Quilting Lessons

Gradually, over the past few months, the desk and writing table have grown dusty and lifeless, while the other side of the room has been transformed into a quilt studio. Here, my stacks of fabric comfort me. Sorted and piled according to color, they await my touch to animate them, turn them into the controlled chaos of what I call my 'serendipity quilts'. Here the only language is color and pattern. It is January, 1993. I am in the sixth month of my quilting depression...I don't answer the phone or the door bell. My job is all-day, intensive color and pattern therapy. I am piecing for cover. I am quilting to save my life. In the middle of a successful academic career, art historian Janet Catherine Berlo finds herself literally at a loss for words. A severe case of writer's block forces her to abandon a book manuscript mid-stream; she finds herself quilting instead. Scorning the logic, planning, and order of scholarship and writing, she immerses herself in free-wheeling patterns and vivid colors. For eighteen months she spends all day, every day, quilting. In the midst of what she calls her 'quilt madness' Berlo questions why her successful career is momentarily halted at mid-life. This book penetrates to the very heart of women's lives, focusing on their relationships to family and friends, to work, to daily tasks. It is a search for meaning at mid-life, a search for an integration of career and creativity. Janet Catherine Berlo is an art historian who specializes in Native American art, a creative writer, and a quilter. She is Susan B. Anthony Professor of Gender and Women's Studies and a professor of art history at the University of Rochester. Her books include "Spirit Beings" and "Sun Dancers: Black Hawk's Vision of the Lakota World" and "Native North American Art" (with coauthor Ruth Phillips).