hours afterward and the whole family was with me. And and I was tired, right? It's just tiring. I needed to like reset. But we had to immediately drive into New York City because I had tickets for a sort of YouTube live show thing. These sort of young young people on YouTube, right?

[00:16:19]I'm not I'm not one of those young people on YouTube. But they're like, you know, teens and stuff who make these shows and the kids go crazy for them.

[00:16:25]And so I had bought tickets to this live event, first live event that they've done. And so I drove into Times Square and parked the car and and checked into the hotel and dropped our stuff in the hotel room and did something with mouthwash and then ran back out on the subway and brought them to Washington Square where this thing was taking place.

[00:16:44]And dropped them off and then went and sat with my husband for a while and and had a couple of drinks which was really nice.

[00:16:50]But man, it was hot in the city and we were sitting there, we were at a the cellar of a pub, pretty old pub called the Peculiar. It was just as cute as it could be. And it was dark and dim but it felt like it was like 120° down there in the basement level.

[00:17:06]And I said to him, you know, I last time we were in New York cuz we normally go in December for Teddy's birthday. Last time we were in New York, I remember thinking, I am so cold with my winter coat, with my scarf, with my gloves, with with tights on under my jeans. Um I am so cold. I feel like I will never be comfortable again.

[00:17:26]Remember that feeling? I will never What does it even feel like to be comfortable, right? When you're cold?

[00:17:33]And then you get to the you know, to the to the opposite side of the year and it is so hot. You're like you're you I'm literally sitting there putting ice down my shirt and down my back and thinking I'll never be relieved. I will never be comfortable again. It's just the way it is, isn't it? It's so funny.

[00:17:50]Uh it's so funny. It it it doesn't help to think about the opposite when you're there. You just just feel like you're going to just expire, you know? So I'm with you there. I I know exactly what you mean. It is it's it is warm.

[00:18:05]It feels a little better here today, though. Thank goodness. So I think we've got I think we've got in this one two possibly two giraffes. I think certainly two elephants.

[00:18:16]Um there's two other animals in the middle.

[00:18:19]I mean their heads look like kangaroos, but truly all of the heads look like kangaroos, don't they? What do you all think for the two middle ones? And And notice that there is one that is completely The material the fabric has completely blanched on the left. So no color present in that one, but we know it once was a colorful one or even a printed one.

[00:18:40]Um I would say the middle ones are maybe deer or something like that. Possibly.

[00:18:45]They don't have s- fine skinny legs, but really none of her animals do. They're all rather clunky.

[00:18:51]Um and then down at the bottom I don't know. What do you think? Horses, lions? Very hard to tell. That's the thing, you know, Jenny said in many cases she recorded Harriet's actual words. But remember as we said on Friday that Harriet would have been speaking in a sort of dialect and with I would I would assume heavily accented.

[00:19:17]And Jenny was a school teacher and lived in a completely different community and I'm sure her voice sounded very different. So I would I would fully assume that Jenny struggled with understanding and the cadence of Harriet's voice, which I wish that we could hear.

[00:19:35]And also Harriet's expressions, right?

[00:19:38]Her language and expressions would have been very very very different.

[00:19:43]So with that in mind, she did not Jenny did not capture everything. She captured as much as she could. I'm sure they were both very polite people sitting next to each other in fair degree of awkwardness and Jenny captured as much as she could. So this is one of the blocks that we don't seem to have commentary for. So pick it well we'll have to look at past blocks that we've looked at on this show. If Harriet has created a similar character, let me look back in the book and see if I can see something that looks like any of those characters because that would be a clue that she's in her mind that's what the thing looks like. Now remember Harriet hasn't seen most of these animals ever. I'm looking back at the last one No I actually it's the one where after Cain has killed Abel and he's going to the land of Nod. And Harriet has two bears, an elephant. Okay, the elephant is clear.

[00:20:42]Kangaroo hog.

[00:20:44]What did we say the kangaroo hog was?

[00:20:47]A leopard and an elk.

[00:20:50]So the bottom ones might be elk again.

[00:20:54]Thinking of what animals she would have seen in Georgia as well. And remember how Harriet herself said that when she was going to the cotton exposition that she hoped Jenny recorded this that she that Harriet said she hoped that while she was standing around outside that she would be lucky enough to see the animals going into the circus tent.

[00:21:19]So, we can assume that she wasn't allowed to go into the circus tent, right? Because the um building that was for crafts and things like that, there was uh there was later a building that was for African-Americans only. And before that was built, I don't know, and she doesn't comment on whether or not she was allowed to go into buildings. But, one would assume because she hung her piece that she was allowed to go into the building that held the craft offerings and the farm offerings.

