Susan Hinzman

Susan Hinzman

MD20816-003

Susan Hinzman

Le Rowell

1/24/03

Moda Fabrics

Bethesda, Maryland

Marianne Dubois

Le Rowell (LR): This is Le Rowell and today's date is January 24, 2003. It is ten minutes past two p.m. and I'm conducting an interview with Susan Hinzman for the Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories project. This is part of The Alliance for American Quilts, and we are in my home here in Bethesda, Maryland. Susan, tell me about this glorious piece that you brought with you today.

Susan Hinzman (SH): This is my Baltimore Album quilt. I started it in 1993 when I retired from teaching. I didn't start it earlier because I knew I wouldn't have time. I signed up for a class at G Street [G Street Fabrics, a shop in Rockville, Maryland.] with Ann Connery so that I could learn appliqué and took all the year's classes and saw lots of album quilts; and working on this quilt using all the patterns that were out of the books. I got sick of doing them and decided I wanted my own; so, when I branched out, then the quilt really became my own because I did my own designs and put on my own border. I finished it three years later in 1996.

LR: So, talk about some of the parts of the quilt, your parts of the quilt.

SH: My parts of the quilt include a skipjack which is the Maryland state boat. I copied my husband's skipjack model and put it on the quilt. Being native to Maryland, I wanted Maryland things on the quilt. The man who made the actual model uses dead skipjacks; ones that are no longer in existence. This model is--or this quilt patch is really a copy of his model which is called the Chesapeake, and it was boat number 23 back in the early 1900's on the Bay [Chesapeake Bay.] I grew up with horses and hounds. So, I took the Maryland Hunt Cup insignia and inked it onto my quilt and put some appliqué on because I always go to Hunt Cup. I've been to Hunt Cup every year except two since 1948. When we'd go on the Bay, we often sail past Thomas Point Lighthouse. So, I had photographs of Thomas Point and using my photographs, I designed the block. Now inside the circle that holds Thomas Point on the block I have a little fox in a dinghy, and it's called the Salty Fox; and I have a friend [Barbie Sonnett.] who does marvelous, marvelous porcelain work with foxes and she had made me a salty fox, so she's in my quilt--this is for her. I come originally from Harford County; and one of the well renowned sporting artists in the world really is from Harford County and he had done gorgeous watercolors of hunting and foxes and horses. So, I, in essence, turned into fabric his painting of the Harford fox. His name is Edward S. Voss and I knew him as a young woman, and he rode a big painted horse. I wanted my quilt signed and I thought, 'What am I going to do? What am I going to do?' and I drew pictures and sketches and what-have-you and I came up with my own monogram. And one of my English friends [Chris Brice.] had given me some red fabric so I incorporated that into a flowers quilt--on my monogram on the quilt. The whole border is a foxhunt that starts in the upper left-hand corner with the barn and the horses and farms and goes all the way around to the top. In the lower right-hand corner, I put myself on my own Shetland. She is all of forty-eight inches tall and I worked from a photo I had when I was a child. I collect foxes so I've got the foxes all through the quilt. They are quilted on, they are appliquéd on, there are about fifty-five total. I took the line drawings of my husband's and my sailboat, actual architectural sketches, and sketched it onto the cloth and then using signal flags for the name of the boat which is Windweaver on the outside edge. When I made this block--I thought it is not going to go with the other blocks in the quilt. It does and it looks good. [laugh.] In Annapolis I found a note card that had a fox silhouette on it, and it's taken from a button that was found at the Paca House in Annapolis when they were doing the archeological digs and, on the button, it said, 'tally ho', but spelled differently. [tallio.] I put that on and surrounded it with more foxes. It's different. This block is supposed to have grapes, and I thought, 'I'm not doing forty-eight thousand grapes or even a dozen grapes on this.' So, I decided I would put on the Maryland state flower which is the Black-eyed Susan and it looked kind of dull and drab, so I had a fox jumping through the grape leaves. It was kind of fun when I did the flower because I photographed some Black-eyed Susans. Maryland is one of the original thirteen states and the Black-eyed Susans all have thirteen pedals--or all the ones I photographed did. I hid a fox in the cornucopia--here and I put another one in the fruit bowl, and you can see one here and here. [Susan is pointing to the foxes.].

LR: I see you quilted one. Am I mistaken?

