Interview with Barbara Schneider

Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave and I'm doing a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Barbara Schneider. Today's date is November 4, 2008. It is now 10:40 in the morning. This is being done as a demonstration interview in front of the North Suburban NeedleArts Guild. Barbara I want to thank you for doing this interview with me. Please tell me about the piece that you brought, which is titled "A Ring of Days."

Barbara Schneider (BS): "A Ring of Days" [clears throat.] is a piece that I did when I first started to get into quilting. I had taken the traditional quilting classes and had done some sample pieces. At the time I was working as an executive for a publisher and I had a really busy life and my husband was ill. He was diagnosed with cancer and I felt like I didn't have time to do quilting in the real sense of sitting down and doing projects. I had seen an article by Nancy Halpren in Threads in which she wrote about doing a visual journal. That really struck a cord with me - that I could come home at the end of the day and just do one simple thing. So I set a goal for myself to do that with a template for the shapes and the things that I wanted to accomplish by doing it. I wanted to really be more observant each day of what was happening in my environment and to do something creative each day even if it was just go down and make my sketch. It would be an opportunity to learn new techniques on a very small basis instead of thinking I had to do a much bigger project to accomplish that. I had a notebook that I just carried with me that I could record things about what I might do if I couldn't get to it that day. It started March 1, 1997 and ended February 28, 1998. I pretty much finished in that time. I had no actual idea about what it was going to become, a "Ring of Days". I just kept making those pieces day after day after day. After a while I developed a few templates. I did a lot of travel for my work so I made a travel template. Can I walk over there? The microphone will pick up what I say?

KM: Um, hum. [KM and BS leave the table and walk over the to "A Ring of Days."]

BS: [laughs.] Whenever I had travel I used this template that was pointing north, south, east, west. I ended up doing it so I could gain a little bit of time. There were some other format kinds of things - I always did the full moon each month. I would do it a piece based on myths like the strawberry moon or the harvest moon. Some pieces are about events. Actually it was like the only year I can remember in my life in any detail because I can say [pointing to one block.] 'Oh, that is when my daughter Ellen [Schneider.] graduated from college. So it tends to be events, observations, trying new techniques. I had the book "Jacket Jazz" [author Judy Murrah.] and I tried a lot of the fabric manipulation in it. Many pieces were about nature which is one of the things I learned toward the end of the year. Probably half of them had flowers or leaves or water or things like that. Working on the pieces really helped me to feel like I was making some amount of progress in my quilting life, in my artist's life. One of the great findings at the end of this was that there was next to nothing about the career [audience laughs.] that I had been pursuing for twenty-five years. That fact came together with a number of other things going on in my life and I decided that it was time to move on. At the end of '97, I retired from publishing and moved into a different role as a consultant. So that was really an observation that came out of this as well.

The final format of "A Ring of Days" developed over time. Once I had all the blocks I had to figure out a way to put them all together. I tried out a number of things and ended up finally creating strips - one per month. Then the next step was how to join all the strips. I tried a number of things - continuous loops that you could hang on a rod or could be sewn together. And one of the ideas I had was to create a giant windsock or a Japanese Boys Day banner and it all just started to come together at that point.

I had to figure out the structure and how long was it really going to be [sixteen feet.] and whether that would be manageable. Actually a little side note is that when you are using a little plastic template to cut your pieces - after three hundred and sixty-five times it tends to get a little smaller [laughs.] and then you see that the earlier 31 day strips are longer than the later 31 day strips.

A story that goes along with "A Ring of Days", and the reason I decided to bring this piece for the interview, is not only about the fact that it had such an influence on my life at that point but also that it was the first piece that I ever entered into an exhibit. I was attending IQI [Illinois Quilters, Inc.] at that time and the first time I ever heard about Fine Art of Fiber [a joint show with IQI, North Shore Weavers and the North Suburban NeedleArts Guild that is held at the Chicago Botanical Gardens.] I submitted this piece to display at Fine Art of Fiber in 1998. I had never sent anything to an exhibit before that. I packed up the piece and I sent it to Robbi Eklow [then President of IQI.] who gets the box and says, 'Why did you send me this?' 'It is for the show.' And she said, 'Oh, you just submit the forms.' I didn't even know at the time that you only submit the forms [audience laughs.] I just sent her the whole thing. [audience laughs.]

