Linda Cooper

Linda Cooper

AFPBP-13

audio

Oral History

Linda Cooper

Karen Musgrave

2/24/2008

Nancy O'Bryant Puentes

Burke, Virginia

Anne Lafferty

Kim Greene

Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave. I am conducting a Quilters' S.O.S.-Save Our Stories interview with Linda Cooper. Today's date is February 14, 2008. It is 12:05 in the afternoon. Linda is in Burke, Virginia and I'm in Naperville, Illinois, so we are conducting this interview by telephone. Linda, thank you so much for doing this with me. Tell me about your quilt, "Fading Memories."

Linda Cooper (LC): I want to go into the background of how I made it first, because it was very chancy. I was the president of our guild and Sue Nichols came to visit, and it was my job to drive her around. I wasn't going to take her course because I thought I knew all about machine quilting, but I had to drive her, so I decided to take the course anyway and I learned so much from her. She also talked about Ami's [Simms.] contest, which was up in maybe three more weeks. I said, ‘Oh I can make one of those too,' because I had a mother and grandmother who both had the disease. I took Sue off to G Street Fabrics where she bought the fabric for her quilt, which is the last quilt to be displayed in the Alzheimer's Show.. Hers is "To Our Caretakers" or something like that. So it was chancy how it happened, but it is very cool. My quilt is rather understated, it is a little subtle, it doesn't hit you in the face like some of the other quilts do with the horror of the disease. Both my grandmother and my mother were wonderful gardeners and they took great pleasure in getting outside the house and doing something and making something grow. They lived in Ohio and they enjoyed it when the weather finally got good and they could go out and make things grow so I used the daylily. I used a technique that I learned from Phil Beaver. He is from Indiana and he does fabric painting. I used that for the background and I put daylilies on it. I appliquéd first around the daylilies with variegated thread so they didn't look too abrupt and the edges are raw and some of the stems were a little wacky and they sort of look like the flowers would have grown outside. The background of the painting has some bright spots and some dim spots. The flower inside, it is more of the memory of my mother and grandmother, and in the border I used--I'm a biologist. I trained at Purdue as a neurophysiologist and so I used the brain plaques, the amyloid plaques that they see in Alzheimer's and I beaded the nerve cells and once in a while there would be a normal nerve cell and then I would stitch in a sort of convoluted one and put some beads in there, so that is the biological tie of the disease.

KM: Very interesting. How did you feel when your quilt got accepted into the exhibition?

LC: I was amazed. I thought it might be too subtle for the image that Ami wanted, but I was so happy when she did. It has taken me other places that I never thought I would go. I have done some other workshops because of that quilt and just having the name in the book and having my family members know some of the history of my mother and grandmother, that has been very gratifying.

KM: What do you plan to do with the quilt?

LC: I really don't know. I would be happy for it to just travel for a long, long time, but whatever else Ami wants to do.

KM: I guess we should explain that the exhibition is called Alzheimer's Forgetting Piece by Piece and Ami Simms is the curator of the exhibit and there is a book and a CD based on the exhibit. How was it for you to do the CD, because the CD has our voices on it?

LC: Right. I think I had to repeat it like four times. I kept leaving off things or I would be on a phone where I was too loud or too quiet or too garbled. We finally got it right. It is a hard thing to listen to. I couldn't listen to the whole thing at one time. I had to break it up into maybe three seatings. It is much easier for me to read the statement in the book than hear the actual voices, because all the emotion comes across.

KM: Have you seen the exhibition?

LC: Yes, I was a white glove person down in Hampton last year when it was here and it was the first time I had seen them all. It is just so different from seeing them either on the CD or the book. The responses from the people were so gratifying, the curator who was with them, she did such a nice job. One of the funny things was that some of the people came up to me and said, "Oh, were these quilts made by Alzheimer's patients?" I said, ‘No.' [laughs.] I wrote to Ami later and I said, ‘Boy, I told them no, but personally speaking I certainly hope they weren't made by Alzheimer's patients because it is something we all fear - getting the disease.'

KM: So it is a fear that you have?

LC: Sure. I was living here the whole time my mother was ill, so when I would see her, I would see the progression. I would see her twice a year maybe. I talked to her of course, but it is not like an every day life experience that people who are the real caretakers have.

KM: Do you have a favorite quilt in the exhibition?

LC: There are several that I like. I mean that I like many of them. I really like that heart one.

KM: Liz Kettle. That comes up over and over again.

LC: It is so beautifully done. I like the one, the puzzle one, I like the shadow, the sunset one, I like Ami's quilt too. You have to really--you can't appreciate it unless you are there and read all those things yourself. It just doesn't come across in the book.

KM: Tell me about some other experiences that you had, white gloving.