SH: I quilted a lot. There's one--

LR: You quilted the fox so that he stands out in the--below the Black-eyed Susan?

SH: There are foxes all over quilted in and appliquéd on. If you look there is a fox here and here going around the Harford fox and across the top.

LR: And that's all done with quilting?

SH: That's all done with quilting. When I did the inking on the quilt I went through and just put in basically kind of notes. This one is dedicated to my mother who was the horsewoman. It is a big square one with roses, she liked roses, so I thought well that's fine, and I quilted her initials in the middle. They don't show up real well, but I know they're there. So that's what--

LR: You said inking, explain that.

SH: Using a pigma pen because it's permanent ink and it doesn't run and very fine print so you can do anything you want on your quilt; It's writing on your quilt, and nobody can take that away.

LR: Talk about some of the techniques that you used to make the quilt; not only in the squares, but your quilting as well.

SH: One thing I did in the quilting was when I quilted the blocks, I tried to do a different pattern or design in every block. I did not replicate anything so there would be echo quilting or--this one I would say I did herringbone; some have different circular patterns. I just tried to do different patterns and in doing that I would quilt in the foxes. This particular block, for instance, [Susan is pointing to one of the blocks on her quilt.] is reverse appliqué. Instead of putting the red color on the top, you put it underneath and quilt the background fabric down to the red appliqué. This is the last that I did. This was the first block that I did in class and everybody in the textile appliqué classes has to do this block first because that's the way Elly Sienkiewicz set it up in the quilt books in her lesson plans; and it got to the point I really did not want to see any more fleur-de-lys laughs.] on my quilt or anything else. And when it came time to put my quilt together, I thought I'm not going to put this in; it's probably pretty rough and ragged and it looks pretty amateur. An artist friend of mine said, 'And do you think the Sistine Chapel looks the same all the way through? [laugh.] Do you think Michelangelo went back and put in perfect pieces? No.' She said, 'Well, you need to show your chronological growth on your quilt.' I thought what a neat idea because then this doesn't blink like a neon sign of 'I'm terrible.' It's on okay block and it fits in.

LR: How did you cut out this pattern for this block?

SH: As per instructions. I was taught to appliqué with a freezer paper method where you fold your freezer paper like we used to do snowflakes in school, trace on the border of the design, cut it, put the paper on the cloth and cut and appliqué as you go. Another thing I did on the border is I thought, 'How am I going to get around the corners?' The corners can get tricky. I thought, well do a Maryland Wye oak.

LR: Maryland white oak?

SH: Wye oak, it's--

LR: The Wye oak, W-Y-E.

SH: Because it's the Maryland state tree. So, I have, I think, twelve Wye oaks on the border because I wanted trees scattered. And I tried to use different fabric for the trunk and the top of the tree in everyone all the way around, and I've got things underneath the tree and things in the tree--you know animals, birds, cats and just fun things for people to see and look at and its amusement for me. I used the same horse and pony designs all the way through, but they really look different because I used different fabrics. For instance, this pony doesn't look anything like this pony because he is a different color even though it's the same pattern silhouette. Having grown up with it, I made sure all the clothing and all the bridles and all the saddles and everything was technically correct. Embroidered on all the bridle, embroidered on the stirrups. At the top I have all the hunt staff including a lady who is sidesaddle. Her veil, her top hat and everything else. And then the hunt staff with their whips and horn and some hounds and, of course, when you come around the corner, the fox is in the grapevines. [laughs.] So I have traditional blocks here that are from the old album quilts like the cornucopia and the fruit bowl and the grapevine and the reverse appliqué heart, and four or five on here that are typical. This particular block, which is the pink honeysuckle, a lady in our class designed. We had this big discussion about--in class about there are or are not pink honeysuckle. Well, I knew there were because where I walked every day, there was a big pink honeysuckle bush, so I took in a big sprig of it and solved the problem and she came back with a design of the pink honeysuckle.

LR: Talk a minute about maybe some of the fabrics that you used. Did you buy them? Did you have them? Leftovers?

