Interview with Diane Green

Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave and I am doing a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Diane Green. We are at the American Indian Center in Chicago, Illinois. Today's date is December 10, 2008 and it is 2:50 in the afternoon. Diane thank you for doing this interview with me. Tell me about the panel you selected for the interview.

Diane Green (DG): This is the first panel made for the [Ancestor.] Quilt Project. I did it from a painting. I did it just trying to guess what my grandmother looked like. She could have been really totally different from that but I just made it, her image. Her name was Christian Place Brock. That was her English given name. I don't know how she got it, if she was orphaned, if she was left on the church door step or what but she married a fellow named Ruben Brock, as far as I know. She was born in 1700 and died at 1721. She was born on Cherokee Mountain, North Carolina and her son was Aaron Brock who was also known as Chief Redbird who lived in Clay County, Kentucky. They all moved around a lot back in those days because the settlers were coming in and kind of chasing them out of where they used to being. I started discovering all this stuff about my ancestors shortly after my father died. I guess you could call it a way of working through the grief of my father's death, all the things that I didn't know about him. He was a pretty mysterious fellow, but once I started discovering a little bit, it all unwound in front of me and I was so amazed to read the differences from generation to generation you could see how they were pushed out of their homelands from one generation to the next and suddenly going from a place like Cherokee, North Carolina to a place called Division 19 Georgia. Sounds like a concentration camp, doesn't it? I was really overwhelmed but wanting so much to connect with them. I will tell you--well one spooky story is that when my father was dying, he was on his deathbed they wheeled an actual hospital bed into the den of our home in Memphis and one night he started hollering my name out loud, 'Diane Louise Green' and then my sister's name, 'Sharon Elizabeth Green,' and even my Uncle Ed's name, 'Edward Langworthy Peters.' I guess he wanted us to come be with him suddenly, like this was the end. We all got up and ran into the den, Sharon & Ed saw that I was awake so they just walked away and left me there. [laughs.] So I sat down and held my dad's hand and began just chatting. He wasn't making a whole lot of sense but during that time sitting with him the air became very, very cold to the point where I could see my breath and I sensed a huge group of people behind me, but there was no visible sign there but I realized it was his ancestors coming for him, and including his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters, but many more. He had been orphaned. My father became an orphan by the time he was ten years old. His father died when my father was 3 years old, his mother when he was 10. I guess that was one of the inspirations that got me started looking this up and then once I found the information that I was Cherokee Indian, I couldn't do anything but make art about it and that is how the Ancestor Quilt Project was begun. I continue learning my ancestry to this day. Next year I will be--well not only will I continue working on the Ancestor Quilt Project here but I will be doing a tour of the Trail of Tears with the Quilt, and recruiting new participants. At least I wrote a grant for it, I hope it comes through. I'm going from Chicago through Kentucky where my sixth great grandfather, Chief Redbird lived to Cherokee Mountain, North Carolina and then across the Trail of Tears in Tennessee through Arkansas to the old Indian Territory where my ancestors were sent, and to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where the current Western Band Cherokee Nation headquarters resides. I'll then go back up to Chicago where I will be starting on a series of paintings about the entire experience. Along the way there are a few people with whom I intend to meet, and to introduce to the Ancestor panels. One lady in particular is already starting on hers. She does the free traditional Kituwah lessons with the Yahoo Group. We meet about every other week online to chat and she is ready to do some panels for the quilt as well so I will be taking what is in progress with me to show people and inviting others to join.

KM: What do you hope will happen with the quilt? What are your plans for the quilt?

DG: I'm hoping they will show in an art show or medium somewhere, maybe even travel for others to see and join. I guess over and above all of that I know there are a lot of people out there like myself who have Indian ancestries that they were never told about, and I think it is high time that the truth come out; that the people that really are Indians should be made known where they really come from, how they get their wondrous personalities [laughs.] and remarkable gifts. [laughs.] But anyway, it is important to understand how truly American you really are when you get down to all of this. It is like oh man, it is like you keep searching and searching for the ancestors of the ancestors and nothing goes across the ocean, it is all from somewhere around here. It is like they sprang out of the ground or something, it is like wow. It is an intense thing to learn about yourself; you try to explain to people and they are going to say you don't look like an Indian and you say well I'm not a Navajo, I'm a Cherokee. It is a big thing to get used to. But that is the thing I know there are so many others. I mean one of the people I'm going to visit on the Trail of Tears, this girl Lorette Velvette, she and I were in a rock & roll band together. Okay, we were songwriters, a songwriting team and we had a really good time, but we never knew. I called her the other day; somebody had a question about a song we used to do. So I thought, 'Who would know the answer to this? Oh yeah, Lorette so I called her and she didn't know the answer to the question either but we were chatting, 'What's new with you?' 'Well I found out I'm a Cherokee.' She says, 'Hey me too!' And I'm like, 'Oh my god I had no idea.' It turned out her father was of Cherokee heritage but he died when she was young and things like that, it happens. So, it will be exciting to see Lorette and maybe I can talk her into doing a quilt panel too. It just goes on and on. It is amazing.

