New Pathways into Quilt History written by Kimberly Wulfert, www.antiquequiltdating.com

Quilt Historian Interview with:

Mary Bywater Cross
Quilt Historian, Artist, and Consultant

The text is provided by each interviewee and is unabridged and unedited.
 

1) How do you prefer to be described, within the field of textile history?

“I prefer the titles of quilt historian, artist, and consultant."

2) When and where did you begin your serious interest in the history of quilts, textiles or garments?

“After my grandmother Harriet Smith McNeill introduced me to quilts through the small family collection she inherited, my interest was whetted. In 1979-1980, I was able to take a yearlong college-level course at the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, now known as the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts. The course, taught by one of my mentors, the late Marie Lyman, included quilt history, construction, and piecing and quilting techniques from around the world.

“The time was early in the current quilt revival. It was relatively easy to access the few books available and to be very thorough in our study. Marie was a perfectionist, a detail person. She had trained as a librarian and was consumed by a passion for textiles and quilts. We did everything by hand and were required to present in class our papers and projects for critique. She taught us to look at older quilts for design ideas and pattern research. Quilt Engagement Calendars were the best resource. As a class, we reproduced a classic Amish quilt in wool.

“The impact on me was major. From that course, I defined my direction in making quilts from new wool cloth of my own designs drawing on my Iowa background of my grandmother saving buttons and wool squares from old clothes. ”

3) What “known” individual (or group) influenced you most and why?

“The American Quilt Study Group and its incredible members like Virginia Gunn, Jeannette Lasansky, Bets Ramsey, Cuesta Benberry, Barbara Brackman, Hazel Carter, Ricky Clark, Judy Elsley, Joanna Evans, and the late Sally Garoutte and Lucy Hilty.

“I was introduced to the group in the fall of 1981 by DeLoris Stude, the long-time coordinator of the West Coast Quilters’ Conference. She invited me to attend the annual seminar. My first roommate was Lucy Hilty, one of the “stars” of “Quilts in Women’s Lives.” I thought I had really arrived!

“After that first seminar in the early ‘80s, I was inspired to create a regional quilt study group, the Columbia-Willamette Quilt Study Group, based on the guidelines from the book Independent Scholar and the research paper presentation concept of AQSG. I thought that perhaps papers could first be prepared and presented locally and then be proposed for the AQSG Seminar. Instead, the group evolved to be more of a contemporary quilt guild with a focus on quilt history, studio tours, gallery exhibitions, and special events. The group has evolved to be an annual retreat, held in February with a featured scholar-in-residence. The scholars have included Judy Elsley, Pat Nichols, Heather Tewell, Katie Wolf, Gina Darlington, Kristin Miller, Eileen Trestain, Bev Dunivent, Jane Kirkpatrick, and Rhonda Frick-Wright.

“Now, when the group meets for the annual retreat, two important projects are conducted. One is the Lottery for Latimer, the Quilt and Textile Center in Oregon. A choice item is raffled among those attending and the money is donated to Latimer. The other project is a social outreach for the Dougy Center, the International Center for Grieving Children based in Portland. Individual blocks are made for a quilt that the children add their statements to. Then, it is used as a tool to garner financial support for the center at their annual auction and to promote the center through educational programs and community outreach. Quilts have consistently raised over $100,000 and the center retains the ownership.

“Over the years I have maintained an active membership in AQSG. I try to attend each seminar, missing those that conflicted with my children’s annual October school holiday weekend. In the early ‘90s, I served on the Board of Directors. My legacy to the organization has been the Regional Coordinator Program I structured and developed. I am extremely pleased the program continues today and many of the RCs continue to make unique and special contributions to the organization while serving their regional areas. There were regional coordinators in 35 states in 2005. ”

4) Who became your personal mentor as you began your learning?

“Marie Lyman was my first mentor. After the overview study course,, we scheduled a conference to help me define the direction I wished to take my quilt interests. She helped me focus my interest on researching and writing quilt history and on making woolen quilts. She encouraged me to travel, to inquire, and to use the skills I had learned in library science for research. When I began to teach my workshops for quilt guilds and Elderhostel participants, I organized the class format in a similar manner to Marie’s – a participatory class with students making presentations.

"Over the years, we supported each other’s passions and professional goals. I always took her unique workshops and purchased her works. In the late ‘80s, we curated an exhibition of new traditional and contemporary blue and white quilts for the University of Oregon Museum of Art. That exhibition traveled internationally for two years under the auspices of Visual Arts Resources.

“It was with great sadness, yet a sense of peace for her that I received news she took her life five years ago this October. She suffered breast cancer and on-going depression.”

5) What aspect of study were you most passionate about at first? How has this changed over time and why?