LC: There were people crying. There was one lady who was apparently very angry that they were there and she wouldn't stay, she said that is not what this quilt show is for. It just upset her, but she had recently found out that someone had Alzheimer's in her family I think and this was just the breaking point. There were people who went through and studied every piece. Everybody was so grateful to have the sticker on that said they had seen the quilts and there was a lot of enthusiasm. One person was a nursing home worker and she dealt with these patients all the time, so she was very interested in getting in touch with Ami and maybe having her do a talk. I don't know if that ever happened, but people were very gratified to see something being done to try to help people with this disease.

KM: Tell me about your interest in making quilts.

LC: I never quilted. I never had a relative that quilted, except my one grandmother's sister, she was the one with Alzheimer's. Her sister made a quilt and I remember being little and being sick under that quilt. It was pretty. But, I was never really attracted to them. My husband and I were in Lafayette, Indiana in grad school and I remember going to an auction and they were auctioning off a quilt and it was going for five dollars, ten dollars, and the auctioneer kept saying, oh you guys have got to buy it now because there never will be any more quilts. It is a dying art and all this stuff, and I thought who would want to buy that because I was certainly not interested. It all changed when I moved here and it was due to our guild. The Quilt Guild had funded Quilters' Newsletter [Magazine.] for the library and I was looking at the magazine and I thought, ‘oh my goodness that is where quilts are now.' I took it home and then I went back in their archives and read them all. The guild donated a lot of quilt books so I read that whole shelf of books, and then I made a quilt. Then my husband died shortly after that and I joined the guild and it has been such a therapeutic thing, very satisfying thing. I got sitters for my kids and went off to the guild and did some things. I have known other people with the same story. The guild has really been a wonderful, wonderful thing for me.

KM: How long ago was this?

LC: I think I made my first quilt maybe in '88, '89. My husband died in '90.

KM: I am sorry.

LC: He left us well funded so I didn't have to go off and drive the beltway all day and work at a 12-hour job or something. I'm a preschool music teacher, so I do that part time and I work in the church nursery and hold the babies and they pay me, that is nice. I do that part time and I can come back and quilt when I have free time, which is very cool.

KM: How many hours a week do you quilt?

LC: I quilt every day a bit. It depends, probably. The guild has a show in June so they all have to be done by the end of February, so I have been quilting a lot this month. I'm doing a New York Beauty with lost of pretty colors in it, and I love, I love color, and I love changing all the quilting thread colors. I'm almost around, but I probably been quilting five or six hours a day on this one. I have books on tape. The library has wonderful ones and I listen to the radio and listen to TV. I don't watch so much, while I'm quilting.

KM: Is "Fading Memories" typical of your work?

LC: Lately. I took a class at Cedar Lakes in West Virginia. A really cool place to go for a quilt retreat and Phil Beaver was there from Indiana and he is the one who taught me to do the background. He paints his pieces with a very wet method. He throws the paint sort of on PFD [prepared for dyeing] cloth and he has them in a stretcher and puts salt on them and things travel and magical things happen with the paint and the salt. He uses his and cuts them up and makes appliqué pieces out of them. I happened to be in a class with Laura Cater Woods, and I just happened to have some of those painted pieces along. I was going to cut them up, but Laura said why don't you use that as a background, so that is sort of the springboard. I must have made twenty quilts with similar flowers. I've got some Tsukineko inks, and I have been painting my own flowers now and appliquéing them on there, which is cool, and also I've been making atypical flowers like one that has sort of an overall stain glass look and I've been making sort of fantasy flowers out of that. Another time my daughter-in-law for a gift she wanted calla lilies and I couldn't find any fabric that has calla lilies on it, so I found pictures of callas and printed them onto fabric and used the same sort of method with the calla lilies.

KM: Describe your studio to me.

LC: Actually it is part of my bedroom. It is a room above the garage so it is big and it is always messy. My kid has done me a great favor. He got me a giant board and I cut a hole in it for my sewing machine and lowered it on L brackets and now I have a nice big place to sew. That is great! I have a fabric collection of probably forty years I have been collecting all my life, and it is way out of hand. But when I need something it is there and then since I have been painting my own lately too, I've got all those in addition. I have hand dyed a lot, I've marbled. Any new thing quilting I'm willing to try. The only thing I really don't like, I don't like hand piecing much.

KM: What is your favorite part of quilting?

LC: The color probably. The design. But I like it all. I didn't use to like binding and putting sleeves on, I don't even mind that any more too much.

KM: You mentioned your son, how has quilting impacted your family?

LC: They all think I'm obsessed. [laughs.] After my husband died I bought a Pfaff. My family was used to the little hundred dollar sewing machines or something. They said, ‘You spent what on your sewing machine!' but it has given me eighteen years of great service, and I've been very pleased with it. A lot success comes from having a good machine and having the tools and I have a big cutting table because I used to do banners for our school so that was part of the investment for that. Just having the right tools makes life a lot better. My last kid is off to school now, so I have the whole house and I'm sort of spreading all over, so [laughs.] when you say studio, it is just a little non-descriptive because it has sort of spread into every part of the house.

