Interview with Joan Schulze, August 4, 2003

Partial Transcript: Uh, this is Le Rowell, and today's date is August 4, 2003, it is 11:25 a.m., and I'm conducting an interview with Joan Schulze for the Quilters S.O.S - Save Our Stories, a project of the Alliance for American Quilts. And we are in Joan's studio, in San Francisco, on Potrero Hill.

Segment Synopsis: Schulze's touchstone quilt, "Beijing: The Summer Palace" incorporates two pieces of her personal history. Some of the cloth comes from her daughter's First Communion, but the quilt itself depicts one of the highlights of a trip to China, her visit to the Summer Palace. Schulze finds combining different historical strata in this way both fun and personally meaningful. When asked how she chose which fabric to use, Schulze explains that she does not pick out the fabric before she starts a project, but collects interesting cloth and images beforehand.

Keywords: China; Touchstone quilt

Partial Transcript: And I did have a theme for this in advance, because, I wanted to, um, make visible, a very short, but important, visit in China, and, this was in, November, 2000.

Segment Synopsis: In 2000, Schulze was invited to a tapestry exhibition and symposium in Beijing, China, because people with appropriate expertise considered her work to be tapestry. Schulze agreed to go, partly our of curiosity and partly because to her mind it would be an "exciting adventure to be a visiting artist in a big international exhibition and meet all the other artists." There were three days between symposium and expedition. During those days participants saw the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and Schulze and tapestry artist Annika Ekdahl were given the opportunity to see the Temple of Heaven.

Keywords: Annika Ekdahl; China; Sightseeing; Travel

Subjects: Tapestry

Partial Transcript: But before I went, the only place I really wanted to go to was the Summer Palace.

Segment Synopsis: The Summer Palace was the sole tourist attraction in China that Schulze had hoped to see, but an arranged tour to see it was not on the the schedule. Schulze invited tapestry artist Annika Ekdahl to visit it with her on the free half day prior to the opening of the event. Due to transportation issues, they only had an hour to spend on the site. Schulze found a guide to take them directly to the "corridor of the paintings," where she was able to spend thirty minutes. She and Ekdahl made it back five minutes before the opening ceremonies. She learned during the tapestry event that her work is well-known in China and discussed by professors in class. She was invited to be on the advisory committee for the next event in two years.

Keywords: Annika Ekdahl; China; Summer Palace (Beijing, China)

Partial Transcript: So I thought, "Aha, I will do a quilt called "Beijing: Summer Palace."

Segment Synopsis: "Beijing: Summer Palace" was the first project Schulze took up after returning from China. She worked from memory, rather than her photographs, and tried to depict the palace as it would look in summer, rather than in November. She worked with a grid pattern, into which she painted "very contemporary little paintings." After she finished the central portion of the quilt, she eventually decided she to repurpose the border of another quilt as her border for the Summer Palace quilt. That finished the quilt to the level where she felt she could submit it to the 2002 exhibition in China. Schulze is happy with the juxtaposition of materials from different parts of her life in this quilt. She says, "this was about travel to new places, so there is a lot of underlying text in this quilt."

Keywords: China; Painting; Summer Palace (Beijing, China); Techniques

Partial Transcript: Can you talk a minute about the technique?

Segment Synopsis: Schulze uses a method of glue transfer that is so labor-intensive that people find that they do not actually want to do it, even when they attend one of her workshops to learn how . Schulze recounts what happened when she gave a workshop in the Netherlands. Schulze uses images from both her own photos and magazines in such a way that the images are layered and only partially visible. Schulze makes an analogy between her work and what happens when posters are layered over other posters, but, when it rains, parts of the old posters are visible. She says, "What I'm really talking about in my work is about the accumulation of history in a life." Her work teaches her about herself.

Keywords: Glue transfer; Netherlands; Techniques

Partial Transcript: Now, I'm using a lot of metal leaf also.

Segment Synopsis: Schulze notes that she uses jewelry only minimally, so was surprised when she wanted to use metal leafing. She explains that she started to do so when working on the quilt "Diamonds Are...," which was a way of addressing her daughters who like jewelry, and, in particular, diamonds. In the quilt, she repurposed the term, so that people dear to her and poets whose work is life-changing for her are viewed as diamonds. Schulze learned gold leafing from a nun whose approach was very traditional and focused on making the metal gleam, but Schulze thought that distressing the metal, rather than protecting it from harm, made it more interesting.

Keywords: Metal leafing; Thomas Gunn

Partial Transcript: It's a very different appearance on the back.

Segment Synopsis: The interviewer points out that the back of the quilt looks quite different from the front. Schulze explains that the back was made from cloth that she had bought for her mother, but had not sent to her before she died. She describes it as "my homage to my mother" and a way of communicating to her mother that "she travels with me." Despite her own agoraphobia, Schulze's mother encouraged Schulze's work and ideas. Schulze tends to use sturdier cloth on the edges, where quilts that travel to exhibits are likely to suffer damage. In this case, she used black and white cloth, which she originally bought intending to make clothing for her children.

Keywords: family; quilt back/lining

Partial Transcript: Let me talk a minute about more of your involvement in quiltmaking. What is your first memory of a quilt?

Segment Synopsis: Schulze started out as am embroider who had no interest in quilts and did not think much of them. Then she was asked to teach quiltmaking, at a rate of pay she did not feel she could turn down. She researched the slim written material on quilting then available and made three quilts in advance. So many people showed up for the class that it had to be split into three sessions meeting at different times. Each group made a class quilt, as well as sampler quilts. Since Schulze did not have a very clear idea of what she was doing, problems arose during the construction of the quilts, which, Schulze, realized was a positive development, since it allowed class members to apply their creativity to solve the problems and put more of themselves into the work.