SH: A couple things were leftover. I just saw a piece a minute ago when we were moving the quilt that I had as a dress. I had this as a dress years ago, an aqua and olive green. A lot of it I bought. Some of it I traded. Some was given to me, like the red piece from my friend in England. It was very important that that red be on the quilt. My friend is a leukemia survivor and is still surviving, is on new medicine and is doing well. As she said she is living proof of the gals who did not come out of the hospital and that three of them went in together. So, it's important that that be there. This particular fabric for the pineapple, I just happened to find a piece of it so it looks like pineapple. I just had lots and lots and lots of fabric and looked and looked and looked. If I did it today, I'd would probably choose differently. Originally when I was going to do the border, I was going to do a much more detailed complicated background landscape. I kind of set myself a deadline and I ran out of time, and actually I am glad I did because I think this turned out better. I really had to go on a hunt for tree fabric for the Wye oak so that I had lots of different fabrics and different trunks. When it came time to do the binding, I thought I was going to bind it in the same as the landscape fabric--didn't have enough, I had to go find something else and prayed to God that it matched because if it didn't match it wasn't going, I didn't think, look well. On the backing, I decided that I would not use the typical white backing or muslin backing and went searching and kept coming back to this black background floral fabric. Why, I don't know, it hides stitches? [Susan is whispering.]

LR: You what?

SH: It hides the stitches.

LR: Oh, it hides the stitches. [laughs.]

SH: You know it does hide the stitches, but it makes for a really nice-looking background and kind of English country garden and I like English country gardens. I've jumbled it all up.

LR: So, what are your plans for this quilt?

SH: This quilt will probably go to a friend of mine [Deborah Lozupone.] when I am gone. Other than that, it lives with me. I really don't have plans for it other than that. I don't have children and I don't any relatives, I'm the end of my line. So, with that I have a really close friend. She is not a quilter. I had also won a quilt, a really fancy appliqué quilt. She also had raffle tickets on it. When I called her up that day and said, 'Are you sitting down?' And she goes, 'Oh, did I win the quilt?' and I said, 'No, I did.' [laughs.] Out of 13,000 tickets, I won the quilt. I also had worked on the quilt, so I more or less promised her at that time that that quilt would go to her; it's hers too. This will probably go to her; I don't have anybody else. It is not a museum, I mean I don't think I would--if the Maryland Historical Society will take it take it--if I know that they'll would take it and keep it, fine. If they are not going to take it and keep it, then I--

LR: It really is an heirloom piece.

SH: Well, yes, because it--and my friend [Deborah.] was always around when I was working on it and my other artist friend [Suzanne.] and you have moments, 'Well, what do you think I ought to do on this?' And 'Oh, look what you've done with that' and 'Oh my God, look what you have done with this.' So, they're all part of it even though they are not quilters, and they did not stitch on it, they were all initially part of it.

LR: What is your first memory of a quilt?

SH: My first memory of a quilt probably was my step-grandmother [Estella Everett.] showing me a piece of a crazy quilt that was in pretty bad shape, but you know really, I found intriguing because it was a gypsy, lots of color.

LR: How did you learn to quilt?

SH: Except for taking the appliqué class, I am basically self-taught. I read books. I'd always sewn all my own clothes. I have always done needlework. To transfer all that to quilting wasn't terribly difficult. It wasn't as though I was jumping into a foreign nation. And consequently, after taking appliqué classes, I've taken other classes, read a lot of books and looked at a lot of quilts, talked to a lot of people and listened to the programs at the quilt meetings.

LR: Talk about some of your other quilt related activities, maybe exhibitions, guilds?

SH: This particular quilt went to the Baltimore Album Revival Exhibition at the Santa Clara, California Show in, and I can't remember whether it was '97 or '98. The quilts had to be juried in because they had to have a minimum of two blocks from Elly's books. So, this quilt was one of sixty-three quilts that was juried in worldwide. So that was fun. What was fun was to stand there between my husband and my quilt and listen to people look at the quilt not knowing that I was the quilter. They didn't understand it. It was not the typical Baltimore album quilt with flowers and buildings and that kind of thing, and they didn't understand horses and boats and why would a woman do that, so it was really kind of fun. I was the quilt liaison--really had no title--person for the Maryland State House Exhibit in December of--three years ago, four years ago--so it was before 2000, the year '99. We had about forty-some quilts statewide, statewide for the first time, so it was a very, very large exhibit for the month of December.

LR: And where was that?