KM: Tell me about your interest in quiltmaking and why did you choose quilts?

DG: I think it is just because I knew, it is just what naturally would come out of me because that is what my mother's mother did and my great aunt and my father's mother, I've got quilts, piles of quilts from ages and ages ago and I guess it is just sort of a natural function of expression for me. That is probably why everybody else learned how. Well quiltmaking is a worldwide thing but it was a lot of people in my family making quilts and so even if I have no intention of quilt making whatsoever it just flows through my pores. I choose more to be a painter. Like this panel of my seventh great grandmother, Christian Place, I made a painting of her, a painting in an old wooden cabinet box, which I keep as an ancestor memorial altar in my home. There are other paintings that I've done that somebody has made a quilt panel from but that's how it goes--I do both and as time goes by, fiber arts is one of those things that just takes a really long time to get really good at it and to love whatever you do is another special skill as well.

KM: How did you determine the size?

DG: There was no real planning in that. I think I just cut a piece of denim that I thought would be a pretty good size and all the rest followed. [each panel/block is 12 inches wide by 16 inches tall.] I like using denim because it is kind of plentiful and then it's also pretty sturdy. It will be quilted. This is a panel and it is going to have a filler [batting.] and a backing piece as well. Not a quilting design in but I don't know, we will determine how we can best do that without interrupting the appliqu pictres, but it will be a three layer piece when it is finished. It will be a quilt.

KM: Everything is done by hand?

DG: Right.

KM: There is not a rule?

DG: I didn't put it in writing anywhere that you absolutely had to, it is just what we have done more naturally just because it is pleasant to sit around here and stitch away. We enjoy it. I wouldn't know how to use a machine to do much embroidery so I guess that's why.

KM: There are going to be three different quilts. So talk to me a little bit about how you came up with the three categories.

DG: Again sort of it kind of shaped itself. The three categories are Herbs and Things, Animal Spirits, and Ancestors. Ancestors would be like portraits of people. I guess I wanted to include stuff about culture and variations of culture across the country. I wanted to do an owl for my animal spirits but then I heard people from the West get a little spooked hearing about owls so I don't want to upset anyone but I like owls a lot. You don't see many of them, they hide pretty well. [laughs.]

KM: How many panels have you done?

DG: Let's see, I've done this one. I worked on one that somebody started, three or four, maybe I would have to look and count, but one fellow was passing through the summer before last and made the medicine wheel and I worked on that for a while getting it arranged correctly. We had to rearrange it a couple of times but the medicine wheel is the center piece for the "Herbs and Things." It is for food and herbs being the central core of medicine.

KM: How did you get the group going?

DG: I just started showing up and then I did it because well a friend of mine, Mela, my Eskimo friend, Mela and I can't remember what made her think that I should come here and do art groups but maybe it was her idea. I don't know I just started showing up. She said, 'Well I will meet you there,' and she did but then she shortly after that she was moving and she got a hip fracture that made her not be able to show up for a long time so I was just kind of showing up by myself for a lot of weeks. [laughs.] She is here sometimes. She used to come to the group a lot, but she has been ill.

KM: You meet twice a week.

DG: Mondays and Wednesdays. It's after the senior lunch. We began doing other arts and crafts but this is what it spun into and it is what everybody wants to work on. I mean if somebody wanted to show up and work on something else that would be fine. I wouldn't have a problem with that. I can understand wanting to work on another thing, but we are doing this now. If the quilts were going to be sold and we would want the money to go to a continuing arts program for the Indian Center seniors and continue doing that.

KM: Tell me about your experience hand dying the fabric that is going in-between the panels.

DG: Oh yeah, [laughs.] I got a grant to buy the materials, and I was really excited about it. My first experience was that I wanted to purchase something that grew around here, something local to use for dyestuff and I found a fellow selling Spiderwort flowers but first he sent me whole Spiderwort plants chopped up and those didn't work. Well it worked. It would make a color but it was just kind of a really pale beige on muslin didn't look too exciting so I wrote back and said,' This is not what I thought it would be.' He thought it would be really purple, so he sent another batch of just the flower buds which turned out great but it's not light fast or water fast. Then he charged quite a barrel full for the flowers but it was a learning experience. It has been a lot of learning. [laughs.] All the learning, all that jazz. It was just a lot of work. I thought it would be easy. I planned three little workshops and invited people over to dye stuff but with the first experience and working into the second one I could see that the all the pre-mordanting and post mordanting and washing and rewashing, the work is huge, so I was a little overwhelmed but I love it. It is exciting.

