Interview with Joy Major

Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave and I'm conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview. Today's date is July 20, 2009. It is now 8:48 in the morning and I'm at The Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio, and I'm conducting an interview with Joy Major. Joy, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with me. I'm so excited.

Joy Major (JM): You are welcome.

KM: Let's start out by telling me why you are here.

JM: In 1996, I met a gentleman by the name of Donald Hoop and I married him within two weeks something I usually didn't make a practice of doing. A year later he was murdered in the parking lot of my business and one year later I was convicted of the homicide. I was charged with four counts of capital murder with eight death penalty specifications and I was convicted of three counts of aggravated murder and five death penalty specifications. The jury did not impose the death penalty. However, they did impose a mandatory sentence of 25 to life. I have to do 25 years day for day before my first statutory eligibility for parole. That is how I got to The Ohio Reformatory.

KM: Thank you. Now let's move on. Tell me about your quilt, "Hands of Time."

JM: I was invited by Chaplain [Jami.] Burns, she works at our Religious Service Department, to work with the quilt project with Sacred Threads. At first, I wasn't so sure I wanted to do it because it stirs up a lot of emotions and a lot of old past stuff I wasn't sure I wanted to deal with. I talked to Dr. Cinch over at Mental Health and she thought that it would be an awesome idea and offered to support me in any way she could when I worked on the project. I tried to come up with a title in a quilt that would be in some way part of my journey here. I thought "Hands of Time" because to me it was all about expressing what time here is like. The time before I got here and even time into the future. I thought "Hands of Time" would be able to illustrate that for me. I wrote this little poem about "Hands of Time" and it's the way the hands turn slowly here and if I could turn the hands back things would be a lot differently. As I started working, I found it so unusual that even though I've been here for 12 years, some days the time passes so quickly that I can't believe it's been and then other times it seems like one day could be an eternity. I started to pick out material and stuff for my quilt and the most obvious piece that I found was this brick wall [points to quilt.]. To me the brick just represented a stopping point, a confinement of it all. I worked around it and I put the brick on and then I started thinking about the clock. I put the clock on and I used each little scrap of material that we could find because all of the things that we had here was donated in some kind of way. So I collected all of the beige or white pieces and I tried to make it as varied as possible because I found that the people here are just that. Everybody is just so individual. I began stitching these pieces together and I didn't know how to quilt. I had made a couple of quilting projects before that. I didn't have any lessons in quilting [laughs.] that is probably obvious, but I just decided to start sewing it together how I thought it would go together. Then I put the little ticks on here, the little time markers to show how time passes here. Then I found these little black and white pieces and when I was first convicted this is what my prison uniform looked like. It was seriously like the old time prison uniforms on television. I put that one on next and I kept stitching and stitching because there is such an enormous amount of time here that I had more time than I had materials. I wanted to use the materials wisely and use the thread wisely and plus it felt real mediating to me too, just keep sewing and sewing. I put that on and then I stopped to think about what this all meant to me and how I actually got here. I thought that it was because of my big mouth, that is why I put this here because frequently my lesson was all about saying things before I thought about things. I put my initials here and my husband's initials here and I showed what love was all about and I showed what murder can do. I put "lies" over there because there was so much lies involved in the whole relationship, the trial, the conviction, everything. I always had hope for release and redemption so I put it over here. On this, I just wanted to show that drugs and crime would surely provide this 25 to life sentence and these little markers are just periods of time that I measured. Then it kind of got dark for me so I decided, 'No I needed to do something else.' In my mental health work, they always want to suggest things about your childhood so excavated my inner child and her name is Star. When I found this little bright piece of star material, [laughs.] I absolutely had to have it to put it on there. Star became part of the quilt. Then I found this little clock piece and I thought, 'Oh that must be part of it too.' Each week when I would go to the quilting class we would be able to pick up another little piece of material. I just found this clock to be part of it.

KM: Wonderful.