SH: That was at the Maryland State House in Annapolis. Yes. That was fun to do and a lot of work and in touch with a lot of people. Exhibits? I helped put up many quilt guild exhibits. I don't usually enter anything in the large shows and now so many quilts are being stolen I'm very leery. I had donated a quilt to NIH [National Institutes of Health.] for Children's Inn. It, along with one other quilt, was stolen before it could be hung on exhibition. This was in 1999.

LR: Talk about your guild and maybe your group activities.

SH: I belong to several guilds. I belong to Bethesda Quilters. I belong to Needlechasers of Chevy Chase and I also belong to Nimble Fingers, that's three local guilds. I also belong to Chesapeake and Potomac Appliqué group of quilters, as well as Baltimore Appliqué Society. So that's a lot of activity. Each group is different. Each group has its own personality. Most of them have quilt shows and I try to participate in whatever activities are going on, workshops, giving the quilting, exhibitions, I just participate as a guild member.

LR: Have you been an officer of any of those guilds?

SH: Yes, I was secretary of Bethesda Quilters for four or five years and I was also Vice-President of Baltimore Appliqué Society several years ago; and I decided I really didn't want to go into, you know, 'Oh, why don't you be President. Well, I don't think so, thank you.' [laughs.] Thanks, but no thanks; I appreciate the compliment.

LR: How does quilting fit into your family life? Do you find a balance or--

SH: Ahh, no.

LR: No? [laughs.] What does that mean?

SH: How does it fit in? It fits in because I make it fit in. I need to be around fabric, around color. So, I make it work. I make it fit in. I think my husband [Jerry.] appreciates his retirement quilt. He had no idea I was doing it. He worked with submarines [Strategic Systems Program Office, Department of the Navy.], so I have about one hundred and twenty-eight patches on it--all about the submarines.

LR: That particular piece hung recently, didn't it, in a show here in Chevy Chase[Maryland.]?

SH: Yes, it did and it got a lot of positive comments, positive comments.

LR: Have you won any prizes for any of your quilts?

SH: One small piece. Susan McKelvey issued a challenge to the Baltimore Appliqué Society to use her printed lovers knot fabric in a different way and to see what we would come up with, and I did a nautical piece on it and she chose that as her first place out of all the ones that were turned in to the challenge. I basically have not entered shows and won prizes. This [the Baltimore Album quilt.] went into a show; I didn't expect to win and that was fine. Just that it was juried in was fine.

LR: What do you think makes a great quilt?

SH: Well, I think any quilt that any quilter makes, the quilter's gonna think it's great if she made it. I think when you walk into an exhibit, different quilts appeal to different people. A great quilt is good lines, good design, good color. Some subject matter or design that appeals to the person who is looking. I could go through an exhibit with you and you're gonna go, 'That's a great quilt' that's because you really like it and I'm gonna go, 'Oh my word, why does she like that? I don't like it, but I like this quilt.' It is all in the eye of the beholder. Some quilts are--well, just I don't know--there is a class and a quality about a quilt that stands out, just like clothing or the lines on a car. It's hard to put your finger on it.

LR: Today you see buttons and plastic and all kinds of other materials used in a quilt. So, when is a quilt a quilt and not a collage or something else?

SH: If you follow the definition of quilt where you have your three layers of backing, batting and top, it's a quilt whatever anybody puts on the top of the top is the next layer I suppose. Where does quilting start and art begin?

LR: That is a good question. How would you--

SH: I don't know.

LR: You don't know. [laughs.]

SH: I don't know. I think again that's all in the eye of the beholder. I heard a lecture once by a well-known quilter, Georgia Bonesteel, and her comment was, 'You're creative if you're willing to put that thread through that needle, and you are an artist if you're willing to push that needle through that cloth.' It doesn't make any difference if it's a plain working using quilt or if it's a quilt that's artistic that goes on the wall. And I thought, 'Well said.' It doesn't make any difference. It depends on how you are going to use it, no big deal.

LR: Talk about some of the inspirations for your quilts. You've already talked about this lovely piece you brought today and the one you made for your husband. You brought another piece with you to show me, just talk about it because it is a very special piece and your inspiration was quite something.