I do remember it hanging in the middle of the gallery space at the Fine Art of Fiber. I see some heads going up and down out there in the audience. It was quite an experience to actually have something out in public and since then I have done a lot of other exhibits. Doing this piece got me to start creating my own work and it became much less traditional, much more contemporary. I realized that that whole nature base is really important to me.

The daily-ness factor sort of went away for a long time and then last year at the beginning of 2007--is it okay to segway into this? [KM nods.] The beginning of 2007 was the end of a long, sad period in my life. My husband had died. I had sold our house. I had moved. I was still consulting and on the road and again I felt like it I needed to make some change. One of the things that had helped me through his illness was that I could create my work and make the bad stuff disappear for awhile. During the two years between the time he died and the beginning of 2007 I had no interest in doing any artwork. I just couldn't get going on anything. So I thought it was 2007 [10 years after "A Ring of Days."] and maybe if I revisited the idea of just doing a daily piece with different perimeters that I could begin to work again. And it worked. I have some samples of what came out of the 2007 version. It is the same idea just a different format. That is the history of this quilt.

KM: How do you use this piece? Does it hang in your house, does it?

BS: It used to hang in my living when I had a bigger house. It doesn't anymore. It hasn't been out. [laughs.] Where do I keep it? Rolled up in a bag in my quilt storage area.

KM: What are your plans for it?

BS: It was fun to have it out this last week because I was looking at it again and revisiting some of the days. I didn't know what you would ask so I was trying to get prepared [audience laughs.] to speak about specific blocks or anything. I don't have any plans. It would be great if it could hang again some day some where, but I don't have the space for it and because it is tied to a timeframe I don't think it has application to any kind of exhibit situation. I guess down the road I hope that my daughters [Ellen Schneider and Rachel Bachman.] would want it. Maybe they each will take a month or two. [audience laughs.] Or share it back and forth.

KM: Tell me about your interest in quiltmaking.

BS: Current or past? Whatever.

KM: Whatever.

BS: Whatever. My college degree is in visual design and I worked in educational publishing as a book designer. I also created artist books and hand made paper. I came to the quilting wanting to do more stitching on my paper. I then went off on a bit of a right turn into quilting and and learning how to work with the fabrics and surface design techniques. From there it has continued to evolve. I really love making the fabric and I do a lot of art cloth and one of a kind pieces. I love exploring new techniques and my work has gradually become more sculptural. I like shaping fabric back into physical forms after I've done things to it. I think I am on a journey and will end up back at painting and papermaking again some day. That is okay because I think each thing influences the other.

KM: Tell me about your studio. Describe it.

BS: My studio is in the walkout basement of my home. I have a sewing room toward one end that has big windows looking out into west facing yard. Then I have my office area which I would love [now that I'm not really consulting in the business world anymore.] to expand other things into that area. I have a wet studio area. It is really just an unfinished part of the basement with a big four by eight foot table with drawers for storage and lots of shelves. I said I'm never carrying those five gallon buckets of dyes through my house again so I put a washer and dryer down in the studio. It has made a huge difference to me to just have that right there. I would like more flat space so I could work on two things at a time but it is great to have what I have.

KM: Whose works are you drawn to and why?

BS: I have a great affinity for Japanese arts and crafts, particularly the Boro or Wabi-Sabi kinds of things. I'm drawn to that esthetic. I like that you incorporate things that are old, worn out and reused into the art. I am drawn to very simple, monochromatic pieces, abstract pieces.

KM: Tell me why belonging to the guild is important.

BS: Because we get to share things with one another and have wonderful lectures and workshops. As an example, two years ago about half the teachers that were teaching at the Surface Design Association conference were teachers that we had here. We have the opportunity to study with really fine people right here and that is a wonderful thing. We have the opportunity to participate in the Fine Art of Fiber.

KM: What do you think makes a quilt artistically powerful?

BS: [long pause.] Let's come back to that one. I want to think about that one.

KM: What advice would you offer someone starting out?

