Judy Becker

Judy Becker

AQATS19119-012

audio

Oral History

Judy Becker

Heather Gibson

4/5/03

Anita Grossman Solomon

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Heather Gibson

Heather Gibson (HG): Today is April 5, 2003. The time is 4:15 p.m. This is Heather Gibson. We're here for the Art Quilts at the Sedgwick project for Quilters' Save Our Stories project of The Alliance for American Quilts. I'm sitting here with Judy Becker and we're looking at the piece she has in the show. Judy, let's start talking about this piece. What is the title?

Judy Becker (JB): "Rhode Island, February Snowstorm."

HG: Can you tell me about it?

JB: I did a whole series of landscapes about Rhode Island. It's because that's where I grew up. It's a beach area where there are still farms that go down to the sea. That's unusual. Parts of it are built up with summer cottages, but there are still a lot of farms there. To me it's always been a special place out of my childhood. We have a beach house and I spent summers there, but I had not been there, probably since I was a child, in the winter. We were in the middle of a blizzard and you couldn't find the horizon line. You couldn't find the ocean. There was no sky. There was no land. There was nothing but white. That's what that quilt is about.7

HG: Is this the Narragansett area?

JB: Yes, it is. That's surprising because most people know the Newport area. All the other quilts in this series were highly colored because they were with a summer palette.

HG: How many pieces are in the series?

JB: I don't know, probably twelve or fourteen.

HG: Tell me about the fabrics that you used.

JB: In this particular piece there's a lot of fairly heavy weight drapery fabrics. That's because it's very hard to find cottons with any variations in white or off-white or different tones, squiggle lines or something that gave it a little life. While there are blacks and tans and grays in that, it is basically a white piece. It was easier to locate stuff.

HG: So this entire palette is from bought fabrics? Amazing.

JB: Yes it is. I've also been quilting for thirty-one years. I don't have this gigantic stash of fabrics, but over a long period of time it's very helpful because you get different colors that are in and out of vogue seasonally. I've got a lot of friends whom I can raid if I'm looking for something in particular. I will alter fabrics. I'm not even sure because this is not a recent piece. This is three years old. I might have drawn on some of those fabrics.

HG: Why did you choose this piece to submit to this show, and why do you think it was chosen to be in the show?

JB: Like I suspect, most people submitted three pieces. The other two were fairly high color as a matter of fact. What I'm doing now is significantly different. I'm not doing landscapes right now. I added this one because it had never been seen. Of the twelve or fourteen landscapes I only own two of them now. They've all been sold.

HG: In just three years?

JB: Yes. This had never been seen. I'd always thought it had never been seen because it's very hard to read it. Your work is only judged by a slide, not by the work. It's very hard to read something that's not high chroma on a slide, although my photographer is really good. He's very good. I think it's much easier to flash by those things that don't grab you right away. This is not a piece that will grab you right away. Why was it picked for this show? If you look around this show there are a number of fairly subtle pieces. The jurors clearly were drawn to that, which is not always the case. I've done a lot of jurying and the jury makeup has a lot to do with what the show is going to look like, as it should.

HG: I haven't gotten a chance to read your label copy yet. Do you have information describing this as a reflection of Rhode Island?

JB: Yes I do.

HG: Do you think that's important to give people an idea of what this abstraction is representative of?

JB: It's important to me.

HG: What do you want people to come away with after viewing this quilt?

JB: Hopefully a little peacefulness. That may have something to do with the world right now. I see that piece as a very serene one. Also, I see that location as a very serene one to me. Hopefully that comes through in the piece.

HG: Let's talk about your interest in quiltmaking. How did you get started?

JB: I've been quilting for thirty-one years, since 1972. I did not know how to sew. I was not one of those people. I came out of a history of art background. I was not one of those people who lovingly made doll clothes. I didn't even like dolls let alone make dolls clothes. I sweated my way through middle school sewing class. I hated sewing. But I had a six year old and a seven year old, and I was working thirty hours a week as a director of a pre-school. I didn't have a lot of time. I was using clay for a while. I needed another messy clean-up project in my life like I needed a hole in the head. I was exposed to, I think so many people were at that time, to Amish quilts in the '72 Whitney Show.

HG: Did you go to that show?

JB: Yes I did.

HG: Tell me about going to that show.