[00:21:49]Right? So, that would make sense. But, the fact that she was hoping to sort of be loitering outside and catch sight of the animals is interesting because she loves animals. She uses animals a lot, but she doesn't really know what animals look like. Right? Isn't that interesting?

[00:22:06]Um camels, yeah, they definitely might be camels. Um Yeah, the two middle ones could definitely be camels without a doubt.

[00:22:15]They do have that hump on the back, so that is a good thought because it that hump on the back is different than it's not super exaggerated, but it is different than the other animals.

[00:22:27]Interesting.

[00:22:29]Yeah, and that makes sense in a Bible context, too, because she knows animals from the Bible.

[00:22:34]Um I don't know if any of you saw that I mean, I I'm not recommending this movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I went to see it at the Wellfleet Drive-In um when we went on our summer vacation at the end of May, early June, the kids wanted to see this movie called Backrooms. And um this relates to this conversation on Harriet Powers. Um I I I'm not recommending it because it was like my least favorite movie I've ever seen, but the kids love it. And and I do get that there's some interesting abstract ideas going on in there, but it was very For me, it was very dark and um it's thought-provoking. It was very thought-provoking, but there was absolutely no joy in it or or storytelling, right? It's very, very abstract movie. And the premise is that there is this sort of parallel universe that is called the backrooms, that is an exact mirror to our world, not like Stranger Things, not like the upside down. This is like a disordered place that runs parallel that is rather sinister.

[00:23:36]And I don't mean that it's like horror, horror, like people people are actively hunting you. There's an element of that, but that's not the main theme. The main theme is that the takeaway seems to be that like the universe or you fill in your word, right? Has created this alternate version of itself in the same way, this is like this is advanced, that a computer would. So, in other words, you know how people are now saying of AI, I mean, I'm a personally not a huge fan of AI unless it's being used for uh science and math and and you useful things, searches, right?

[00:24:10]Searches, but not art, not creative stuff, not uh stealing other people's music or or visual art. But, you know how people are now saying that AI will It's like that that creature that eats its own tail. I always forget that Greek creature's name, begins with a C.

[00:24:26]That AI works like that because AI pulls from existing uh music, images, and and it and and text, right? So, it pull It already pull It pulls from what's already there. So, in other words, if I if I was on a cooking show, and you said to me, "Here's a plate. Here are these things."

[00:24:45]And again, this will tie to Harriet in just a second.

[00:24:48]These These are the things that you can cook your dish with. Cook your dish with these things. So, I cook it I make a salad with those things, right? And and I'm AI, right? I take them, I make a salad. So, I take what things that I already have, elements of what I already have, and I make them into a salad. And then someone else asks me asks me for a salad, and I am still AI. I'm going to take that salad and turn it into another salad and into another salad and into another salad. So, I'm going to keep taking the same ingredients, but for every generation or evolution or iteration of what I just did, for every one of those, it becomes a little distorted, right? At first not noticeably, and later not noticeably, and later later. But a thousand I do that a thousand times, I do that a million times, it's starting to become distorted, right? And this is where the idea, in layman's terms, of what a computer glitch is. So, what this movie is getting at is that the universe becomes the universe is the wrong word, but this space becomes the physical space becomes so intelligent that it tries to emulate or copy what is known, but they the it will show you people, and it looks like a person, but there are some notable, frightening, I would say horrifying changes, Dali-esque, Picasso-esque.

[00:26:14]Bit hardcore for me, though.

[00:26:16]Changes to what a human person or a human body or a human face looks like, and that is because this thing is in intelligent, computer-wise, but has never seen a person. Do you know what I mean? So, when you see characters in this movie, The Backrooms, it is scary as all hell because they sort of look like people, but they don't look like people. And the idea is it has been so many iterations of a remembered idea or a an artificial idea of what a person looks like, that a person stops looking like a person, if you see what I mean.

[00:26:52]And that's why AI is destined, at least visually, um to fail because it keeps pulling from itself, right? And it becomes very quickly uh very inbred, right? And And we know what happens with inbreeding. It doesn't work, right? You need that human element in everything, particularly the arts. So, with Harriet's work, there is an element of this because she I'm sure does not know what most of the animals She's never seen what most of the animals she's creating in Quilt Blocks look like. She probably knows what they look like because someone described one to her.

[00:27:29]Now, did the person who described to her what an elephant or camel looks like see an elephant or camel?

[00:27:37]Or not? Or was it the person It's the 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, right? Or was it the person who How many people ago was it who described, telephone game, what an elephant looked like to the next person, to the next person, to the next person, to the next person? And then by the time we get to Harriet, maybe the part about the camel having really big bump, or even a sort of dromedary having two two bumps, maybe that part is already lost, right? And And that's the interesting part of her um visuals is they are confusing to look at, not because she's a bad bad artist, but because she didn't know what the animals look like. And we even have that from her own mouth, which is quite exciting, in her saying, "I really hope that I can see the the circus animals."