KM: Good for you.

LC: It is fun.

KM: Do you sleep under a quilt?

LC: I sleep with one over the head. I don't, isn't that awful, I don't have one on the bed. My kids all have them. I have two grandchildren and they have their quilts.

KM: You mentioned Phil Beaver; whose work are you drawn to and why?

LC: I like things that aren't too abstract. I like things to be a little representative. I like Jane Sassaman. I like, oh shoot, what is her name from Illinois from Chicago, Caryl Bryer Fallert.

KM: She is in Kentucky now.

LC: Oh is she. Since her husband died?

KM: She is in Paducah. She actually moved to Paducah before he died.

LC: We had her come. I was program chair and I got to pick her. I like Karen Stone too. One of my latest quilts is down at Hampton at the quilt show and it is called, "Quilting the Heart of the Matter," and it was like a challenge. I have been working a lot with quilts that are a little bit like mobiles, and so I have quilts where I used as batting timtex or peltex, (what they use in baseball caps brims), and that makes everything more sturdy. Then I cut out sections of the quilt and made those smaller and put binding around those and the cut out parts and then I use fishing lure swivels and put those on top and the bottom so they really turn. One of the quilts that I have done represents the evening primroses, because when we go to Ohio there was not a lot to do in the evening before we dealt the cards, so we would go out and watch the evening primroses bloom. Have you ever seen that? Right at dusk they are a pale yellow and they are all closed up in buds and they start to quiver a little and then they spring open, so the one side of the quilts has the closed blooms and the other side is the open ones. The one side is dusk and the other side is daylight. I really like that quilt. So "Quilting the Heart of the Matter" has three hearts inside of each other and they are on fishing swivels so they turn, and they represent all the things that I like about quilting. There is paper piecing, there are silk flowers, there is origami kind of fabric, there is marbling that I made. One side is a large floral scene, the same sort of thing that I did for Ami's quilt.

KM: What advice would you offer someone starting out?

LC: I hope that they can find a friend to quilt or a guild to quilt with. I read Jennifer Chiaverini's book about the guild in Pennsylvania and they are just so awful, and I thought, ‘How could it be that a guild would be that nasty to other quilters,' but our guild has just been so wonderful and I've gotten to take from so many wonderful quilt teachers coming through, and it has been fantastic.

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

LC: Probably time. Hopefully they are in a place where they can get approval from their family. My kids always made fun of me, "Mom's going off to quilting club", but when it came time for them getting quilts, then you know they were first in line.

KM: Were they part of the design process?

LC: Some times. I made a cool quilt for my oldest boy. My oldest kid, Rob, he is in Michigan. He got his dream job, he is a racecar consultant, he designs racecars, but he likes hot sauce, so I made him a giant hot sauce bottle quilt and it has a racecar making all these horrible fumes on the bottle label and the words "Rob's Hot Stuff-Guaranteed to Make Your Engine Smoke", and it looks like a giant tabasco bottle. It is a cool quilt. My son and daughter-in-law, I made them a big quilt. I did a lot of trapunto on that one, it is a little more traditional than I usually do, but they are pleased with it. It has mirror image kaleidoscopes on it. I was into those for a while. I like quilts that you are not exactly sure how they are going to turn out sometimes. I like the processes, like marbling, or like the painting, and my kaleidoscopes where you are not sure exactly what it's going to turn out to be.

KM: Do you have a lot of quilts hanging on your walls?

LC: I do, yes. People seem to like them. Guys like the ones that turn around a lot.

KM: Sounds very cool.

LC: They are fun. I had done one years ago at the millennium, but it was before they had the timtex available, so I wired all the openings and that one has not stood up well.. It was a nice idea, I should do it again with the stiff batting, I'm sure it would work.

KM: What do you think makes a great quilt?

LC: I think you have to make it for yourself first. Make something that you really like. When I first joined the Guild everybody was pretty traditional and it really wasn't where I wanted to go too much but I just made stuff I liked and so many people now are dipping their oars into other waters I guess and it is cool to see them try something new. We were at Quilt University last night and I did one of the Tsukineko ink projects with them, and it was fun to see everyone trying something new. The guild has been very good about bringing in people who do these things too.

KM: What is Quilt University?

LC: It is something our little guild does and it is like four people--I think we are not suppose to use that title anymore because it's copyrighted. It's quilt college, quilt school, whatever you call it.

KM: That is why I was asking, I was confused.

LC: It is just four people from the guild who talk about a different topic and members go from one thing to the other and you do a course on it, so everybody gets to try everything.

KM: That sounds like fun. How often does the guild do this?