JB: It blew me out of the water. It had never occurred to me to look at quilts as art. I just was really drawn to them, strangely enough. I think I still would have been painting or working with clay, but this was something that I could do in small segments of time that wasn't a mess. It was all that the things in my life weren't. I used graph paper. It was controlled. It was neat. It was tidy. Yet it could still be expressive. I don't think I realized all this until I was into it. This is kind of a hindsight realizing why it was such a good fit for me. Also, I was very early on in those mid-60s years a pretty strong feminist and part of a women's group. This was for me a feminist statement. We do not, did not treat women's work with any kind of dignity. This clearly had been women's work. The idea that you could take that and run with it was very appealing to me.

HG: Did you go out and take a class? How did you learn?

JB: I bought Beth Gutchins' "The Perfect Patchwork Primer." I started on the first page and read straight through without trying to do anything. Believe me I wasn't even sure I could thread a sewing machine. I had an ancient Singer I inherited. Then I went back to the beginning and followed each chapter. That first year I did nothing but very traditional quilts, but I learned how to make templates. I learned how to do everything. Everybody got pillow covers for Christmas. It went on from there. I never took a class until I'd been quilting for about fifteen years and went to Haystack one summer for two weeks. It's literally the only class I've taken. But I've been very, very fortunate in having a very powerful critique group of five women for over fifteen years.

HG: What is the name of that group?

JB: We just call ourselves "The Crit Group." We've shown together quite frequently at this point, as a matter of fact. It sounds snitty but all of us have been in Quilt National a minimum of one time.

HG: You're kidding.

JB: I've been in four. No, it's a great crit group. I don't mean it as snitty. I just mean it as they are a group of peers who I could learn a lot from. In the beginning, they were all hilarious with me because they all knew how to sew. I didn't in that sense need classes in that if I'd say 'I don't know how to do this,' someone could tell me. We've met every three weeks for over fifteen years.

HG: Tell me where you're based.

JB: We're based in the Boston area. We all come from within a ten-mile radius around Boston.

HG: How did you get together?

JB: One of them, Nancy Crasco, was putting together a show for the US Information Agency of quilts to go to South America. She had seen some work that I had done in a local quilt guild show. She called me on the telephone and asked if she could come see what I did. I was so thrilled. It was, 'wow, Nancy Crasco wants to send my quilts to Columbia? This is great.' She said 'would you be interested in forming a group that's not just traditional quilters.' It's fine being a traditional quilter, but she wanted to be doing something else and she wanted to find people who were doing something else, which she did. That's been totally transformative in terms of having wonderful feedback. You can be in a slump and you can have dry periods.

HG: Can you tell me roughly how your group works?

JB: Sure. Originally we used to trade a lot of information about shows. We do much less of that kind of business thing now because most of us sort of know the ropes. If we want to use the ropes, we do, and if we bow out, we don't. This last one, Sylvia Einstein, who is Swiss born and teaches quilting quite often in Europe because she speaks both German and French, brought back a lot of catalogues of what quilters are doing in Europe right now. We always share whatever we're working on at that particular time. Given the fact that we're meeting every three weeks, those are very close times together, so you don't have to. On any given evening, one or two people may not show work because it's 'I didn't make that much progress so you don't need to see it again and I don't have any questions.' In the beginning we were probably reasonably tentative about how we critiqued work, much more so than when you're flayed alive occasionally in an MFA program. It's been very easy for us because there's such a level of trust to say, 'you know, I'm not sure, is that what you really intended to do or where do you see this going? This looks like a new direction, what's happening here?' We can get some really good honest feedback, without being 'That's nice. I love the colors she used.' The traditional way that women have with dealing with each other is to never say anything negative. I don't mean that we tear each other apart, far from it. But we can say something negative because it's terribly useful. I'm lucky because my husband is very interested in art. He is a potter and a drawer. My daughter is a glass blower and is an MFA. She's teaching art in public schools because you've got to make a living. My son-in-law has an MFA. In my environment I can sit at the dinner table and people don't think I'm nuts because I'm doing this. I've got a lot of support in my environment. I'm very lucky in that way. Very lucky. I think a lot of people say, 'Yeah, I've got support and they think it's nice.' But it's that awful word 'nice' again. My best critic is my husband.

HG: What kind of advice does he give you?

JB: He gives me feedback versus advice. He'll say, 'I don't think it's working,' or 'the composition just doesn't hold together,' or he can zero in.

HG: Do you think that quilts could fit into an MFA curriculum?

JB: I wish that they would, and I don't see why not if you could get a little more open mindedness. They're doing all those things that people are doing in other media, so I think it's a matter of cracking that barrier.

HG: Do you think that quilts are more approachable as art?

