Interview with Marla Ferguson, February 26, 2008

Partial Transcript: Okay. This is Karen Musgrave and I'm doing a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Marla Ferguson. She is in Palisade, Colorado, and I'm in Naperville, Illinois, so we're conducting this interview by telephone. It is February 26th, 2008 at 8:09 p.m., and I'm doing a special, um, Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories, which is based on the exhibit Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece.

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson decided to make her touchstone quilt, "A Tribute to a Man and His Family," after receiving an email from a fellow guild member about the Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece exhibit. Ferguson had recently married a man whose father died of Alzheimer's. Although she never met the father herself, Ferguson had heard much about him and his illness from family members. Ferguson had already been quilting for years and given her relatives many quilts, so the idea of making quilts to raise funds appealed to her.

Keywords: A Tribute to a Man and His Family; Alzheimer's disease; Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece; Ami Simms; Family; Quilt purpose - Disease/illness; Quilt purpose - Exhibition; Quilt purpose - Fundraising

Partial Transcript: And as soon as I, you know, read about it and got more information and stuff, the ideas, um, for making the quilt came almost immediately.

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson discusses the imagery of her quilt design. The title of the exhibit caused Ferguson to think of puzzle pieces. Her plan was to transfer pictures of her husband's family onto fabric make the quilt in such a way that the pictures became gradually darker, moving from the top to the bottom of the quilt. In some places, she cut away the fabric, using puzzle pieces as templates for the areas to be cut. Those areas became deeper as she moved down the quilt. Eventually, the cut-out areas went through to the batting, and then, at the very bottom, through all the layers of the quilt, so that they formed holes. Ferguson, by chance, found a puzzle with appropriately-sized pieces while attending a trade show for her job. She hung the cut-out bits of cloth from the end of the quilt.

Keywords: Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece; Design process; Imagery; Photography/photo transfer; Quilt design; Techniques

Partial Transcript: One of the things that I had, um, was interesting in picking the background, is I wanted something that was bright, in the colors of the background.

Segment Synopsis: The cloth Ferguson used for her background came from her fabric stash. She deliberately chose fabric that was bright and cheery, because life in the outer world continues on, even as individuals and their families struggle with Alzheimer's. Ferguson recruited her brother-in-law to do the photo transfers and sent him four different colors of cloth so he could do so. He let her know that the images would not come out well on the darkest-colored cloth, a dark gray, and she replied, effectively, that that was the point. Ferguson finished the quilt just before she had to send it in, so her husband's family members have not actually seen it, but they are able to access the images through the exhibit book and exhibit CD, which all of them possess. Ferguson hopes that at some point the exhibit will be in the Seattle area where they can see it.

Keywords: Aesthetics; Alzheimer's disease; Alzheimer's: Forgetting piece by piece; Design process; Fabric stash; Photography/photo transfer; Quilt design; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Techniques

Partial Transcript: Have you seen the exhibit, yourself?

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson saw the exhibit and volunteered for it at the Denver National Quilt Show. Although she also passed out "I Saw the Quilts" stickers, much of her job was emotional support. Many people had strong reactions to the show. Ferguson found that their tears evoked her tears. Being at the exhibit gave her the opportunity to see other peoples' contributions to the exhibit, and she was quite impressed by them. Some viewers told her that they found the quilts amazing but had reached the end of their capacity to look at them. Ferguson comments that the impact it had on people suggests there are more people who have or are otherwise impacted by Alzheimer's than is readily apparent in everyday life.

Keywords: Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece; Anne Louise Mullard-Pugh; Denver National Quilt Show (Denver, CO); Quilt shows/exhibitions; White glove volunteer work

Partial Transcript: Do you have any favorites from the exhibit?

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson's favorite quilts from the exhibit include Mary Stori's "Brain Cramps" and Liz Kettle's quilt. She also liked Ami Simms's quilt, and a quilt called "Nevilyn." [Linda Huff made "Nevilyn."] Ferguson and Musgrave agree that the quilts are more impressive when the viewer looks at the quilts themselves, rather than pictures. Musgrave thinks this is particularly true of Kettle's quilt. Ferguson says that it took four or five attempts to get her recording of her artist statement right, but that she still liked that she could make a statement. She says, "Actually, I had kind of fun with that." Ferguson thinks that listening to the spoken artist statements "makes it more real."