LC: We do that once a year. Usually in the winter time when we can't schedule somebody to come in. Sometimes the weather prevents it and then you are really stuck because the school closes and you have no place to meet.

KM: Why is quilting important to you?

LC: I don't know. All of life, sort of, it's a little scary sometimes, I see something and right away my daughter will look at me and say, you are thinking about a quilt aren't you. [laughs.] You know the feeling? I don't know, everything sort of ties into it, it gives a nice purpose and feeling. Another thing, when my middle kid went to school one time and they had to show something that belonged to the family for a long time, he had his great-grandmother's quilt, and he could take that in, you can't bring the family silver in and you can't bring in bonds or stocks or something, but quite a few kids brought in quilts, and I thought what a cool way to remember and what a cool way to remember the women too, because I don't think it is a problem now so much but in those days there was not much left except a picture and you don't know anything about that person.

KM: You say your great-grandmother quilted.

LC: It was actually on my husband's side.

KM So nobody in your family, but on his side there was.

LC Right, she was from Nebraska and she quilted during the fifties when not many people were quilting and she didn't do the, she did the piecing by hand, somebody else quilted for her and they just did diagonally, it sort of lost the flavor of the quilt there with the diagonal quilting, but it is pretty cool to have and a lot of my sister-in-law's clothing are in this. I have one and she has one and my brother-in-law has one.

KM: Very nice.

LC: I have a quilt too that I inherited from a great-aunt and it is Civil War age. Hazel Carter dated it from Civil War time, but now that my great-aunt is gone nobody knows where it came from. My dad was going to wrap a table to move with it and my step mom wouldn't let him, so [laughs.] thank goodness. 1860's but no clue where it came from, very sad.

KM: That is very sad. That is part of the reason we are doing this project.

LC: Yes, I think it is excellent. Thank you for the gift you have given everybody.

KM: I mean, so we don't have that disconnect and we don't ponder, we can actually go and find out. Do you think of yourself more as an artist or a quiltmaker, or do you even make the distinction.

LC: I use to have big trouble, big, big trouble saying artist, but it is coming a little easier now. I'm also, do you know Mary Kerr, she is a quilt historian from Woodbridge, south of here a little bit, and she has done a challenge. She gives twenty people, they are from all over the east coast, an antique block, the same block, and we get one every three months, so we can do anything we want to with it and it has to end up two feet by two feet, and four of those, four sets of those are going to be in Hampton, so I'm looking forward to seeing those, but it is just such a cool thing to bring the past into the present. Some of her friends are very traditional people, that is more of what she is, and some of them are pushing the edge a bit. It is very cool. They are on the web, marywkerr.com.

KM: Do you dabble in traditional quilts at all, or just art quilts?

LC: Once in a while if there is a challenge I will do it, or if not a challenge, a mystery quilt or something I will do it with the guild, but usually I will do art forms.

KM: That is okay. What do you think makes a quilt artistically powerful?

LC: I guess the image first and I think having some of yourself in the quilt somehow makes it more powerful. Like the picture you took yourself or if it's photos you put in, or if it is something that means a lot to you, like the primrose quilt, because that brings the memory of Ohio. If you can, or the hot sauce quilt, if you can put some part of your life into your quilt, then it is more important to me, it may not be important to somebody else.

KM: What ways do you think your quilts reflect your community?

LC: Hum.

KM: Or do they?

LC: I don't know if they do that much. I will have to think about that one.

KM: I was just curious. I have found that often times when we are real connected to a group, how we influence each other, and then you can tell, ‘oh yea, she belongs to that group.'

LC: Like the fusing group from Chicago.

KM: Exactly.

LC: Yes. I don't think quite that I fit in.

KM: Which is a good thing. That is quite alright and it would have been okay if you had fit in too.

LC: Right, oh I agree and people who like to make a quilt and know exactly where it is going, like not taking chances, not wanting to make a clothing pattern because they are not sure what how it will turn out, they want to buy it so they know exactly, that is fine too as long as they are happy and it makes their life happy, that is great. I want a little more mystery maybe or whatever.

KM: I think it is wonderful that you embrace the process.

LC: I think I wrote in my Christmas cards maybe six or seven years ago, I finally got to the stage where if I know what I want to make, I generally have the skill so I can do it. What a gift that is to finally get there.

KM: What kind of plans do you have for things in the future?

LC: I'm liking this painting my own flowers, so I have had some friends who do flower arrangements, take pictures of their designs from different angles or whatever, and if I blow them up then I can paint the petals or the whole flower or whatever so it will look like that. I really like the flowers for some reason. I'm really stuck there I guess.

KM: Not a bad place to be stuck.

LC: Maybe not.

KM: Are you a gardener?

LC: No. I mean we used to, but where we live here it gets so miserable in the summer. In Indiana it was wonderful to garden, but here after the middle of June, you don't want to be out there anymore. I watch my neighbor, he is from Iowa, he grows beautiful things.