KM: Have you ended up with enough to do the three quilts?

DG: I think so. We will keep working and as it is I'm now transitioning into somebody that collects and finds dye stuffs and holds it until we can do another batch. I'm still learning.

KM: Why is this important to you?

DG: Hum, it is a reconnection with my ancestry that I probably wouldn't have had another way to do. I remember meeting people in town who, in fact one fellow that I met found out that he was 7/8 Cherokee, he was redheaded and pale, like pink pale and [laughs.] if he is Cherokee then maybe I surely am. [laughs.] I kept following the places that he told me to go and then shortly after that I met my friend Mela, who made a reference to prayer as speaking to grandfather. I knew that I was on to something when I met her.

KM: What would you offer someone starting out?

DG: Offer?

KM: What advice would you give?

DG: There is no race. There is no parade. Be true to yourself. Connect with who you really are and express it in your artwork. If it turns out that it goes in the Ancestor Quilt then that is great, but it is the process that is your gift to keep. I have a non-profit organization called Museum of Universal Self-Expression. The way I see it is that the museum is really just the entire planet earth and the universal self-expression is when everyone everywhere feels okay about themselves and everyone everywhere can express it. Or at least can express it even if they are not feeling okay, but the real, real self-expression happening to everyone.

KM: What is your biggest challenge with the group?

DG: Keeping them coming back. I guess they just keep coming back. I don't know if that is a challenge. I guess like not splitting up and doing something else. Staying focused with this one project. We love to make stuff, but its like you are going to work on the same thing for a while and it is just a slow process. I think the challenge is getting to know each other and giving time each other.

KM: Tell me a little bit more about the group. The women that are involved in the group.

DG: Irene [Bigeagle.], Becca [Rebecca Yoder.] and Schellen show up and then there are others that come and hang out with us that haven't started sewing yet. Some have. Some plan to but haven't started yet and things like that. It is a variation there is a fellow that trots through every so often. He started working on a panel but then he said he wanted to put it on his jacket, so I'm not sure if that is going to happen. We hang out after lunch. Sometimes we have exercise before. Sometimes we have acupuncture before. Usually have some tea and just chat about things while we are working on the quilts. If somebody needs help with an appliqu image I can help them with that or help them find a picture to go by and things like that.

KM: If you had no experience, it wouldn't matter?

DG: No, right, it wouldn't matter. I'm very happy to help along or put something together for somebody to work on.

KM: How long has the group been meeting?

DG: Two years, going on, I guess in March it will be a full two years, March of '09.

KM: Your website?

DG: Well Becca's made a separate website of just Ancestorquilts.org and then I have a couple of pages on the Callmecrazy.org website too includes everything needed to create the panels.

KM: You have people participating that are not in the Chicagoland area.

DG: Right, right, I have one lady in Nova Scotia and then one from Iowa. Two people, at least two people have emailed me saying they were going to do pieces, but I lost their email addresses. One was in California; I think she said she had a Blackfoot ancestor. I can't remember, maybe Pottawatomie. I can't remember. Another person in England wanted to send a panel eventually. I'm just waiting to see, anything could happen. There are a couple of people who can't make it to the regular group times here in town that are working on some panels.

KM: When do you suspect you will have the panels together? Do you have any, a goal or an idea?

DG: I hoping to have at least one totally completed by September of '09, but maybe even all three ready to show by aout then, fall of '09. Hopeful. [laughs.]

KM: Where do you get your materials?

DG: I just have a bunch of stuff all over. I find things. People donate fabrics to me. They've been doing that for a couple of years just because I'm an artist and it just shows up. I've worked for one designer, and I sewed a while. I was a cutter for Su Zen in Chicago and got to take home a lot of fabrics and I bought some, and brought home some scrapes and people donate scraps; if they hear you're fiber person, word gets out. [laughs.]

KM: Do you plan to do any more ancestor blocks?

[note: a woman sitting in the room joined in but since she was not a part of the interview, her comments were not included.]

DG: I should. I could do a whole quilt of just the ones related to me [laughs.] off the Dawes Roll [Congressman Henry Dawes was a big advocate of property ownership. The rest of Congress agreed, and in 1887 they enacted into law the Dawes Act. The Act stated that the United States government would provide for the allotment of lands in Indian Reservations. Individuals entitled to enrollment on the rolls of the various tribes in the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The index entries are arranged by tribe and there under by enrollment category (Cherokee By Blood, Cherokee Minor, Cherokee Freedmen, etc.).], but I haven't yet. Eventutally.

KM: I want to thank you for taking time out to do this interview with me. We are going to conclude at 3:12.