“My study evolved to be more focused on the quilt as a visual record of human experience. I credit Rachel Maines, a textile historian I heard speak at Jeannette Lasansky’s Oral Traditions Symposium in 1990, with changing my focus. She presented her three criteria for validating textiles as material cultural artifacts. I have used those ever since as I try to qualify quilts for my quilt history projects. (Incidentally, I just learned that Rachel is now recognized as an authority on sex history after a chance discovery of hers while doing research on 19th century needle arts. I think it fascinating the directions our careers take after brief encounters as historians.)

“Also, having been a student of Professor Glenda Riley’s at the 1994 Larom Summer Institute, I use her work on western women’s history as a guide.

"Now I seek to learn what that quilt can tell about the woman who made it and the time and place in which she lived. My two publications Treasures in the Trunk: Quilts of the Oregon Trail and Quilts and Women of the Mormon Migrations: Treasures of Transition reflect this interest. They are more than just photos of quilts, they are textile records about the women, the challenges they faced, and their lives they led as they partnered to settle and develop the western region of America.

“I continue most passionate about researching historic quilts and their link to the maker. Initially, I check in the quilt’s physical aspects – the size, date, types of fabrics, and place it were made. Then, I’m interested in what I can learn about the quilt’s intended function, and about the maker’s social, economic, and cultural life and the aesthetic influences from her community. These were my research questions as I traveled Oregon the last four years as a Chautauqua speaker for the Oregon Council for the Humanities. I presented sixty-six lectures during that time on the topic “The Tie that Binds: Quilts of Community in Oregon.” It was an amazing adventure to meet people in their communities, seek out their quilts, and listen to them share their experiences as quilters, as owners, as contributors to group-made quilts.”

6) What is your current “pet project”?

“'Pet projects” are like the seasons of the year, they evolve and change as the opportunities and the funding becomes available.

"Another project has been the opportunity to reissue both of my books on quilts of migration, Treasures in the Trunk: Quilts of the Oregon Trail and Quilts and Women of the Mormon Migrations. This is an opportunity that rarely surfaces so I’m especially pleased. Both books have been revised and expanded with new quilts, new resources and a new focus on women’s roles in the building of community in the West. Look for them next year.

“A third continuing project has been making wool quilts. An exhibition is scheduled for December 2006 at the Albina Community Bank in the Pearl District, the trendy area of Portland. The opening night reception is December 7th. I’m particularly pleased to be paired with two other artists working in different areas and with the Dougy Center, the International Center for Grieving Children.”

7) What aspect of your research or contribution to textile studies has satisfied you the most?

“In recent years, I have been most satisfied with the opportunities to introduce audiences of quilters and non-quilters to the world of quilts. This reflects the title I now add of being a consultant.

“One of my greatest joys, working in this field, is helping people to discover the maker's history through unraveling the clues often stitched away in the quilt's construction. These clues, whether in the piecing or the quilting, often reveal the time and place the makers lived and the social, economic, and environmental factors effecting their lives. I have been acknowledged as having a wonderful way of bringing appreciation to even the most humble quilt when presented with the maker's name and biographical information.

"My books have taken on “lives of their own” and reached people around the globe. Often I hear from people who have discovered them and made a new link in their own lives to quilts and quilt history. The “Quilters’ Review,” a publication of the Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles, reviewed my Mormon quilt book in a three page article. It was a credible review that revealed the author understood the challenges and opportunities facing me a non-Mormon quilt historian. I was most honored.

"Likewise, a contemporary dancer in Flagstaff, Arizona was inspired by my book to create an entire program based on the quilt patterns and styles and the stories of the pioneers’ lives. I was honored to attend the opening performances and present some background on the material.

"Finally, I’m pleased to have achieved an on-going goal that I mentioned in my original interview for New Pathways in Quilt History. I have been able to “cross over” to the academic and professional scholar’s world with several major contributions. I curated an exhibition for the Women’s West Conference at Washington State University and chaired a panel of western quilt historians at the conference. Another contribution was a photo essay of quilts that I wrote for the revised edition of Karen Blair’s Women in Pacific Northwest History. It is the premier academic book for beginning students of Northwest women’s history. A third was the tour I conducted for the Oregon California Trails Association Annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah of some of the quilts in the local collections from my Mormon Migration study. I will be doing the same type of tour for the Mormon History Association next spring. A fourth was my participation in a panel of independent scholars for the American Association of State and Local History Annual Conference looking as alternative resources for studying women’s history. I have been invited to lecture on college and university campuses across the country.

"These are the kinds of activity I feel are important to broaden the audience for quilt history and to increase our support."

8) Within this arena, what would you like to do, but haven’t done yet?

“I look forward to the opportunity to extend my work abroad, making the connections between American quilts and other styles.

"I continue my interest in historic wool quilts and quilts made by and for Methodists.

"I look forward to making a contribution locally to the historical activities of my state and my region.”