[00:28:23]And we don't know whether she did or not. I really hope that at some point in her life she got to see the circ- circus animals. And interestingly enough, right, back rooms back rooms talk, would she recognize the animal if she saw it? Right? If this is a camel and she saw a camel, do you think she would say to herself, "That That's a Oh, that's a camel." Or would she say, "What the hell is that?"

[00:28:47]Right? Like really.

[00:28:49]Uh it's interesting to think about. And that's why folk art is so great because folk art is naive and folk art is personal storytelling by someone who's not trained. So, is it impossible that someone at some point showed her a book with a picture or a drawing of an elephant? No, it's not impossible. It's possible, right? That someone was kind and showed her a book with a drawing.

[00:29:12]It's possible.

[00:29:13]But then who did the drawing? And was the drawing accurate? Right? All of these All of these levels of possible inaccuracy lead to images that are not stylized images, right? She's not stylizing a camel if she's never seen a camel. She's basing the outline of a camel on what her idea of of what she's been told is. And that's very different than doing a stylized piece of work. If you want to do a stylized, you know, Andy Warhol-esque can of soup, you probably already know what the can of soup looks like. But if you've never seen a can can of soup and someone just says to you, "Well, it's metal and it has a pa- paper label that's half red and half white and it has some writing on it. It's like a circle, but it goes up and it's three-dimensional and it stops here." You'd be like, God knows what you would draw, right? And same thing for Harriet, particularly with animals. So, that's something to think about when you tackle these um blocks because, hey, you know, maybe you want to somehow in the conversation about um the way that she created, like her compositions, you might want to add something or take something away. You might want to add text. You might want to add her own words. There are many actual quotes from her in this book. You might want to add text to some of these pie- pieces to the composition part of it or in the borders or oroboros. Um I don't even know what those look like.

[00:30:42]Um feel like I did and now I don't.

[00:30:45]There's another one like that. Oh, the capybaras, right? Like I I just had to remind myself what capybaras look like cuz you can you can pet them for $300 a half hour at a place near us. And I was um I was half expecting Joss to say, "Can I go pet the capybaras?" And I was going to say, "That's a lot of money for petting it."

[00:31:02]But she doesn't she doesn't, thank god.

[00:31:04]Um but yeah, there's lots of animals of course from different places. Now, Harriet's reference point would be West Africa, although she was not born there.

[00:31:12]She was born into slavery. So, her parents may be saying, "These are the things that we have seen." Or people around her saying, "These are the things that we have seen." But she doesn't really know. And here comes another great example of um this very thing, right? So, take a look at Oh, Rochelle, it's great to see you, my friend.

[00:31:31]Welcome back. Great to see you. Hot and humid in Nebraska. Oh, man, I believe it.

[00:31:38]So, here's um Jonah, right? Jonah and the whale. Um so, Jonah is cast overboard of the ship and he is swallowed up by a whale. Now, there's a there's a few things going on here that I think are interesting. Like let's stick with this specific conversation and say, um I'm wondering whether Harriet was not brought over on a boat, right? Again, she was born into slavery.

[00:32:01]So, what does the boat what does a boat look like? Does she know what a boat looks like? Do we know that she knows what a boat looks like?

[00:32:10]We we don't know that she knows what a boat looks like, right? Where she where she is positioned, we don't know.

[00:32:16]Um at least a big boat, right? Like rivers maybe I I'm I don't know.

[00:32:22]Does she know what a whale looks like?

[00:32:25]Based on Based on her her whale in this image, I would say no.

[00:32:30]Um she thinks it looks like a fish, but in in my mind, she's thinking of it as a fish that's like a serpent because it's a big fish and it's a scary fish. And she seems to be thinking of it Oh, Rita, great to see you.

[00:32:45]She seems to be Oh, an oroborus Oroborus is a is the snake. Oh, um that eat that eats its tail. Oh my god, of course it is. It doesn't begin with the C. Thank you so much. It didn't even ring a bell. How crazy am I, Diane? Didn't even ring a bell. See, it's really hard for me to remember that word and I don't know why because it repeats itself, like orobora boris with an S but the the or sound is twice, which should make it easy to remember because it repeats. It's a circular word. Yet, I can never remember. Thank you so much.

[00:33:18]Um judging from this whale, I think she thinks that a whale is a is a big scary fish that would be like a monster. So, uh so that in itself is a really interesting thought and a really interesting image because the drawing is very clear. It has a ring around its neck as well. Um and I don't know why she sees a separation um in sea animals from the neck to the body. These are turtles on the side of the whale. Now, clearly she has seen turtles, right? And how do we know that she has seen turtles? Well, look at how much she went out of her way to create that sort of crenellated edge silhouette on the turtles. She knows that they have a bumpy shell. She knows that. So, she My guess is that she has seen turtles.