JM: If the pieces didn't match my quilt, I put tea on them to stain them or I colored them with a highlighter to make them kind of match a little bit. I just repeated time on here again and again and again because during that period of time everything seemed to be passing pretty slowly for me. I wanted to show the barbed wire and the confinement of this so I used this little piece to show how all of this is surrounded by the fence and that is what that is. Up here I found another little piece that I absolutely found amazing, how all these little pieces of barbed wire and chain was there in the material. I was then positive [laughs.] that was what that part was supposed to be. I never wanted my quilt to be without hope so I put the sky at the very top. While my quilt was being stored it got this dirt on it, so I thought, 'Well, that is just part of it too because this whole story is not a clean, little, tidy story. [laughs.] It is about the mess and how you can get yourself into it.' I did stitch the case number over there and my sentence on it.

I was finished with this part of the quilt, but it was still tugging at me to do something else. That is when the back of the quilt became obvious, which now I think of it as the front of the quilt. The way I've done my time here is collect friends and join in network of good positive people. Some of the girls are inmate on here. Some of them are staff persons who I've used other names because I wasn't sure how appropriate that would be to put their names on there. As I began to think about it, this quilt then evolved more from the actual time aspect to sentencing aspect and how so many women come here, first time offenders, many are ten and twelve time offenders, but I'm speaking more to the first time offenders. They get here and they have such huge amount of time and in some cases I didn't want the people to become forgotten in any kind of way. I made this memory side for it and I put people that have been significant in my life here and I thought in some way I wanted other women or people--I mainly thought women to know what happens with domestic violence, what happens with drugs, what happens when someone is sentenced to extraordinary amounts of time. I started writing words and phrases that meant something to me and the people who were here how much time they were serving here. People were here and got their convictions released and left then.

Stacy was a lady that I served a lot of time with. She committed suicide here. My heart is a little close to death row because I'm very fortunate not to be waiting there for my own execution. I feel real blessed about that. This lady, Ms. Beatrice, she came here on death row. She was commuted to a 50 to life sentence. At the lock down because we spent some time there. Who else is on here? For all of our mothers, I put this mother's piece on. I put "abused" on here because so many women here just seem to have abuse of some kind in their past and how that so effects people every day and how it continues to effect people into their futures. I wanted to always honor people that were in here. I wanted to dishonor lethal injection. I put "The Ohio Department of Rehab and Correction" on here because in as much as I don't like calling this home, the fact of the matter it is. I wanted to put that on there. We are all here together and when you are serving time of this amount of women and you can find any kind of common bond it makes time a lot easier to serve. Again, I just stitched each little piece on here because as I would find the material it seemed like I could find the exact person that needed to be on it at that time. Even this girl [pointing to a name on the quilt.], she was released during the time that this was made, she served a life sentence here. I think 20 or so years, and I thought, 'When I go home I don't ever want to forget the women who were here.' I wanted to keep this as a memory quilt. For the Sacred Threads exhibition, they took this out into the community and I felt like it was a way for us to get to go too. That is kind of how I came up with the quilt and then it just kept adding on. It is just how life goes. It just keeps developing into something else.

KM: How long did you work on this quilt?

JM: I think well over six months. It is kind of different than if I was maybe quilting at home because of the structure here, you had to keep the things put up. There is a security issue here so limited having the piece of material to be where you could work on it, where you could have it. Once we kind of got them put together then we were able to bring them back to our living area and work on them a little bit more.

KM: How did you choice the embroidery stitches that you chose?

JM: This particular feather stitch was something that I noticed when I was a little girl. My grandmother had a quilt with all of these different stitches on them and I wanted to learn how to make them, but at the time I wasn't able to sit down and apply myself to it. I found them in a quilt book again and as soon as I saw them I thought some way I have to incorporate those into my project. There was a lady here, she is on here I'm sure. Her name is Ms. Betty Toole. She was in the middle of working on the quilt and she passed. She was someone that encouraged me to sew and learn how to sew. She was, I think, in her eighties so it was kind of nice to have her here. Kind of as my own little--we called them prison mothers, and she taught me how to do this feather stitch. This one I thought looked like a measuring stick. I don't know what the name of all the stitches.