Keywords: Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece; Ami Sims; Artist statement; Linda Huff; Liz Kettle; Mary Stori; Quilt shows/exhibitions

Partial Transcript: So what, what are your family's thoughts, your husband's family's thoughts on the quilt?

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson says that her husband's family was very happy that she wanted to make a quilt for the exhibit and that the quilt was traveling, but since they have never seen the quilt, they do not quite grasp what it was about. Ferguson really wanted her quilt to get into the show, but the news that she had been accepted was delayed, due to her having inadvertently given an incorrect phone number with her submission. When she finally connected with Simms, Ferguson was quite excited to hear that her quilt had been accepted.

Keywords: Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece; Ami Simms; Family; Quilt shows/exhibitions

Partial Transcript: Let's, broaden a little bit, in, in talking to, about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, which is one of the other things that, that Ami does, is the Priority Quilts, which are quilts that are auctioned off. Tell me about your participation in, uh, Priority Quilts.

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson thinks that she has made about ten quilts to be auctioned for the Priority project. She finds them fun to work on and portable when she has to go out of town. She has some trouble balancing her different quilt projects, as deadlines seem to cluster. At the time of the interview, she is working on another batch of priority quilts. Ferguson made her first quilt before she went to college using scraps leftover from years of other sewing projects. Some of the cloth was not suitable. She gave up on keeping the squares in any order. The material she used for batting was not appropriate, and she had only the vaguest idea of how to quilt. By her current standards, the quilt design was "absolutely horrible," but she liked it at the time and put it on her bed at college.

Keywords: Learning quiltmaking; Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilt Challenge; Scrap quilts; Techniques

Partial Transcript: There was a gal at college, who, um, she had this, beautiful, denim, made-out-of-jeans, um, quilt on her bed and it was in this, you know, cool design, you know, obviously now I know it had to be [held?] like half-square triangles or something.

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson met a woman in college who said that she had made the quilt on her own bed in a couple of days. Having just spent a summer making her first quilt, Ferguson did not believe her, until years later she took a workshop called "Trip around the World: Quilt in a Day." She almost finished a baby quilt over the course of the day and suddenly the speed at which the other woman had made her quilt made sense to her. After that, she became very enthusiastic about quilting and took every class possible. Eventually, she learned machine quilting and then she got interested in quilted wearable art.

Keywords: Machine quilting; Techniques; quiltmaking classes

Partial Transcript: Well, actually I also figured out that you can use quilting in, um, clothing.

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson realized that quilting can be used in making clothes, and she really enjoyed making and wearing quilted clothing. An outfit of hers was accepted at an American Quilter's Society event. Ferguson was a white glove volunteer at the same event. In that capacity, she could examine quilts particularly closely. She looked at Laura Wasilowsky's prize winning quilt, which she liked, and then looked at the label on the back, which said "Chicago School of Fusing." Ferguson had thought that fusing was not acceptable in quilting, but realized at that moment that that was not accurate. She started fusing materials and appliqueing. Ferguson also likes to embellish her quilts.

Keywords: American Quilter's Society; Chicago School of Fusing; Embellishment techniques; Laura Wasilowsky; Mary Stori; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Wearable art; White glove volunteer work

Partial Transcript: What advice would you offer someone starting out?

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson's advice to new quilters would be to do what they want, rather than what the rules or other people say. It is important that the quilter likes their work, no matter what anyone else thinks. Ferguson suggests avoiding perfectionism. She also points out that her work has improved over time. Even work she now sees as bad was practice. When asked if she still has her first quilt, Ferguson says no, but that around the same time she made it, she made a similar quilt for a friend. When they ran into each other at a high school reunion, her friend asked her to repair it. Ferguson offered to make a newer, better one, but the friend liked the original quilt, so Ferguson found ways to repair it. She reports that it is true that thread may outlast fabric.

Keywords: Fabric selection; Fusing; Quilt repair; Robbi Joy Ecklow

Partial Transcript: Describe your studio.

Segment Synopsis: Ferguson's studio is a bedroom in her house. She describes it as messy. Her projects are on the floor, because she does not have a design wall. The contents of the studio include an ironing board, two full closets, and boxes of cloth that contain enough fabric so that she is sometimes surprised by what she finds in them. She dislikes cleaning up, not only because of the work, but because time spent cleaning is time not spent creating, and because she misplaces things when she tries to clean.

Keywords: Design wall; Fabric stash; Home studio; Work or Studio space