[00:34:12]Definitely not a whale. So, interesting, isn't it? And also the proportion and of course this is folk art, right? And she wasn't thinking when she made it. Look at me making some folk art. I'll have absolutely no regard for proportions, right? A whale is only, you know, three times bigger than a turtle. It's not about that when it's folk art, but certainly um she didn't know how large a tur- a a turtle uh was versus a whale. So, those things in themself, I think, are very interesting elements when you're considering the composition. I mean, it is quite interesting.

[00:34:47]As usual, she omits a horizon line and and instead she just has a plain colored background. And the colors have faded, so we don't know what the original color for this one was. We just know it colorful um with the first quilt, the second quilt, we don't we don't have any um commentary from anyone saying that they had seen the blocks or they had a sense of the colors, the original colors. So, I'm sure that the um Museum of Folk Art New York would would know the answers to this. Maybe I'll try to reach them and and find out what I can about I don't know if they have this second quilt as well. I'll have to find that out. Does anybody know if the story quilt is with the Folk Art Museum as well as the Bible quilt?

[00:35:31]There is no horizon line in any of these. So, that's something that you can um use as is, or if you prefer a horizon line, you can drop in a horizon line.

[00:35:42]There's no reason why you shouldn't.

[00:35:43][snorts] So, that's entirely up to you. If you think about this as a composition with two stars in the sky and of course the stars are above the boat because she's trying to establish that the bottom of the boat is the horizon line because you understand where boats go. They float on the top of the water. So, the fact that Jonah is falling upside down, right, means that he is outside of the boat. He is in um the water and quite obligingly the whale's mouth is open just enough to accommodate Jonah's arm. So, I mean, she has got this jigsaw together in a masterful way. Uh it is just it is just uncanny how well she has put this thing together. The shapes of it, the very tenuous shapes of it. She just doesn't know what things look like and so she uses not stylization but representation. She is representing a boat by something that looks round on the bottom, right? And has a top that looks like a house or a tent. She is representing a whale by something that kind of looks like a snake head but also a fish body and there is a separation between the head and the body because in her mind there is a separation.

[00:36:56]Um and the things she showed best are the the human figure, the stars in the sky, and the turtles. And the turtles are are quite detailed. So, you can always drop in um a horizon line. You could also take a piece like this and literally take the drawn parts of it and and turn it sideways, right? Turn it diagonal so that the boat is cut off or the boat is diagonally in the corner and the horizon is in the corner so the water runs diagonally and maybe the whale is is dashing up to catch Jonah, right? Maybe you make it so Jonah is still half off the boat. You could fool around like cookie cutter pieces with all the elements of this and really do it your way.

[00:37:42]So, it's these these blocks are up for grabs, right? There's a lot to think about. Of course, you can do them exactly the way that they are if you love them the way that they are and you want to um sort of perpetuate the same storytelling, then you absolutely should. Ooh, I didn't realize I had this one. Let me check on this one. Hold on 1 second. Okay. Um ooh, this one This one does it does not have any um text. So, um I forget which one this is in our in in the Ribbon Candy Hooking Store but I think this is the first I'm sorry, the second Noah's Ark. Um because I'm seeing everything in two. So, this has got to be one of the Noah's ones. Um, this might be one that we did earlier on a past episode. I feel like it has to be.

[00:38:31]I'm just checking back in the book to see if that particular one was repeated.

[00:38:36]No, it wasn't repeated. Um, so there might be text about that by Mary Lyons early on in the book when we look at the first blocks. Uh, but where it is pictured at the selected sources, which functions as a bibliography, um, there is no text, but this has got to be a Noah block for sure with all of the animals in, um, in pairs.

[00:39:00]Really beautiful.

[00:39:01]And with this one, um, this has a different color background. So, let me just flash you really fast. Not flash you in that way. Let me flash you the whole quilt really fast so you can see, um, how different this one is is different and way more colorful than the first one. That again would have all sort of pink squares in the background.

[00:39:23]This has different colored squares in the background. Are all of the ones that are white, right, or neutral color, um, were they always that color?

[00:39:31]Probably not. Like, I would say definitely not, but that's the color that they have faded to and we can see the amount of color in this quilt.

[00:39:38]Extraordinary, isn't it?

[00:39:40]Um, just extraordinary. So, let me, um, oh, there is one more that I can look at with you and I wanted to do just a little bit more.