KM: It is a buttonhole stitch.

JM: Button hole stitch, so I put that on because I thought it looked like a measuring stick and just the X's I thought we could change part of our past if we could just X some of the stuff out. The fact of the matter is you can't, so you just have to live with whatever decisions you made and the consequences that came along with them.

KM: Tell me about how you felt about having your quilt go to Sacred Threads. Tell me a little more about that.

JM: At first I thought, 'I'm so proud of this.' I'm so proud of the whole quilting thing, the whole religious service thing involved, mental health. It seems like sometimes when I first got here I didn't feel supported. I didn't feel I had a voice. I didn't feel like there were too many things productive to do until about my third year and as they say, 'What you look for you will find.' [laughs.] So I started looking for something to do. I always enjoyed the functions at the Religious Service Department and Mental Health, so when I got this, look at this letter isn't it awesome. I got this letter that said my quilt could go and I thought, 'Oh boy, I had to really think about that because now it wasn't just going to be me and the girls here seeing it.' It was going to be what I had hoped for, but you know how you get scared after you hope for something and it happens, I thought then it is going to go on the tour though. I was pretty excited. Then some of the staff members started talking about them and they said they were going to be in Reynoldsburg. Not being from Columbus, I had no idea where Reynoldsburg was and I still don't, but I understand it is about a half hour from here. The Sacred Threads would take the quilts and do a little honorary project with the prison quilts. They took them and I felt great about the project being included. It made me feel like I had fulfilled a little bit of purpose, whether it was inside, outside, I knew I was honoring people, women in prison, I knew that. We got a book from Sacred Threads and I don't know it just seemed like when you are part of something larger it makes me feel more connected and when I looked and I read through how different people told their stories through these quilts and what they must have been going through, it was just all part of, there is many, many ways to record time. I recorded the time and when I found mine in here, there it is. I was like it is actually in there. It really happened and it was a part of something. I know that it's forever preserved, I like that.

KM: Have you heard about the feedback from the exhibition?

JM: No, we are going this evening. There was a conflict in scheduling last week. We go this evening to find out if they were well received. I would image how I was before I got here there was too much said about incarcerated women or prisoners or crime I steered away from it.

KM: I can tell you it was very well received.

JM: It was well received?

KM: Very well received. There is a lot of buzz.

JM: Good.

KM: There is a lot of talk in the quilt community. A lot.

JM: That is nice, because you never know when you have inmates or something like that how anybody is going to respond to it. That makes me feel even happier.

KM: Art connects us.

JM: Absolutely.

KM: You did good.

JM: Okay, I love it. I love it.

KM: You had to write an artist statement for this show. Tell me about that, how was that for you?

JM: That was the most difficult part. The artist statement was the emotional involvement that I felt with it and how I felt other people might see it. When I wrote the statement, I just tried to explain, first of all the technical aspects of it because that was so much easier, technical, non-emotional and a way to describe the quilt. I have my little signature book it has the poem written in this and it says, 'Turn the hands of time slowly. Turn the hands of time back to a time that I've missed and bring those people back. To a time of laughter, to a time of joy. Turn the hands of time slowly, turn the hands of time back.' [cries.] That is what it was about. [cries.] [also part of her artist statement- I was born to Sanford and Betty Major. I came to prison in January of 1998 and I'm serving a life sentence with parole eligibility upon twenty-five full years. I enjoy reading and sewing. I spend most of my days doing community service work. Upon release, I will return to Cincinnati, Ohio.]

KM: Do you feel you will make more quilts?

