V's Version

Wow. This has been a most enlightening experience so far. I am deeply struck by my own limitations – both physical and mental as well as financial. I came here just off of three weeks sick in bed. The way my body aches and I am so exhausted and frustrated, I would say that I am not yet well.

Issues of class and race and sexuality are glaring and the gaps are disconcerting. This is an overwhelmingly straight white upper class retirement-aged set of women. There is a token man – a handful of ethnicities represented – one or two women under 35 and a few under 50. I haven’t met any dykes yet but maybe they might be hard to spot since there are so many short-haired women wearing jeans and sensible shoes.

The gap between the service personnel and the attendees is wide. Most conference attendees around me have not thanked the servers at meals– they have not made eye contact or greeted them. It’s weird. When someone complained about the “cafeteria food” I nearly flipped. The food and the service here are stellar.

The class division isn’t reserved for the dining hall though– the money that is dropped on “retail therapy” is shocking. It’s not that I don’t understand – I do. I wish I could afford all of those gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics made by designers that I am supposed to know when the purchasers drop their names. I don’t begrudge anyone their love of color and texture. Nor do I begrudge them their homes or their second homes or their acreage or their horses or their llamas or their nice cars. I wish everyone could have a large, airy studio with great lighting and tons of stocked storage for fabrics, paints and threads. And even though the women I have met are, for the most part, genuinely kind and supportive - I just feel really outside.

Today was a day of despair.

I worked hard. I struggled. I tried and I failed on several attempts at understanding the color relationships of white (which - it seems - is never really white). I struggled with line. I struggled with my own drive and vision. I struggled with expectations. I came here with high hopes – because it is one of the premiere quilting seminars in the country. I am here with some of the most published and marketed quilters of our time. Some of them have artistic talent that is breathtaking. So I was reeeally hoping to pick up a set of technical skills and I was hoping to finish this commission while I was here. I have worked hours and hours and hours (which does not help the physical pain or the exhaustion).

I happen to have chosen - or the commission happens to be – one of the most challenging subject matters – without simple, clear lines and with a VERY difficult set of colors. (The commission is not, by the way, the picture of the Asilomar beach above.)

When I get it – it is going to be fucking amazing. But it is going to take more hours and more money in fabric than I will ever see in return. My mistake and that’s OK. I tried something new and went out on a limb. I don’t regret that.

I don’t regret any of this actually. It’s been a very enlightening experience. I have questioned my role as a “blue collar” quilter (I just made that term up because it’s how I identify my work.) I have been sufficiently humbled and can see clearly where I lack talent, where I lack technical skill, where I lack humor.

Dani – who is my rock and my anchor and my support in so many ways – held out this quilt seminar experience to be juxtaposed with my chemo experience. There in the chemo rooms - I am often with older straight people. We have cancer in common. Unless I was outrageously sick or sedated - my role there is to cheer people up – to entertain them and inspire them and to listen with an understanding ear. I was always joking and telling stories and genuinely lifting spirits. And here – I am so serious! I have wept pitifully twice (!) today because I felt so thoroughly tortured and frustrated. My fellow students often try to cheer me up or give advice or offer me fabric (very sweet but what am I going to do? Take the 22 0 or is it 44? - colors that I lack?) They tell me to stop thinking and to walk away from it for a while. The two experiences (chemo and quilting) are so different!

I’m not giving up. I’m just going to let go of the expectation of learning things from this instructor. I am going to give up on the idea that I will finish the commission this week. I am going to live with the fact that, despite the insane amount of money that I have already spent on fabric and fusible web, it is still not enough and I will reluctantly have to buy more. I humbly admit that I have a LOT to learn about the properties of light on the color white and how to translate that into cloth.

It has been good to realize that I prefer to work in my own studio – no matter how lovely the individuals around me are in the crowded classroom. I prefer to work with music blasting. I prefer to have more than the space of one table on which to work and I prefer to work alone – not with someone next to me at all times (it's a rule here).

The instructor has told me several times that we are more alike than different. But I am thinking that she really has very little idea what it is like to be a pagan among christians, a radio listener among television viewers, a left-leaning liberal among flag-toting patriots, a lesbian among straight people, a renter among home owners, a tattooed sober girl in fusia among a group of very nice ladies wearing expensive paint-speckled sweaters who sip wine. The instructor is not a blue-collar quilter who makes affordable art infused with memory and meaning. She is an Artist who does shows, makes patterns, publishes books and sends quilts off to museums and photo shoots. She has sold (to my knowledge) one quilt. For $12,000. Good on her – but that is a very different reality than mine.

Yes – we are all creating something with cloth. Yes – I can translate the stories about husbands and penises and can relate (sometimes). Yes – I am fortunate to have the commission money to be here at Asilomar (thanks to “San Lorenzo Egrets”). Yes – I too have a family and a supportive partner (but not the civil or tax rights that the straight people take for granted). We are alike in many ways. We probably all appreciate the sun and have to pee first thing in the morning. We probably have all had our share of blessings and heartaches. But it is not stubborn uniqueness that separates us. I sense that I am truly out of place here.

As a side note – I got two commissions today by phone. So I guess I have to finish this one. Wish me luck.

I will – as Suji suggested – take what I like and leave the rest. (Hey – where have I heard that?)