[00:39:50]And, oh, that's not the one. Um, this is this is one that I showed you on Friday. Let me show you this one. This is the only other one, um, that we haven't looked at that appears in Mary Lyons' book. And this is the obviously the crucifixion. And we see angels at the foot of the cross, right? This would be like Jesus' cross.

[00:40:13]Uh, between them is is a star, right?

[00:40:16]So, there is an element of heaven and earth. Right, sometimes we usually see sky elements like stars, the the sun and moon up in the sky, angels. But in this case, we are seeing angels at the foot of Jesus because uh of this is a situational choice, right? Because this is the crucifixion, right? They are it in aid in support of um of of of Jesus in the center. So, there they are. But symmetry again, she likes her symmetry with supporting characters.

[00:40:49]So, and of course there are three people who are crucified according to the story on this day, at least three, but it's usually the three that we hear about in the Bible stories um in the gospel stories. So, we are seeing angels at the foot of the cross with a star between them. And then we are seeing two possible stars at the top. And we know from past episodes that sometimes stars are not stars. We are seeing what seems like a balance of light and dark or good and bad in the top, right? These do not look like sunny stars. This looks like symbolism. So, without having that information from Harriet, I personally can't say for sure, but I would say that this is a conversation about good versus evil and light versus dark um in this moment.

[00:41:41]But I think that the crucifixion is handled very, very well. She does show us blood um sometimes, but not in this piece, right? This is a much more solemn piece. This is a very weighted piece.

[00:41:54]Uh the black figures at the bottom give a lot They're the angels give a lot of weight um to this piece. They are supporting the feet of Jesus, which is obviously symbolic.

[00:42:04]So, another gorgeous piece, one of the more religious pieces in the book. So, if religion is not your thing and you're thinking you're going to go for something more about the weather or the dark day or the day it rained meteors or the sky was on fire or one of these sort of weather stories as opposed to a Bible story." You know, um and if you're thinking, "I just want to go for the one that graphically appeals to me the most or has the most visual impact for me."

[00:42:28]then you should do that. You should do whatever whatever you think. Um speaking of color, before we close, I want to um I want to just look at another artist who I touched on the other day.

[00:42:44]And this artist is Kate Clayton Donaldson. Uh better known as Granny Donaldson. And Granny Donaldson's life was between um she was born in somewhere in the 1860s and I think she died in 1960.

[00:42:59]Uh it's easy for me to remember cuz that's when my that's when my house was built.

[00:43:03]Um Granny Donaldson is an extraordinary figure in folk art as well.

[00:43:09]Um another American Southerner who lived um whose life crossed with Harriet's but lived obviously a little bit later. And obviously she is a white woman and she's had a very different experience uh life experience.

[00:43:25]So, the thing about Granny Donaldson that I think is interesting to entertain if you are approaching the Harriet Powers quilt challenge and you are looking at these quilt blocks.

[00:43:39]You can go down the rabbit hole with Granny Donaldson. It's not limitless. Um and she did her pieces with appliqué um applying crocheted or knitted characters that she would make and then apply to a cloth background. And they are super colorful.

[00:44:02]Um but more than that, more than being super colorful, they have some other things in common with not just Harriet, but also obviously Magdalena Briner Eby.

[00:44:16]This idea of folk art and making what you know, right?

[00:44:22]Write what you know, make draw what you know, make what you Granny Donaldson with that was like a farmer, right? So, she knew her her yard, the farm, her immediate surroundings. Um she knew trees, and she knew animals, and um and she knew the people she loved and and who lived with her. And that's what she did. So, very much like um Magdalena Briner Eby in this regard, very much like Harriet in that we're we are talking about primitive art. We are talking about a a composition that does a fair bit of storytelling without use of a horizon line or perspective or uh proportion or any of those tools that fine artists would be using at the same time and and much earlier.

[00:45:08]Uh folk art is is is the backrooms. Folk art runs uh parallel to uh fine art and literal art forms of all kinds and never crosses.

[00:45:22]So, you know, if you want to listen to a piece of uh piano music and you think to yourself, "Oh, I'm in the I'm in a I'm in a miserable kind of a mood. I'd like to hear something that sounds like rain falling uh to really feed feed this mood." Then you would probably put on Chopin or something like that, right?

[00:45:40]Cuz that's what his music sounds like.

[00:45:43]Same thing with art. It works the same way with visual art, right? Um you want to capture what you see around you, and the difference between music or sculpture and even painting and fiber arts is that fiber artists are way more limited. Right? If you have the colors you need, then then you have no limitations and this conversation is moot.

[00:46:11]If you don't have the colors you need to use, then maybe you can dye the colors. Can you dye the colors? Maybe.

