This morning, on my last gulp of coffee I spotted a very interesting fans quilt while scrolling through eBay quilt listings. I was chatting with Marjorie Childress, a collector in Albuquerque with an exceptional eye for soulful, offbeat quilts, and was sharing another auction with her.
As it turned out, the auction was her mother's, so we LOL'd, and I scrolled through the other offerings. There were a few really interesting ones, but the quilt that stopped me in my tracks was this 1950s or early 60s fans quilt. Buy-It-Now, great price, done!
Moments later I told Marjorie I bought her mother's quilt. "LOL!" - "LOL!" But we both thought it was a very interesting quilt. Different. I love how the fans are solid pieces of fabric in some blocks, and more improvisationally pieced in other blocks. Reminds me of elements in the work of Victoria Findlay Wolfe, the elegant peeling away of layers.
The colors are also unusual, and took me by surprise. The earth tones, black, and pops of red with other multicolored, scrappy fabrics show a departure from earlier quilts with softer, pastel colors. There's a wonderful strangeness about the combination of colors, and quilts from the period are a little less common than you might think. I have found very few for sale, and do not have many in the collection. Can't wait to see this one in person.
Too funny that it was Marjorie's mother's quilts you were looking at. What a great fan find!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful find, I have never seen a quilt like it, it has a timeless quality. I hope you will share the dimensions etc when it arrives.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on a beautiful - and fortuitous! - buy!
ReplyDeleteYou certainly have quite a collection! :-)
ReplyDeleteI love the descriptor "wonderful strangeness"
ReplyDeleteBill, you have such a collection of amazing quilts that I would love to see a "behind the scenes" post of how you store and display them if you haven't done one already. :)
ReplyDeleteI will at some point but right now I'm holding off because Generation Q Magazine is doing a piece about my place, and there may be pictures of the storage. :)
DeleteI hope her mother is still alive so that you may get the quilt story. I only put the basics on my labels and this is telling me perhaps I should be giving the story or process when it doesn't follow the norm. When one is making the quilt the numerous choices made definitely have thoughts behind them but probably never as romantic as the historians devise. Ahh...such a historically interesting quilt and from the 60s period when it was supposedly a lost art/craft.
ReplyDeleteI love this quilt, too. Unusual quilts always catch my eye, so your blog is like heaven on earth for me!
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