KM: Let's return to the Alzheimer's Art Initiative. Have you done priority quilts?

LC: No, and I should. I have a friend, Kathy Edwards, and I think she is a $1,000 goal person.

KM: Thousand dollar promise.

LC: Yea. I need to do that. I don't know, there always seems to be other stuff on the list right now, but I must make time or find some old things, not old things, things that don't have a purpose and incorporate those, because I have a lot of little blocks and stuff that I started, it would be a cool little quilt. Good idea. Edge me on.

KM: Okay I will. Have you ever bought a quilt?

LC: I did once. I bought one in Maryland and I used it for my bulletin board. It was a piece of cloth that somebody had hand quilted and it is like my quilt bulletin board upstairs, I just pin everything to it. Gift cards, pictures, whatever.

KM: Do you have a design wall?

LC: I have this pink stuff I sometimes put up, but I'm not very good about doing that, I don't know why. It would be a very good thing to have.

KM: It is interesting how everyone's approach is different.

LC: The camera has been such a miracle, wow, digital camera, wow, because I think take a picture and change stuff around, take another picture. What a good thing that has been.

KM: Do you do a lot of photography?

LC: Yea, nothing great but I have done a lot for my grandchildren where I put their images on their quilts.

KM: You like photo transfer?

LC: I do.

KM: What other advances and technologies has influenced your work?

LC: Years ago from Yvonne Porcella and it was before I knew anything about painting on fabric, and it was called "Painting on Silk," and I was sort of new to the guild then and I thought we were going to take a scarf and put pictures on there or something, and that was a whole eye opener. That was a great course, and I didn't do a lot with it right away after that, but I sort of come back to those things all the time. I do a lot of sun printing. The guild comes over sometimes and we sun print. We play with tyvek and paint it and shrink it and all those cool things. A lot of that stuff is pretty abstract and I told you I like a little more pictorial.

KM: Yes I was surprised when I heard you say that.

LC: Really,

KM: Because it is not pictorial.

LC: Yea, yea, I mean if you can make it look like a fish when it is done that is cool then.

KM: I got it now.

LC: I made a lot of fish quilts. I like, I guess it is biology, the biologist in me or something. I like the other, like the primrose quilt that turns around too, because I was at Ohio U for a while and worked in the botany department where Quilt National is, and I worked in plant physiology with rapid movement in plants. We studied tendrils and we studied Venus Flytrap and plants with quick movements. So the primrose would qualify with that rapid movement, and I wanted to get into Quilt National so much with that quilt, but they didn't take it. It is right down the street from where I worked. The Dairy Barn. It would have been like coming back around again, but it didn't happen.

KM: Do you enter in shows?

LC: Pardon me.

KM: Do you enter in shows?

LC: Yea once in a while. I have those two down in Hampton, I may enter one or two a year. Then for a while I say why do I bother and then I don't for a while and, it is fun to go someplace different. Our guild, Hazel Carter and Jinny Beyer were the original founders with some other people.

KM: I guess I should mention the name.

LC: Quilters Unlimited.

KM: Quilters Unlimited.

LC: I guess I didn't say. It's an umbrella organization; we call it Big QU. It is the main organization and there are like twelve different sub-guilds. The whole premise behind the guild is that our work is not judged or juried, when you belong. We have a really nice show and we rent a huge place and they hang about five hundred quilts. But there can be the work of many experts there and then just beginner quilts and I love that about the guild, and so sometimes when you are entering a juried show it is a little off-putting because I liked the non-judged thing, but it is also nice to see really cool quilts. I had one or two in Houston for the first time. One was a journal quilt this year and one was in, I can't remember, the "World of Beauty," the flower one that happened to be there. I entered I think four, maybe four, I think you could enter five or something, four of them were in the same style, similar to the one I sent to Ami and the other one was an older quilt that I had done with Judy House who was a great quilt teacher. She died of cancer a few years ago. They took the old one. You never know.

KM: Have you been to Houston?

LC: I have never been, no. I think the show went to Chicago or something. Have you been?

KM: To Chicago yes. I've been to Houston too. You really need to go once.

LC: I know.

KM: Then you will go over and over again.

LC: Sometime. My daughter wants to go to med school next year, so. Tighten the boots straps a little there.

KM: Let's go even more into quilts in American life. In what ways do you think quilts have special meaning for women's history?

LC: There isn't much else left of women I guess except their handwork sometimes. It used to make me so angry on Antiques Road Show where they have some sword or gun or something and bring $200,000 and they have some sampler and it would worth $100 or something. Not fair, not good. Maybe things are changing. That one quilt is all I have left of my husband's great-grandma, so I don't know. People like you are changing things for the future. I love that quilts are considered more of an art now instead of just bedcoverings.