[00:46:19]You can't dye the colors, right? Then we are we are talking about you creating something with a further limitation, right? A further uh I I have fenced you in even more. So, now you are uh left feeling inspired to tell a story and the tools that you've got at hand are the stories you have in your head, which are probably the stories of your daily life and your immediate surroundings. And you are limited to what you have got um available to you in your in your 19th century stash, right?

[00:46:58]Or early 20th century stash in this case.

[00:47:01]And um if you're a painter, you could say, "Well, look at me. I've got a little bit of blue, but I've also got a little bit of brown left. What if I put those together? I would get a completely different color." You know, fiber artists, particularly folk fiber artists, aren't doing that. They are just working with what they've got. Uh it could be that a lot of Granny Donaldson's stuff could be dyed with tea, right? You're seeing a lot of kind of warm brown colors in here, not impossible. I don't know. But, she's an interesting person to look at in relation to Harriet Powers because she's doing something that is in insanely close, right? This is this is so similar that it's that it's uncanny kind of similar.

[00:47:41]And let me just see if I have another Granny Donaldson for you.

[00:47:45]Oh, no, that's the other quilt. So, let me keep this up. But, what Granny's doing is she's working in a completely different color palette.

[00:47:54]For the most part, the one on the left does have those spicy warm colors, but the one on the right is a real departure, isn't it? And we know she's working with colors she's got Judging from the colors she's using, I would say sh- that granny [snorts] is doing natural dying because I'm seeing indigo, I'm seeing red colors, I'm seeing tan colors, seeing shades of brownish yellow.

[00:48:15]These are all colors that that that I as far as I can see that could be achieved by doing na- natural dying. But not every folk artist or fiber artist has the ability or the time to do natural dying. These strike me as maybe not the background color for the one on the right. That's a very very very cool blue. That's probably something that she just sewed her motifs onto. But she would be knitting or crocheting them by hand, making little add-ons to them, and then laying them out like little paper clippings, right?

[00:48:49]There's a great picture of her. Let me see if I can find it. I don't think I put it Uh let me see if I can find it and show you real fast. I don't think I put it into um the slideshow. Granny Donaldson uh photo. Let me see if I can show it to you. It's so cool. Um she has Someone I have to assume is her husband sitting next to her. Yeah, this is this one.

[00:49:10]This is so cute.

[00:49:13]Yeah, look at this.

[00:49:16]See if it comes in focus.

[00:49:31]Come on, you stinker.

[00:49:37]It usually does, doesn't it?

[00:49:39]It's playing.

[00:49:40]It's playing with us. There we go.

[00:49:43]But you can see she's kind of bent down there. You can see her box of characters that she's already got ready. So she's sitting there and I assume that's her husband with her. And just his body language, right? Her body language, too, the way that she is kind of stooped over reminds me of my grandmother. She had My grandmother had such a like bump on her back, like a sort of I don't know if it's I was going to say I was going to say Quasimodo, but it was that kind of thing. She It was extreme with my grandmother, like extreme. I don't know if it was scoliosis or if it was just that all of her drawers were like on floor level. She bent over every day of her life a hundred times and pulled out these heavy drawers, and she was usually bending over if she was in the kitchen to do stuff. And of course she shrunk when she was older and her back was like a little little prawn. Um and and yeah, hard work, working working class people, right? And so Granny Donaldson has a little bit of that.

[00:50:36]She's a little bit stooped. She still very elegant posture, but she's a little bit stooped. And she's bent over. To me it's it's almost a painful position cuz I know this position. I know how my back hurts when I sit like this for a while.

[00:50:48]But she's probably feeling it, but she's still so preoccupied. It's such a priority for her to get these characters on her piece of fabric right that she's happy to sit like that. And her body language is interesting.

[00:51:03]And I think her husband's body language is interesting because he seems like he is an active participant, but also he is taking a passive role. Like he's actively He's actively participating in the conversation and he's in He's locked into the process, right? He's showing his appreciation and his love by being locked into the process. But um he doesn't seem to be directing it, right? He's got his hands uh folded into each other, right? Like he is allowing her to take the lead. But he's interested and he's supporting her with his love and his interest and his presence. And she's sitting there going through this box of what looked like hundreds of characters as she lays them out on one of her backings.

[00:51:47]She's just such a uh such a lovely woman. Here's another.

[00:51:52]You'll have to look her up online.

[00:51:54]Here's another one of her holding up one of her pieces. So, and and in a lot of them you see this one has the repeat of the vase of flowers. So, that's another thing that she knows. Not just flowers outside, not just trees outside, but vases of flowers.

[00:52:09]There's There's quite a few photos of her online. She does different things at different times. And some of her pieces, like this one, has a bit more green, sage green, different colors in it. Can a man wearing a hat at the bottom almost looks like Diego Rivera. Of course, it's not. And then again, like with Harriet, it's like guess the guess the animal or guess the plant. So, she's interesting to look at for for more for color reasons because her colors are quite different than Harriet. So, if you're looking to to do something that has still has a late 19th century, early 20th century vibe, but you want to do it more in these colors than Harriet's colors, that's possible and here's a great inspiration for you.