JM: I tried to make one. My niece is expecting our first baby in 27 years in our family. We haven't had a baby for 27 years. I'm making the baby a quilt and I believe I'm brave enough to try and follow a pattern this time. I believe I can accomplish the quilt. I believe that when she receives it that will start another part of history because the baby will have the little quilt, they call me Aunt Lovey, from Aunt Lovey and I think she will keep it forever. I think she will. Then I get over zealous, maybe I should make too, one to wrap the baby in [laughs.] and one to keep. It is kind of, kind of addictive once you make one. I never paid attention to fabric or buttonholes. I just thought garments were at the store. I mean I didn't know how. I mean I knew how they got there but I didn't really know that they were cut out of fabric, sewn together and a project when you are finished. Now it has opened my eyes so much more to what is available through art. I wanted to be an artist when I was seven or eight years old. It is kind of creative quest, a little bit. I didn't get to follow through on that too much, and since I've been here I've learned how to sew. I've made a few things since then. I didn't go to the Arts and Crafts Department because I wasn't artsy. I wasn't crafty. I had forgotten about that part of myself. I joined the beauty school here. I enrolled in the beauty school and now I know how to cut hair. I've taught myself how to play the piano and I'm looking for another teacher to teach me how to sew a little bit more.

KM: You've become a seamstress.

JM: [laughs.] I don't know.

KM: This is all done by hand?

JM: Some of it was done by hand and some of it; we got to sew on the sewing machines so we could learn how to sew on the sewing machine. Some of the girls had already taught me how to sew on the sewing machine. We had made a community service project. We made teddy bears for Children's Memorial Hospital. I knew how to do that. To make a quilt, I had no idea how to make a quilt. I have a good friend here who is a quilter and when I first started she would tell me all the technical aspects of it, and I said I really don't think I will be going that route [laughs.]. It would be much more raw and pieced together than that. Now out of my love for this I can sit down and concentrate and sew.

KM: What was your favorite part of this?

JM: Fellowshipping with the girls. When I was talking about the quilt, putting it together, the sense of community that it brought, the message.

KM: What do they think of the quilt?

JM: There is different groups. Some of them are very closed minded to quilting or anything like this. They thought it was ridiculous. There was others who supported me and encouraged me to make it. Then the older ones, I have to separate myself out of that eighty year old group [laughs.], the older ones they were honored in their past because they could help us so they knew how, they could teach the lesson. My teacher, she was awesome. I think she pulled out half of the thread that I put in the beginning because they weren't close enough together and she told me, she said, 'Joy, when I was growing up the measure of the woman was measured by her stitch', and I was like, 'Wow, you've got to be kidding me,' [laughs.] but she was. It was very true about how she used to sew and how many things that she made. She then started telling me about how she made her own wedding dress. She made all of her children's clothing. She patched up all of her clothing here. I just got that. Maybe I'm supposed to patch my own clothes now that she is gone. I can patch my own clothes.

KM: What was your favorite part about making the quilt?

JM: My favorite part was taking something very small and building the project. Taking something that would mean nothing to anyone else. Some of these are pieces of linens from here. They donated some like old sheets when they got too dingy or too old to use. To take something like that, that was going to be otherwise discarded and to make it into the quilt. It felt good to recycle and to hold on. Someone would recognize this little piece of material. [points to a fabric.] Someone would recognize this one. Material tells all about the person who had it first and then to me, it honors whatever the original garment was, too. We have material. We have some old clothing items that we took apart. I think that is what I enjoyed most about it.

KM: What will happen to the quilt?

JM: I'm really not sure what is going to happen to the quilt. I don't know if we will donate them somewhere. I don't know. Ms. [Elizabeth.]Wright, do you know what will happen to the quilts? [Administrative Assistant to the Warden, who is sitting in on the interview, shakes her head no.] I have no idea what is going to happen to the quilts. The project changed as we were working on it. At first they were going to be therapy quilts, they were going to be personal, we were going to keep them in the room and it wasn't going to be talked about, they were going to be for healing. The more we worked then it grew into something bigger and then when Ms. Pignatelli came from Sacred Threads, she inspired us to complete them because we had just made the first and then she brought in the batting part and helped us turn them into an actual quilt. When they got to go on the exhibit, and then we heard you were coming, we were all so excited that we were participating from behind bars. We participate.

KM: I can tell you've moved a lot of people. It is a ripple.

JM: How did you feel when you saw the quilt?