9) Any further comments are invited.

“I commend Kim for this project. It is a wonderful opportunity to reach out to those broader audiences I mentioned above. One very unique connection surfaced the summer of 2006. Within three weeks, I had three inquiries from people across the country who were seeking information about the late Marie Lyman. My interview is one of the few sites available through a search engine to provide information about her. I was pleased to be able to answer their questions.

"Thank you for the opportunity to participate.”
 

Please describe (in a list) the contributions you have made via books, exhibits, presentations, contests, articles, fabric lines, research papers and the like.

Quilt historian, author, curator, artist, and consultant

Education

• 1964 BA University of Iowa, Elementary Education and Library Science

• 1979-80 Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, The American Quilt

• 1988-89 Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, Design Foundations

• 1992 Fellowship for NEH Conference - "A New Significance: Re-Envisioning the History of the American West"

• 1993 Lewis and Clark College, Folklore for Educators

• 1994 Larom Summer Institute, Buffalo Bill Historic Center, Cody, WY

• 1999 International Guide Academy, Denver, CO

Historian Publications

“The Anti-polygamy Quilt by an Ogden Methodist Quilting Bee,"
Uncoverings 2003, (Lincoln, NE: American Quilt Study Group, 2003)

“A Visual Record Study: Quilts in the Lives of Women Who Migrated to the Northwest, 1850-1990,” Women in Pacific Northwest History; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001.

“Quilts and Women of the Mormon Migrations: Treasures of Transition,” Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1996.

“Treasures in the Trunk: Quilts of the Oregon Trail,” Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1993.

“Postcards from Treasures in the Trunk,” Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1993.

• “The Quilt Revival,” Women's Journal, April, May, June 1994.

• “Common Threads,” Iowa Alumni Review, University of Iowa, Winter 1993.

• “Quilts of the Oregon Trail,” Oregon Humanities, Winter 1992.

• “Quilts of the 1929 Oregon Quilt Contest,” Bits and Pieces, Lewisburg, PA: Oral Traditions Project, 1991. 

• “Women's Work: A Study of Quilts,” exhibition catalogue, Portland, OR: Columbia Willamette Quilt Study Group, 1985. 

• “The Quilts of Grant Wood's Family and Paintings,” Uncoverings 1982, San Francisco, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1982. 

Plus numerous articles in quilt and needlework publications:

Awards/Recognition

• 1999 Sterling Room for Writers Residency, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR

• 1994 Award of Merit from the American Association of State and Local History

• 1994 Benjamin Franklin Award for Editing and Design, Publishers Marketing Association

• 1993 “Outstanding Achievement in American History,” Oregon State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution

Curator Exhibitions

• 2004 “Feast Your Eyes on Quilts: Vegetable Quilts,” Museum of the Oregon Territory

• 2002 “Quilts:Heirlooms from the Homefront,” Museum of the Oregon Territory, Oregon City, OR

• 2001 “Pieced and Quilted Gardens,” Museum of the Oregon Territory, Oregon City, OR

• 2000 “Quilts: Stitched Records of Human Experience,” Washington State University Holland Library Archive, Pullman, WA

• 1999 Oklahoma City Children's Memorial Art Quilts, Springfield, OR, Oregon guest curator

• 1998 “Reconstructing the Log Cabin,” Springfield Museum, Springfield, OR

• 1998 Oregon California Trails Association International Invitational Quilt Exhibition, Pendleton, OR

• 1998 “The Tie That Binds,” First United Methodist Church, Portland, OR

• 1996 Columbia Willamette Quilt Study Group Retrospective Exhibition, Latimer Quilt and Textile Center Tillamook, OR

• 1996 Quilts of the Oregon Trail, International Quilt Market, Portland, OR

• 1993-94 “The Pattern of the Journey: Quilts of the Oregon Trail,” traveling exhibit for the Douglas County Museum of History and Natural History, Roseburg, OR

• 1993 Oregon Trail's End Finale Invitational Quilt Exhibit of Community-based Oregon Trail Quilts

• 1990-92 “QUILTS: Blue and White Traditions,” traveling exhibit, University of Oregon Museum of Art Visual Arts Resources, Eugene, OR

• 1988-90 “QUILTS: On the Wall,” traveling exhibit, Oregon School of Arts and Crafts Hoffman Gallery Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary Northwest Quilts

Lectures

• “Quilts of Migration” and variations on that theme
• “Quilts: Heirlooms from the Homefront”
• “The Ties that Bind: Quilts made in Community”
• “Grandmother’s Garden: Reflections on a 1930 Oregon Quilt Contest”
• “Quilt Patterns Providers and Promoters of the Colonial Revival 1890-1930”
• “Historic Quilts as Metaphors in Art and Literature”
• “Woolen Quilts”
• “Oregon Heritage Quilts”
• “The Solar System Quilt”