Quilts & Keys
When I was too young to remember, my parents brought home an old upright piano that had been stowed away in my grandmother’s cluttered garage, gathering dust. My mom gave its boxy exterior a fresh coat of paint in early-70’s avocado green. It was at this piano, around the age of three, that I started plunking out notes, apparently fascinated by the bell-like treble notes, and the deep, resonant bass tones.
I am very grateful to my mom for being my first piano teacher at that early age. She notated several simple songs for me, and color-coded the notes. She then put a strip of paper above the piano keys, which visually assigned a color to each key. Thus I learned to play piano - training my fingers, ears, and eyes - by matching colors. I was too little for my feet to reach the pedals, and I didn’t yet know all of my ABC’s, but there at the piano, the synapses in my brain were firing away!
I’ve often wondered why is it that I’ve chosen to spend so much of my life either sitting in front of a piano or sitting in front of a sewing machine (in addition to working in textiles, I’ve spent the last thirty years working as a professional pianist on a river cruise ship). Only recently did the answer finally hit me - it turns out there are many parallels between quilts and keys.
In both of these creative endeavors, I can be a SOLOIST. I can sit at the piano after dinner, play a few songs, and just relax. Equally, I can work in my quilt studio for hours on end, experimenting with fabric, or plugging away at a work in progress. As a soloist, I can step away, nurture my introverted side, and recharge. I’ve come to realize just how important it is for me to have time alone in order to be creative.
Piano and quilting also offer the opportunity to perform DUETS. I earned a steady income to pay for college by doing a work-study job at University of Oregon’s School of Music. I accompanied vocal classes, and in turn, students hired me outside of class to rehearse their songs. Over the years, I’ve accompanied individual singers and instrumentalists in a wide range of musical performances.
In quilting, duets are performed in many ways as well. When I first started getting serious about quilting, I pieced the quilt tops myself, and then passed them off to a talented longarm quilter named Nancy who did the machine quilting for me, thereby sandwiching the layers together. Both of us were leaving our creative imprint on the work, an expression of our unique skills coming together.
In another example, while visiting the magnificent International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, I met a volunteer named Jim who gave his time and impeccable skill to hand quilt an antique quilt top that had been donated to the museum. To my way of thinking, Jim was doing a duet with an unknown maker from bygone years, adding his indelible imprint onto the maker’s delicate work. It was a beautiful interplay of two souls.
Music making and quilt making can also be an ENSEMBLE effort. Thinking back, my first piano accompanist gig was around age ten, when my 5th grade teacher eagerly volunteered me to accompany our grade level in song during weekly gatherings. This led to accompanying choirs and musical theater productions throughout my middle and high school years. Continuing into college, I accompanied the University of Oregon Children’s Choir and a small weekly church ensemble. Wherever I went, piano ensemble work followed, fueling my desire to make music and make connections with others.
Quilting, too, has deep roots in ensemble work: quilting bees, group projects for charity drives, and sewing socials, to name a few. I recently spent a really fun Saturday giving a workshop on how to make Improv Roses, sharing how Portland became known as “The City of Roses” while teaching students how to make beautiful rose blocks in fabric. In another ensemble, my fellow Portland Modern Quilt Guild members and I participated in an exhibit at a local art event called First Thursday in the Pearl District, and have plans for other group exhibits this summer at Powell’s Bookstore in downtown Portland and the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show is Sisters, Oregon.
So why exactly do I spend such a huge part of my life sitting in front of a piano or sitting in front of a sewing machine? My propensity for these creative outlets is met with an endless variety of opportunities for SOLO, DUET, and ENSEMBLE work. And as author Daniel Pink explains in his powerful book Drive, we humans feel most fulfilled when three things are realized in our work: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Check, check, and check.
#quiltsandkeys