Keywords: Beth Gutcheon; Embroidery; Ruby Short McKim; Teaching quiltmaking; Virginia Avery

Partial Transcript: And that was my beginning, teaching quilts, and that's when I changed my life to dedicate myself to quilts.

Segment Synopsis: Quilting became very important to Schulze as a result of that class. She likes "reinventing a better way of doing something," rather than repeating what she has done before. She disliked the concept of individual styles, as she thinks the concept traps people into always doing visually similar work. Instead, she thinks that what a quilter is trying convey with the quilt should inform their choices about how to make it. She advises ignoring "the rule makers" and describes herself as "a rule breaker." She works to her own rules and standards, not externally-imposed ones. She has, for instance, done two-layered quilts and thinks prescriptive quilt show rules exclude some interesting work. Schulze describes quilting as "a very personal, uh, mode of expression" and says her touchstone quilt is especially personal.

Keywords: quiltmaking process

Partial Transcript: Talk a minute about, how you, combine your poetry, and your quiltmaking.

Segment Synopsis: Schulze describes the process of poetry writing and the process of quilt piecing as very similar for her. She takes either "random thoughts" she has written down or pieces of a quilt and puts them together in different combinations until a theme emerges and she figures out what it is that she wants to say. Her poetry and her quilting are interrelated. She may write a poem first and then make a quilt that goes with it, or interrupt her quiltmaking process to write down a poem that she sees as part of the quilt, or write a poem that she realizes goes with a quilt she made a long time ago. Schulze published a poetry book in 1990 and at the time of the interview was working on another, which was going to include details from a particular quilt on the cover and at the start of every section of the book. She says, "It is really a statement about my work, on how everything I do is really connected to everything that I'm going to do or have done. It is a conversation that never stops."

Keywords: Design process; Morris Jackson; poetry

Partial Transcript: You have another, uh, publication, also on quilts. Could you talk a minute about that?

Segment Synopsis: Schulze's title is, in her words, "a powerful statement." She wanted to make plain her identity as an artist and the unity of her work in quilts, collage, and embroidery. Her aim was a weighty "coffee table art book." It was published in Europe in 1999 and in the States in 2000. She also wants the book to convey that someone can grow into their artistry and maintain their family life, including their marital relationship, simultaneously. She points out that during the years she worked as an elementary school teacher, that she would end units with "a major culminating activity." She thinks of the 27 years she had done artistic work as one unit and the book as a culminating activity.

Keywords: Morris Jackson; Robert McDonald; The Art of Joan Schulze

Partial Transcript: Now, it also helped, me, because so many young, artists and people who want to make art, contact me.

Segment Synopsis: Schulze receives many questions from aspiring artists. In the past, she would tell them she was unable to answer all their questions, because she would need to write a book, and give them just a little advice, but now she refers them to her book instead. They can also show this book to their partners. Among other things, the book describes how she slowly developed as an artist, while keeping her family life intact. This book is also "a history for [her] family," which is unaware of how many different things she does, as she thinks that (like her mother did when Schulze talked to her after returning from trips) other family members would find a full account overwhelming.

Keywords: Family; The Art of Joan Schulze

Partial Transcript: Okay. You were talking about how much you share, of your life, um, when you return home.

Segment Synopsis: Schulze's mother never really understood why she wanted to spend so much time travelling. Schulze says that travelling gave her a sense of competence, as well as temporarily insulating her from the demands of day-to-day life. She started creating time for herself by sometimes leaving her husband in charge of the children while she went out for a few hours. Eventually, she started doing solo road trips, which allowed her to write. Then, she started being paid to travel to teach and left her husband in charge for varying periods of time. She likes being in contexts where she is not seen in terms of her family relationships and has time to write. On the other hand, she says, her "real life" is an "anchor" and provides her with "time to settle and think about what you did on your own..."

Keywords: Family; Travel

Partial Transcript: Uh, let's talk just for a minute about quilts in American life. Um, how do we encourage quilting in young people?

Segment Synopsis: When asked about how to encourage young people to quilt, Schulze says, "Well, by making it fun." She tells a very long story about making quilts with two of her grandchildren. They were enthusiastic, but Shulze avoided making promises about whether they would make quilts, since she was not sure how sustained their interest would be. Instead, she took them through the process step by step. She discusses the process and techniques in some detail. She advises, when working with children, not to impose a lot of rules, but instead to let them decide what to do and then work out how to do it. She also advises admiring their work, when it is done..

Keywords: Binding; Family; Hand piecing; Monoprint; Painting; Teaching quiltmaking; Techniques; fabric selection; quiltmaking process

Partial Transcript: I want to ask one more question. Um, what is the future of quilting in America?

Segment Synopsis: Schulze is concerned that many quilters are more interested in becoming famous, rather than "making good work." They also are too prone to imitate the work of teachers, instead of extracting what is useful for them and their work from a class. For the same reasons, quilters often forget that the work is supposed to be joyful. Many quilters do not use color well, because prizes tend to be given to very colorful quilts. Schulze was once asked what quilts she looks at before starting a project, but her initial process is much more introspective. She does not look at other peoples' quilts until she has finished a project. She is concerned that a lot of quilters are not being sufficiently introspective.

Partial Transcript: I think we're coming to an end here. This has been very enjoyable, I must say, and you have a glorious studio here with a view of the city of San Francisco. Is there any final words that you would like to add?

Segment Synopsis: Schulze concludes the interview by saying that she hopes quilters enjoy what they're doing instead of being motivated by fame. She encourages quilters to celebrate when people finish making a quilt, rather than just judging their work. Schulze believes any quilt that is finished should be celebrated.

Keywords: Quilt Purpose - Personal enjoyment