The Evil Twin
Finished Size: 14 ½ x 25", made June to September 2000
Last June, the kids and I flew to Georgia to visit our friends Dana, Bob, Nikki and Evan. We had been good friends for years while they lived here in Richmond, and Dana and I have stayed close even since they moved. The kids managed to pick up right where they left off, almost as if it hadn't been over two years since they'd seen each other.
Dana and I always had our love of gardening in common, and she'd done some sewing, but she wasn't a committed quilter until probably just after she moved away. I dragged her kicking and screaming into my world; I would make her look at my latest project and listen to me agonize over design decisions, knowing full well that I was torturing her. But, after all, what are friends for? So our time together last June was really the first time that we were together as quilters, too. I brought along some books and magazines and some show and tell, and we talked quilts a lot. One of our many discussions was about quilts that seem to have Deep and Meaningful Artist's Statements that just blow us away: things like "the green in this quilt symbolizes the strife of our people, and the blue represents the universal harmony that can only be achieved when the planets align and we give proper homage to those who go before us." I suppose that since I have an entire web site of quilts with their Deep and Meaningful Stories, I'm in no position to poke fun, but sometimes is seems that these things are so contrived (and usually they are in conjunction with a "themed" contest or show, what a coincidence). While I was there, we left the kids home for a morning and drove into Marietta and went to the LQS, spend lots of money on fabric, and I bought a copy of Ruth McDowell's "Pieced Flowers," then went and had a coffee fix.
The mountain where Dana and Bob live is magical to me. It is incredibly quiet and beautiful and peaceful. Sitting on their front porch at any time of day or night was very grounding for me; just remembering it gives me a sense of piece. It's the kind of place where you can believe that all is right with the world, and everything is for the best. Bob commented that it's different when I come to visit because Dana and I "play" together; we garden, we cook, we do quilt stuff.
While we were there, Dana and I had an on-going commentary about our respective personalities, all very tongue in cheek: she's the sensitive one, I'm the compassionate one, she's tactful, I'm diplomatic, etc. I wish I could remember it all…. When I returned home, I wrote Dana a series of e-mails about my next quilt, that was to be a symbolic representation of us and our relationship. The colors would be carefully chosen to represent our respective personalities: sensitive, tactful, etc. And on and on. And I kept all those e-mails, because I fully intended to write an Artist's Statement for this quilt that would incorporate all of the silliness. But unfortunately, my computer had other ideas: it had a meltdown, and I lost everything on my harddrive.
And so "The Evil Twin" was born. Made exclusively of my handdyed fabrics (except for the binding and a little bit of black), in my favorite iris colors, purple and orange, blocks from Ruth McDowell's book. The symbolism is all there, and you can read it as you like. (02/05/02)