KM: Although the art and craft debate will probably go on for a long time.

LC: Oh sure.

KM: I'm definitely in the art camp.

LC: Good.

KM: Definitely in the art camp. Is there anything else that you would like to share before we conclude?

LC: I can't think of anything.

KM: I do very much appreciate that you have taken the time to share.

LC: Thank you, you are giving me a great Valentine's Day.

KM: That is so wonderful. Is there anything else you would like to share about Alzheimer's?

LC: It is just a miserable disease and I hope we start putting our priorities in this country where they belong and we stop spending it all on bombing people and start spending them on fixing people.

KM: That is a great way to end.

LC: I know what I should tell you, this is sort of a cool story. My mom had, my dad was a jeweler and so he would go off to work everyday and my mom had various caretakers who came through, and she had some nice rings and they disappeared some of them and we thought maybe the caretaker, you never knew, and so after she died and they finally sold the house like three years later, they moved the corner cabinet in the kitchen, which is where she had all her grocery money, whatever, it was in the cookbooks and my dad never knew that, but they moved the corner cabinet and underneath were socks full of change because my brother would come home and dump his change on the table, and one of the very nice rings was in there. So they had given the money back to the insurance company and I have the ring. I am the one that came out ahead on that. That gives you faith in people.

KM: Do you think she hid them?

LC: Oh yea.

KM: Or do you think it just fell down?

LC: Oh no, she hid them. She put them in there. That was her grocery money, whatever was in the cookbooks, but underneath the whole cabinet she had just put these socks full of change and the ring was in there, one of them, some of them we never found.

KM: I am glad you got one of them.

LC: It is a very pretty dinner ring so I enjoy wearing that, and I have another one that my dad gave her before he went off to World War II, like their friendship ring at that time, and it was nice to have physical things to remember.

KM: Do you think that is why you make quilts?

LC: No.

KM: No, that is good. What do you think will happen to your quilts?

LC: I guess they will be divided with my kids. I hope they will treasure them. My daughter-in-law, my daughter-in-law actually went out with my son the first time because she heard that his mother was a quilter.

KM: That had to make you happy.

LC: She wanted to learn how to quilt too but she has been so busy having babies that she really hasn't had time. But some day.

KM: Do you plan to teach her?

LC: I'd love to. My daughter, she can sew well but I don't think she wants to compete on the same level. She makes fantastic purses and puts in her own personality. She goes through my stash and picks out some cool stuff, and ends up with a cool purse. That is fun too.

KM: Thank you so much for taking your time today and sharing with me.

LC: I hope somebody interviews you and we get to read about you too.

KM: Thank you. Have a great day and we are concluding our interview at 12:42.

LC: Thank you very much.