SH: The other piece I brought really is a social commentary quilt. There for a while and I need to get back into it, I was doing social commentary quilts, things that happened in life or things that I care about. The other piece I brought today is to honor those children who were killed in Scotland [Dunblane.] by a pedophile who walked into their school and gunned most of them down. Being a teacher and having been in that area of Scotland and having known lots of people there--I don't know it just really hit me hard that somebody would go in and mow down twenty-three five-year-olds. This is criminal. Even though the man was mentally ill, it's still criminal. I just get the heebie-jeebies.

SH: I did a quilt for--I did several quilts--about 9/11, small ones. One went to Houston for that exhibit.

LR: And it's included in the book [America from the Heart.]?

SH: It's included in the book. Mine's about Giuliani, Mayor Giuliani, an inspiration. Just whatever appeals to me, like the social commentary, I like doing the social commentary, it kind of gets that out into some kind of simplistic something in cloth and makes a statement. It says it better than I can say it.

LR: Where would you place yourself? Today we have different categories of quilters, you say traditional quilters, art quilters? Could you put yourself in one of those categories?

SH: That's a hard question, Le. [laughs.] That is a difficult question.

LR: Narrative quilters?

SH: I'm not really a traditional quilter in that I don't always do traditional things as demonstrated here in my album quilt. Innovative perhaps? I wouldn't say all of mine are art quilts, and when I look at other people who consider themselves to be art quilters, I think, 'I don't do it like you do,' So, innovative maybe and individualistic.

LR: What do you think about the importance of quilts in American life?

SH: In everyday life?

LR: Everyday life or in history?

SH: Well, I think that the quilts tell a history, particularly of women because throughout the years in this country, women did not have a political voice, did not have the voice to vote, but they sure said it in their quilts. Surely in the last couple of centuries, you can get the quilts that can be studied and you can understand what the women are thinking and saying and doing as they make their pieces. I think quilts are an important part of a household in that a quilt is not a quilt until you sleep under it. There is something very traditional about having a warm comfortable quilt. This quilt's [Baltimore Album quilt.] been slept under. Not often, but on occasion if we have a special houseguest, I put the quilt on the bed and say, 'Okay, you can sleep under it tonight, but not tomorrow.' [laugh.] It's just part of the personality of the household, of the people and of the house. I think it's part of our heritage and part of the things that we go on and give the quilts to the next generation or to the museum. Fabric is part of who we are. We wear clothes and dress up our houses and this is all part of that. Plus, I think quilts are very important because they are very personal. No one else could make this quilt. We can boilerplate the traditional patterns and do traditional looking ones and that's fine. This is very personal; no one can take this away from me. I think quilts are important, quilts and or other art activities that people do, for men and women. And men do beautiful quilts as well as women.

LR: You have touched on it, but how do we preserve these quilts for the future?

SH: Well, hopefully the future generations who inherit these quilts are going to preserve them and take care of them and treasure them. As I said earlier, I don't have anyone to leave this quilt to except my friend and I trust that she'll take care of it and pass it on, and she doesn't have a daughter, she has a daughter-in-law; so hopefully it'll go somewhere and it's appreciated and loved and taken care of. The actual physical care, if people take care of them, they'll last for a long time--hopefully.

LR: How do we encourage quilt making in young people?

SH: You have to do it in school. I taught elementary school and the last few years I had my children make a quilt or do something with quilting. I have a bed quilt that I would haul off my bed and take to school particularly if we had an all-day read-in or something. I had the quilt there with twenty-eight kids under a queen size quilt; it's a lot of kids under a quilt but they all had to be under the quilt. The kids all love quilts and if you can show them that they can make something and they can hang it on the wall and they can stitch and they can do things, you have to teach them and inspire their art in school; and fortunately, they will get it. I had to prove that a quilt fit into the curriculum the last one we did.

LR: How did you do that?

SH: These were third graders so we were doing cursive writing. So they had to do a Haiku poem about nature in cursive writing and we put it on the quilts. We had to ink it onto the quilt. Then, we put the quilt together and we made it into a book, so every little kid has his little poem and it really turned out well; and my administrator did not want to pay for the fabric and I said, 'Good, I paid for it, therefore it's my quilt, right? Right.' So I still have it. [laughs.] And the kids enjoyed it. They didn't realize they could ink on cloth and they didn't realize that they could do several things and come out with one product that it did not have be paper.

LR: Talk a minute about some of the trends that you have seen and maybe are seeing for the future of quilting in America.