KM: I cried. I will be honest I cried. I thought they were full of emotion. I was very touched. I was very excited about coming here. This has actually been a dream of mine for five years.

JM: Really.

KM: Yes, to find a prison that would be willing to allow me to come and do interviews.

JM: I'm so glad it happened. I'm so glad when something just keeps on growing. It starts with that simple little piece of material and grew into a big project. There is just one more person that got to have a part of their dream in it. Chaplain [Jami.] Burns, she had everybody, kind of a collective project, get the word out. I know several staff people who were watching us make them and looked at them more than once and I would try to look at them to see what they were looking at. Some would make a comment, some would not and the ones that talked to me about mine; it was exciting to see something done and to see what is really inside here. It is not always the method. These terrible people that can't be rehabilitated or people who can't get a second chance or, I don't know. There is more to it. I'm not even sure at this point. I know I'm not finished with talking about prison and what goes on here; I know that, I'm positive about that. How that came about, how strongly I felt about it, each time I placed a name on, here is another person, here is another person. Look at this lady, look what she calls herself. Sex Kitten. Isn't that ridiculous? She thinks that is funny. I said, 'What name do you want me to use?' And she says, 'My name,' and I said, 'Well Gina, how do you spell your last name?' And she said, 'Kitten,' and I said, 'Okay.' She has a very colorful history, past. Then you know what? Then I put this tax dollar on here because there are so many women here that if afforded an opportunity wouldn't be such a drain on society. There is that to be said, too.

KM: What do you think makes a great quilt? In your mind, what makes a great quilt?

JM: Love. The energy, the thought. The care, the care in making it. When I had my pieces of material, I treasured each one of them. A small piece, that piece right there. Love, that what makes a special quilt. The meaning of the quilt. The purpose of the quilt. The energy that it carries with it, the response that I had, the response that perhaps other people had, your response. I think that is the most important part. Certainly love.

KM: Has your family seen the quilt?

JM: No. No. No. They come for 12 years once a month to see me and when I told my mother about the project she said, 'I would like to see it' and I told her I didn't know if there would ever be an opportunity for her to see it and now there is going to be an opportunity for her to see it. My little sister, she said, 'You can't sew. I said, 'I can. It is just stitch by stitch. I don't know how to sew, but I know that I will be able to put it together.' There is something to be said, something to be shown, something to be honored. She will get to see it now. I think a lot of people will be happy to know. When I found out that you were coming, I told some of the girls, 'Are you sure? Positive that you want your name on the quilt?' Because it is going to continue outside the realm of Columbus and they were excited and they wanted to know where all that we were going to get to go. I said, 'I don't know yet but we are going somewhere.' We are going out of here for a moment.

KM: Now that it will be on the website, we get visitors from all over the world going to read the interviews and look at the quilts. It is about 8,000 people a month and it keeps going up and up and up. People all over the world now see the quilt.

JM: I like that.

KM: The archive is in the Library of Congress so just think 100 years from now somebody could go into the Library of Congress and read your story and see your quilt.

JM: It is amazing. It is amazing. Quite the opportunity. It is something that hasn't happened here before. [laughs.] I think it is a very, very unique opportunity that all the necessary elements come together right now to do it.

KM: What advice would you offer somebody making their first quilt?

JM: Jump in. I would suggest [laughs.] that they allow their heart to lead them. They can search through all the quilt books, quilt magazines that they want, but quality inspiration of their heart, I think there is something to be said for traditional, the Amish type of quilt, and I think there is something to be said about expressing life through quilts. I would encourage anyone to do this project and I hope the projects repeat itself here so more women get the opportunity as a craft and as more as an art, an outlet.

KM: Is there anything that you would like to share that we haven't touched upon before we conclude?

JM: No, I don't think there is anything else to add. I want to thank you for coming.

KM: I want to thank you for allowing me to interview you.

JM: For sitting in and making it possible. If you have any suggestions for the quilts, I would be honored for it to be seen again.

KM: Thank you. I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to come and share with me. You were fabulous. You truly were fabulous. We are going to conclude our interview at 9:26.