5.42019oh0182_qsosalz0013Interview with Linda Cooper, February 14, 20082019oh0182_qsosalz0013qsosalzQuilt Alliance’s Quilters' S.O.S.- Save Our Stories Oral History Project: Alzheimer's Forgetting Piece by PieceQuilt AllianceLinda CooperKaren Musgrave0https://nunncenter.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/166794Aviaryaudio0About the touchstone quilt: "Fading Memories"This is Karen Musgrave. I am conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save our Stories interview with Linda Cooper. Today's date is February 14th, 2008. It is 12:05 in the afternoon, and Linda is in Burke, Virginia, and I'm in Naperville, Illinois, so we are conducting this interview by telephone.Cooper says she found out about the project by chance. Since both her mother and grandmother had Alzheimer's, she decided to make a quilt. She feels that, in comparison to some of the other quilts, hers is understated. Copper describes the quilt in more detail. It includes images of day lilies, which both her mother and grandmother liked. Cooper also drew on her background in neurophysiology to represent nerve cells and amyloid plaques with beading and stitching.Alzheimer's disease;Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece;Ami Simms;Embellishment techniques;Fading Memories;Family;G Street Fabrics;Phil Beaver;Quilt design;Sue Nickels;Techniques191Being accepted into the exhibition / Plans for the touchstone quilt / Recording an artist statementSo, how did you feel when your quilt got accepted into the exhibition?Cooper describes herself as amazed and pleased when her quilt was accepted into the exhibition. Having the quilt included in the exhibition led to other opportunities for Cooper, like teaching workshops. She was also pleased to have her name appear in the and share her family's history of Alzheimer's disease. Cooper does not know what she will do with the quilt when she gets it back, but she will be glad if it continues to travel with the exhibition. She had trouble recording her artist's statement, both for technological reasons and because she left out part of the statement. She found it difficult to listen to all of the artists' statements, because they were all so emotional, but Cooper enjoyed looking through the exhibition book.Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece;Ami Simms;Artist statement;Quilt Purpose - Exhibition;Quilt shows/exhibitions;Teaching quiltmaking293Volunteering for the exhibition / Favorite quilts in the exhibitionHave you seen the exhibition?Cooper was a white glove volunteer when the exhibit was in Hampton. She says that seeing the quilts in person is a different experience than seeing them in the CD or the book. In passing, she mentions her fear of getting Alzheimer's. When asked about her favorite quilt in the exhibit, Cooper mentioned "That Heart One," which Musgrave identifies as being made by Liz Kettle. She mentions the imagery in several other quilts and adds that she also likes Ami Simms' quilt. Cooper describes other people's reactions to the exhibit.Ami Simms;Family;Liz Kettle;Mothers;Quilt shows/exhibitions460Interest in quiltmaking / Time spent quiltingSo tell me about your interest in making quilts.Cooper says that she had little exposure to quilts in early life. After she moved to her current location, she found a Quilters Newsletter Magazine in the local library. She then read all the old copies the library had archived, as well as a lot of books donated by the local quilt guild. She made a quilt after that and later joined the quilt guild. Cooper works part-time, which frees up time for quilting. How much time she spends varies, but at the time of the interview she is working on a project that needs to be finished soon, so she has been quilting five to six hours per day.Fabric - painted;Quilt guild;Quilt guilds;Quilters Newsletter Magazine;Time management636Typical techniques / Home studio / Favorite part of quiltmakingSo, is "Fading Memories" typical of your work? "Fading Memories" is typical of Cooper's latest work. She learned a "very wet method" of painting fabric from Phil Beaver. Laura Cater Woods suggested using her painted pieces for the quilt background. Cooper describes Beaver's techniques, her own adaptations, and her method of making flowers in some detail. Cooper has a large bedroom where her studio is. She has a sewing machine and a large fabric stash, including pieces she has painted, dyed, or marbled. Her favorite parts of quiltmaking are the design and color, but she likes most aspects of quilting, except for hand piecing. She used to not like binding, but Cooper isn't as bothered by it now.Binding;Cedar Lakes;Fabric stash;Hand piecing;Home sewing machine;Laura Cater Woods;Phil Beaver;quilting retreat;Techniques;West Virginia;Work or Studio space788Family / Quiltmaking toolsSo, you mentioned your son. How has quilting impacted your family?Cooper's family believe she is obsessed with quilting. When she bought her Pfaff sewing machine, they were shocked at the cost, but Cooper points out that the machine has worked well for eighteen years. She believes that having the right tools is important. Now that the last of her children has left home, Cooper's work is no longer corralled in the studio. She has a quilt hanging in her bedroom, but does not sleep under one. Her children and grandchildren all have quilts that she has made.Family;Home sewing machine;Quiltmaking for family865Inspirational quiltmakers / Recent quiltsSo you mentioned, you mentioned Phil Beaver. Whose, whose work are you drawn to, and why?Cooper prefers quilts that are representative and not too abstract. She likes quiltmakers including Jane Sassaman, Caryl Bryer Fallert, and Karen Stone. Cooper describes a work of her own, "Quilting the Heart of the Matter," which, at the time of the interview had been sent to a quilt show, and the techniques she used to make it. She also talks about a quilt that shows evening primroses.Ami Simms;Caryl Bryer Fallert;Jane Sassaman;Karen Stone;Quilting the Heart of the Matter;Techniques1016Advice for beginning quiltmakers / Challenges confronting quiltmakers / Quiltmaking for familyWhat advice would you offer someone starting out?Cooper would advise a beginning quiltmaker to find a friend or a guild with whom to work. She acknowledges having read about a bad guild, but her own guild experience has been good. She thinks that the biggest challenge for quiltmakers is time. She adds that ideally a quilter's family will approve of their work. Her own children "always made fun of" her for quilting, but they still wanted her quilts. Cooper describes two quilts that she made for family members. She likes not knowing for sure what a quilt will look like when done, so she likes to use techniques that have somewhat unpredictable outcomes.Family;Jennifer Chiaverini;Quilt guilds;Quiltmaking for family;Techniques1143Displaying quilts / What