SH: From the time I've been involved in quilting? Interesting question. My first reaction is that quilting is now a big buck industry. It's turned into a very large dollar amount industry in this country. It is a big money maker. I have a friend who owns, is part owner, of a quilt shop that's about six or seven years old, and the last time I saw her, she said, 'We're making so much money, we don't know what to do with it. We have so many classes and so much turnover of fabric.' Their location is good. There are six women. Their choices are current. Their expertise is correct. Their business sense is correct. They've done everything right. Trends in quilting, people have come up with different techniques, we have new tools. People are taking classes. People travel all over for quilts, to see quilts. You hear more and more of the older quilters, 'Well, my granddaughter wants a quilt or my grandson wants a quilt or I did this quilt to go off to college. I didn't have time to quilt it, so I sent it to the long arm quilters and that long arm quilter is making money. There is lots of international interaction a lot of us get international magazines. For instance, when I went to Santa Clara to see how this quilt would look in the show, I think there were three planeloads of ladies that came in from New Zealand and Australia and they were all over the show. And they had come specifically to go to the quilt show and to shop, people trying to come up with new ideas, new fabrics, new fabric design.

LR: And, some of the techniques?

SH: Techniques are pretty much the same where we're a little more--we're a lot freer than we were in that people are doing raw edge and machine embroidery, machine appliqué and a lot of machine work. The machine work is much more readily accepted than it was originally. People were purist say fifteen, twenty years ago, 'Ah, it's machine done', well now, 'Oh, it's machine done.' You didn't have to be a purist to do everything by hand. And it just moves forward. But I think we're cycling back to where people are using more traditional patterns. We're playing with them and doing new things from my observation, you know, in reading the magazines and going to the shows. But those people who are out there to make a living quilting are really working hard. You know the Ricky Timms, the Jane Sassamans, and the Paula Nadelsterns. Those people they work really, really hard.

LR: They also teach, do they not?

SH: Yes, they also teach. Jane Sassaman, for instance, has just gotten designs and new fabric. They're going down every avenue that they can pursue to try and make a living.

LR: Have you ever taught?

SH: Not quilting, no. Taught school--

LR: School--

SH: That was enough. Thirty-one years.

LR: But, I understand you have a collection of needlework tools.

SH: Yes.

LR: Can you talk about that for a minute?

SH: Yes. I love tools. I mean I grew up on a farm, so I love tools, you know, hammers and saws and chisels and bit and brace. I grew up with all that. Discovered that there were needlework tools out there to be had and seen. Besides, being married to a traveling Navy civilian, and fortunately having some extra cash, I started collecting. I did not do thimbles. Thimbles are kind of their own special thing. But things like etuis and needle cases and, I finally found a drizzler. A drizzler is the little tool used to pull the gold out of the old embroideries. Because it was real gold and people used this little tool to pull it and sell it.

LR: The etui?

SH: The etui E-T-U-I--

LR: E-T-U-I and what is that used for?

SH: Well, usually they're small. A little case that contains everything you need, a needle, a thimble, a pair of tweezers, a little pair of scissors, a little thing that a lady years ago might put in her pocket if she had a pocket then or on a chatelaine. Just anything that was involved with any kind of needlework over the last couple of centuries that I could afford. They're very expensive but they're a great investment. My husband and I find that when I traveled with him on business and we found that if we had some purposes--while we're traveling like in London, well, let's go look for needlework tools; it gives you something, a purpose instead of just wandering around of 'Oh, let's go to this museum, well, let's go to this antique market and let's see what's in the museum,' as well as all the other things. In recent years, we've been doing lighthouses, instead of needlework tools; but it's the same thing. It gets you out, it mixes you in with the people who are there and you learn a lot and you meet a lot of people. He likes nautical tools and things that I like as well.

LR: Our time is just about up. Is there anything else you would like to add about quilt making before we finish our interview?

SH: No, I just hope people quilt and learn, and I'm happy to be part of this Q.S.O.S.

LR: That is very good news because we would certainly like to spread the word and get things going here in Maryland and collect more stores because there are many more interesting stories to be shared.

SH: There's a lot of interesting quilters here in Maryland--

LR: Yes.

SH: and their stories to be plucked.

LR: So, thank you Susan for allowing me to interview you today as part of our Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories project. Our interview was concluded at 2:55 p.m. and it is January 24, 2003.