BS: Just do it. Don't be afraid to play with things. I find that mostly the things that don't work, that are mistakes on the first, second or third tries often lead to ideas that are better and more powerful. I don't try to plan too much in my head about what the final result is going to be because it just becomes too overwhelming. Just do something that you can wrap your head around for today and then tomorrow do it again or take it a step further.

KM: Why is quiltmaking important to you?

BS: It feeds me. If it wasn't quilting, it would be surface design and if it wasn't that it would be papermaking. It's all about the making of something, of taking ideas and making something with them. For me, it is much more about the process than the result. By the time I finish a piece and it goes off somewhere I'm pretty much disinterested in it. The ideas that have come out of that move me somewhere else. So I think it is a vehicle.

KM: Do you work on more than one thing at a time?

BS: Yes I do, because I think you need time to let ideas gestate and maybe go in another direction. I usually have things that are just starting to be ideas, others are part way and some are getting to the finished point. I also find that physically it works better for me to switch around I can't sew anymore hour upon hour, I need to go and do something else.

KM: Is there any aspects of quiltmaking that you don't enjoy?

BS: Sewing. [audience laughs.] I know it sounds strange-why are you doing this? I know the sewing is needed to complete the piece but I like the creation of the idea, the creation of the cloth, the assembly of it all. By the time I get to sewing I would love to have someone else just do it.

KM: How do you want to be remembered?

BS: [long pause.] Um, um. [audience laughs.] That is one that I've never given a thought to. [long pause.] That is really hard to answer. I mean I don't know where I'm going from here but if I had to say in terms of the current work, it would be the series that are based on reflections. They incorporate for me the making of the cloth, the Japanese esthetics, the idea of what the mind sees as you look deeper and deeper. Looking below the surface. That may not be the answer I would give you if I had to think about this for fifteen, twenty minutes but for right now in front of a hundred people [audience laughs.] who are right there. [audience laughs.]

KM: Is there anything else that you would like to add before we conclude?

BS: [pause.] I would say, I will set up the 2007 version on the paper over there.

KM: How are the 2007 pieces different? [coughs.]

BS: They are a daily exercise [KM coughs.] but the format is very different. There is a book for each month with a page for each day. Again it was the idea of capturing the daily-ness of it, the discipline of actually sitting down and making a piece each day. This time I used photography because I love to be out there with my camera. Each page incorporates something said about that day and I chose the long skinny format because it is a Japanese style shape. Also because such a long skinny shape forces you to think about the imagery differently than if it was in a nice neat rectangle. I wanted to really learn Photoshop and I needed a reason to do it and I really did learn Photoshop. Again, I did not know that the book format would be the way it turned out. I was just making a sheet per day and printing them out. There are twelve books and for display purposes they can fan out all around and you can see all thirty-one pages in a circle. The twelve circles go back again to the ring but in a totally different way. This process got me going again in the studio. I did lots of work last year.

I don't think I would recommend doing something that intensive every year because it takes time --if you want to make it into a finished thing it takes a fair amount of time and effort but the idea of just going down and doing something every day I think is perfectly good. I took a class with Elizabeth Busch and she starts every day with an index card that she draws or paints on. If I can't do anything else, I go down and I start the index cards and the next thing is I'm working and that is what I think really matters and the whole thing is doing the work.

KM: Do you plan to do another year?

BS: Maybe in 2017. [audience laughs.] I started up again in 2008 and I thought I would do postcards, like each week be a theme and do a set of postcards and then I would have them for various purposes. It didn't work for me. I did five months. I was trying to go back through all of these photos I had and sort of force it and that didn't work. It has to do more with that whole daily-ness thing for me. People could use a whole other format.

KM: What do you think is the biggest challenge confronting quiltmakers today?

BS: So many choices, so much to see visually. I think it is sometimes hard to narrow your focus because you want to try this and you want to try that and you want to do everything. I find that if I start to take every workshop and learn every new technique I get very scattered and don't accomplish anything. I don't know if that is true for other people, but I think that it is a challenge. The second challenge on a professional level is that textiles are still not viewed as relevant or as "good " an art as painting and other forms of art. I think that is still a big hurdle to overcome.

KM: I want to thank you for.

BS: You are welcome.

KM: Doing this interview with me. We are now going to conclude and it is 11:06.