makes a great quiltDo you have a lot of quilts hanging on your walls?Cooper says that she does have quilts hanging from her walls, and other people seem to appreciate them. She adds, "Guys like the ones that turn around a lot." When asked what makes a great quilt, Cooper says, "you have to make it for yourself, first." She says that most guild members were still making traditional quilts when she joined, and she did projects she personally liked. Now, more people are experimenting. She describes teaching a skill in her guild the previous evening and credits the guild with having speakers who encourage new things.Modern quiltmaking;Quilt guild;Teaching quiltmaking1270Importance of quiltmaking / Notable family quiltsSo why is quilting important to you?Cooper is not really sure why quilting is important to her, but she says that quilts have been important throughout her life. Her son took a quilt from her husband's side of the family to school, when assigned to bring something that his family had owned for some time. Cooper discusses this quilt and the circumstances under which it was quilted. Cooper describes another quilt that she received recently from her great-aunt. It has been evaluated as having been made during the Civil War era, but its history prior to being owned by the great-aunt is not know.Family quilts;Quilt history1402Identifying as an artist / What makes a quilt artistically powerfulSo do you think of yourself more as an artist or a quilt maker or do you even make the distinction?Cooper is now more comfortable than she used to be identifying as an artist, but getting to that point was a bit of a struggle. She describes a challenge organized by Mary Kerr, whereby twenty quilters get the same quilt block every month and have to use it as the basis for a two foot square quilt. Those quilters include both traditional and more experimental quilters. Cooper herself generally prefers to do art quilts, although she will make traditional quilts occassionally. When asked what makes a quilt artistically powerful, Cooper said that it is the image, but also "putting some part of your life into the quilt." She prefers working on projects where she is not sure what the final outcome will be when she starts the project. Some years ago she reached the stage where she was pretty sure that she has the skills to take on any project she wants to.Mary Kerr;Quilt purpose - Challenge or contest entry;Traditional quiltsArt quiltshttps://www.marywkerr.com/Mary Kerr's website1608Future plans / Priority quilts / Using a quilt as a bulletin boardSo, what, what kinds of plans do you have for things for the future?For the time being, Cooper wants to continue painting flowers. She bases her work on photographs that friends give her of their flower arrangements. She does not currently garden herself. Cooper has not made priority quilts, but thinks that is something that she ought to be doing. She has a friend, Cathy Edwards, who is probably doing the $1,000 Promise. She has only once bought a quilt, which now functions as a bulletin board, since she pins things to it. When asked if she has a design wall Cooper says, "I have this, this pink stuff I sometimes put up, but I'm not, I'm not very good about doing that."Cathy Edwards;Design walls;Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilt Challenge1738Digital cameras / Technology in quiltmakingIt's interesting how everyone's approach is different.Cooper discusses a number of techniques, including using digital photography, photo transfer, silk painting, and sun printing. She admits that sun printing is abstract, but Cooper says the abstract can be tweaked to be somewhat representational. She has made a number of fish quilts. Her academic background is in biology, specifically botany, with an emphasis on "plant physiology with rapid movement in plants." Primroses demonstrate rapid movement, which fits in with her rotating primrose quilt. She hoped to get that quilt into Quilt National, but it was not accepted.Biology;Fiber - Silk;Painting;Photography/photo transfer;Quilt National;Quilt shows/exhibitions;Sun printing;Techniques;Technology in quiltmaking;Yvonne Porcella1876Quilt showsDo you enter in shows?Cooper occasionally enters quilts in quilt shows. At the time of the interview, two were in the quilt show in Hampton. Cooper's guild, Quilters Unlimited, does a large unjuried show. She likes the mix of ability levels that are exhibited in an unjuried show. She finds juried shows "a little off-putting" in comparison, but Cooper adds "it's also nice to see really cool quilts." Cooper submitted a number of quilts to the International Quilt Festival in Houston and one or two were accepted. Cooper has never been to the show in Houston, but Musgrave advises her to go at least once.Hampton;Hampton Quilt Show;Hazel Carter;Jinny Beyer;Judy House;Quild guilds;Quilt Purpose - Exhibition;Quilt shows/exhibitions;VirginiaInternational Quilt Festival;Quilters Unlimited of Northern Virginia2014Quilt history / Art vs. craftAlright, so, let's go even more into, you know, quilts in American life, and in what ways do you think quilts have special meaning for women's history?Cooper points out that often "handwork" is all that remains from women, and that often artifacts associated with male gender roles are more valued than those associated with female gender roles. She is pleased, however, that quilts are now considered an art rather than as strictly utilitarian. Musgrave predicts that "the art and craft debate will probably go on for a long time," although she is "definitely in the art camp."Quilt historyArt and craft debate2090Family experiences with Alzheimer's / Plans for quiltsIs there anything else that, you would like to share before we conclude?Cooper describes Alzheimer's as "a miserable disease" and hopes for a reordering of national priorities, so that "fixing people" is emphasized more. Cooper recounts how, when her mother was ill from Alzheimer's, caretakers came in. They were suspected when several rings disappeared, but one turned up, hidden underneath a kitchen cabinet, after her mother's death. Cooper thinks her quilts will probably be split among her children after she dies. She hopes to teach her daughter-in-law quilting eventually. Her daughter sews and sometimes goes through Cooper's fabric stash when making purses.Alzheimer's disease;Daughters;FamilyinterviewAll rights to the Quilters' S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories (QSOS) oral history project, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred from the Quilt Alliance to the University of Kentucky Libraries. Please contact the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History regarding rights pertaining to individual interviews.audioInterviews may only be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.0https://quiltalliance.net/ohms-viewer-master/viewer.php?cachefile=