[00:52:53]If you're thinking, "Diana, why don't we do Granny Donaldson next?" Um we can do Granny Donaldson in about I think about 40 years.

[00:53:03]Um cuz she's not No, not 40 years. No, no, no, I'm thinking of someone else.

[00:53:07]Granny Donaldson died in um 1960 plus 70.

[00:53:15]So, in about 20 years we'll be able to do Granny Donaldson. She's not out of copyright yet because of the year of her death.

[00:53:24]So, yes, it's going to be a little while before we can do her. Of course, copyright law is constantly changing.

[00:53:30]So, it might be more, right? It might turn to 100 or 200 or 150 by the time we get closer. So, we can't do her images, but we can be inspired by her and she is someone else. Um What would Harriet do with a platypus? I know. Or some like any kind of um animal that it seems like science fiction, right? There's so many animals like that, like a crocodile, right? I You don't see crocodiles in her work. Um I've been to Georgia many times, but I can't say I've seen a crocodile. I think that of that is a Florida thing, but I might be wrong. There might be swampy areas where there's crocodiles. Who knows? Maybe cayman instead of crocodiles, right? Who knows? But um but of course she was trying to pull from animals that were mentioned in the Bible as well, right? Because that That's like her family album.

[00:54:18]So um needless to say, I have really enjoyed um Let me see if I can tie up her story for you. I wonder if it does if I can wrap it up sort of with a bow.

[00:54:28]Um We know we know I'm reading from Mary Lyons' book again. We know little about Harriet's final history. By 1900, only three of her children were still alive.

[00:54:38]One daughter, Lizzie, still lived at home. Marshall was a bricklayer, and Alonzo was a farmer and Baptist preacher.

[00:54:46]In 1901, Harriet and Armstead agreed to sell their remaining two acres of land that they had owned together. She continued to live in the Sandy Creek Creek Sandy Creek area for another 9 years. In 1910, the elderly Harriet moved a few miles south to Buck Branch.

[00:55:03]This is all Georgia, where most of the population was African-American. Perhaps she was ill and needed to be with friends or relatives. From tax records, it is clear that she lived in poverty.

[00:55:15]Everything she owned in 1911 was worth only $70.

[00:55:19]She died that year at the age of 74.

[00:55:23]There are 1 million um African-American quilts in the United States. Okay, so I'm going to hold on that. That ties up her story um for what we know. And of course, we know very little about it. But I hope that you have enjoyed um looking at this book with me. And it has been three episodes that we have looked at it together. It has been such a lot of fun. I hope that you will um check out the Harriet Powers challenge at Ribbon Candy Hooking because woo, it's getting warm in here.

[00:55:52]Um breezeway is not breezy because um a lot of us are jumping in and really enjoying um interpreting these blocks.

[00:56:01]So, the point of these episodes was to help you with the backstory in case that that did give you some sort of leg up or some kind of emotional connection to her that is an automatic leg up. So, be thinking about working on those. Also, be in touch if you're putting something into the next Magpie. I'm going to work on that tomorrow. Today, I am catching up on orders. I'm getting I'm getting up to date with everything. I'm getting all of Kirsten's um I did about and I need to do a few more, but we're waiting for some more wool to come. So, I'll do um probably tomorrow do a little more dyeing, but um that has been a big a big part of life getting Kirsten's Cheticamp stuff ready. So, I've I'm catching up now with orders. Of course, I was away for a couple days. I was away overnight over the weekend.

[00:56:45]And um last night, we got home quite late. And so, I I dropped the family off and then uh I popped out just to my mom's cuz I had to pick up the dog cuz she had the dog over there. So, that was like another hour of driving, half an hour each way for me. And I got in and I thought, "Oh my god, finally I get to go to bed." And um Teddy said, "Can I talk to you, Mom?" You know, he's with his autism, he always he always wants to talk about these heavy things and it's always at uh 12:30 at night. And I was just about to um I want to say sleep, but what I really mean is die. I was just about to die. And I was like, "Sure, let's talk."

[00:57:19]And we talked until 2:30 a.m.

[00:57:22]So, when I looked at the clock when I got into bed, it was 2:45. And of course, I still wake up at the same time because life goes on for me. I've I've work to do and I've got stuff to do and I got to wake up. So, I am hanging on by a thread right now. You know what I thought would be a really good idea when I woke up and I had gotten very little sleep and I was completely exhausted. I I still I just took my glasses off. I can't I'm totally out of focus more than usual. It's like I'm seeing double. I'm so tired. And didn't have my glasses on, hadn't had coffee yet, staggered into the bath bathroom and I thought "Wouldn't it be a good idea to cut my hair right now?

[00:57:59]Wouldn't that be the thing to do?

[00:58:00]Without my glasses on and all I'm seeing double. What What Wouldn't it be a good idea if I if I cut my hair?" So, I did and I have to say I you know, I have to say it. I I just did it. I quite like it. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I do these things, but I do remember thinking, "I'm hot. My hair is making me hot. My hair is making me angry. My hair is very heavy." So, I cut about 4 in off of it and I I cut lots and lots of layers into it and my first thought after I did it was "I hope it looks good." My second thought was, "I need a coffee now." My third was, "Where are my glasses?" And my fourth was, "I think I just saved like $150, you know, that I would have spent at the hairdresser to have her cut my hair." I hope that you all are doing better than I am doing. I hope that you are more well than I am. I'm not an altogether well person in general. But I think that this turned out okay.

[00:59:04]I've gone I've gone in a different I might have kept going and ended up coming to with like a bob or like a boy cut just cuz I don't make good decisions when I haven't had coffee and I'm so tired. But isn't Isn't life funny and an adventure? So, here I am looking a bit different this morning.

[00:59:24]Thank you, Rita. It's I didn't even style it. I just let it dry but yeah, good enough, right? Good enough. But it was fun to come to you this morning although I was exhausted. I hope I didn't relay that to you during the course of the episode but I am. I might lie down for a few minutes and then I will work on getting your orders out.

[00:59:40]Thank you for all Thank you for all of those orders. Be looking at more stuff you might like at Ribbon Candy Hooking. Be looking at what to get to me for Magpie Times. I'm going to go full throttle Magpie Times tomorrow. And follow up with everyone who said they wanted to send something in because Judy really needs those things sooner rather than later. I'm going to work on the cover with my husband tonight. Our buddy Judy Taylor is only working on I would say one more episode one more issue with me and then the whole thing will look different and be a little bit different and I work I want to work on that with you. I want it to be an exact reflection of what we like and what we want and I want to rethink that whole thing together. So pitch in as much as you can with these next two issues as well the pieces kind of fall into place and try to get your stuff to us sooner. Stay away from the scissors. Exactly, right? Exactly. I should say to my husband just please take them out of the drawer because I can obviously I cannot be trusted. I went downstairs and he was like But I mean it's not it's not that bad but it was it was quite I was holding the hair that I had just cut off in my hand and it honestly looked like a wig.

[01:00:48]Like it looked like it could be its own wig. But you know what? I do feel I do feel cooler, right? I feel a lot breezier. So anyway.

[01:00:59]Be well and happy and I will come back to you. Oh, I should come back to you on Friday.

[01:01:06]Rebecca will be here. Our buddy Rebecca from Storyteller Wool. She will be here.

[01:01:11]She is coming. Let me just check her schedule. Okay, she arrives at 2:10 so she'll have to pick up our bags. I'll pick her up at about 2:40. So you know what? We should be able to be on with you at 7:00 p.m. Let's shoot for that.

[01:01:21]Uh just check with her but we should be able to do a show with you at 7:00 p.m.

[01:01:24]She should be wide awake cuz she's coming from Colorado. So, she should be wide awake. Um let's do a show on Friday with Rebecca. If you have some questions for her, if you have some questions for Rebecca, can you send them to me at [email protected] in the meantime? Um I probably won't have a lot of time to put a show together, and we usually just talk, right? Um but but please send in questions you might have for her or Tigger-type stuff cuz we will be going to Newport and shooting some Tigger videos. But um the show is just for fun.

[01:01:55]So, let me know if you have anything you want to ask her directly or uh you want me to ask her for you. So, be thinking about that. She is always fun. I'm sure she'll bring us some stuff uh that we can look at, too, cuz she's on her way to her pro her uh yearly prom and gown thing.

[01:02:11]So, um my ears are ringing so loud. I think I might lay down for a little while. So, we will look forward to seeing Rebecca White Martin on Friday for for uh coffee uh uh uh cocktail time at 7:00 p.m.

[01:02:24]Eastern Standard Time. I will see you then. In the meantime, please be in touch over Magpie Times, Harriet Powers, anything that you're looking for. I'm getting those kits out right now. I'm cutting everything for the um mouse hole kits. Uh there are one or two that are left that are not accounted for. So, I haven't been promoting those.

[01:02:43]Oh, I'm about to recording a video, as well, to show you the Crazy 8 set that comes with this month's kit, right?

[01:02:49]There's only a limited number of those, and I think there's one or two extras available right now. Something to think about. I will see you all soon. Uh certainly on Friday. Have a great