JB: Absolutely. I think it's their strength and their weakness as the same time. The weakness is that you always get that, 'Oh yeah, my great aunt Tilly used to do that.' That's their weakness, but the plus is obvious. It's because great aunt Tilly did it that they have warm feelings, that they start that way. But it's much harder, therefore, for them to take them seriously. It's a double-edged sword. You get huge turn-outs for quilt shows. I saw the Gee's Bend show in New York this January, too. I thought, 'Here I am at the Whitney all over again.' It's thirty years apart, yet they have in effect only chosen to show marginalized women.

HG: Why do you think that they chose to do that?

JB: I think the choices were valid and very good choices.

HG: They have chosen a cultural group in those situations.

JB: Through ethnicity. They're not really looking at things like this show. They're not looking at Quilt National. I don't think it's going to get in there.

HG: Why do you think they're not looking at Quilt National?

JB: I don't know. If I knew that I'd like to know.

HG: Why kind of quilts do you think belong in museum collections?

JB: It depends on the museum. It depends on whether it is a quilt museum, or one that really deals with history versus one that deals with contemporary art. I think quilts could fit all of those categories. I'm actually on the acquisition committee for the New England Quilt Museum. Those are issues that of course do come up. They are trying very hard right now to get contemporary quilts as well as a historical collection. That's actually why they put me on the committee.

HG: As an art historian, how do you think quilts fit into the spectrum of art history?

JB: I don't think they fit in at all. I don't think they'll get in there. They'll get into the history books as an American phenomenon. That's the thing people really like about America. You've got jazz and quilts as the Native American arts.

HG: If you could write a chapter in a canonical art history volume, how would you approach it?

JB: I think I would have to approach it in a way that I didn't want to, which is through their meaning to women in 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. But that's not the book I want to write. That's interesting you saying that, though, because it's your background. I want to start asking you questions. I'd like some feedback here.

HG: I think it's interesting that you noted that you started out as a feminist being interested in quilts. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

JB: I'm also someone who started Stanford Law School in 1962. There were five women in the whole bloody school. That's all three classes, folks. There was a ladies room in the basement. I had one professor who would not call on me because he would not admit that there were women in law school. I came by those credentials out of a lot of anger, I suspect. I did not finish, incidentally, my choice. I'd already tackled something that women were doing then, that that had always been a part of. There's no boys in my family. I was the boy. I didn't find out until I was twenty-four that I really couldn't become the president of the United States. Talk about naïve. My parents never implied that there were any limitations on women. I lived alone in an apartment in Philadelphia during the summers when I was nineteen. They just weren't that then. I just never knew. When I did figure it out, I wanted to tackle those kinds of issues. It's not that I went into quilting because of that. It wasn't at all. But it was nice, the edge to it, for me, that this was legitimate.

HG: What was your network in the beginning?

JB: The second year I heard about a group in Arlington, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Boston. It was called "Quilters' Connection." It had some, very fortunately for me, of the very early quilters who were trying to break out of the traditional mold, which gave a lot of ferment to that experience. Nancy Halpern was there, Rhoda Cohen was there, Ruth McDowell. I want to remember when Ruth showed up. It was about three years after I had started going. This woman stood up and she pulls out of this bag, these two absolutely unbelievable pieces. You could hear the gasp in the room. At this point the guild was probably already two hundred people, so it was a big gasp, a loud one, like 'who is that?' There was a lot of that ferment going on, which was pretty contagious and gave you a lot of support. It wasn't those people saying, 'You're going to have to learn twelve stitches to the inch or you can't do anything,' which would have turned me off. Actually, my workmanship is good, don't misunderstand that. I care about workmanship, which some contemporary quilters don't. That's fine. They're doing something else. I honestly do want something to be well constructed, as well as the intent.

HG: Do you make bed quilts?

JB: I did in the beginning. I am a grandmother finally. I've made baby quilts, which is fun. I should say no anyway. I try, well I don't try I succeed, every year I make at least one comfort quilt. I do that in a traditional way.

HG: How do you approach the comfort quilt?

JB: In a traditional way. I pick something that I think will be very appealing to a child.

HG: Do you pick something out of a book?

JB: No, I don't need a book. I can draw any pattern I want, but I do traditional quilting. A star, a heart, that's something that's going to appeal to a child. I teach, every other week, a traditional class.

HG: What do you teach through?

JB: Through myself, my own studio. I have ever since I quit my almost full-time job, I've taught this class.

HG: Did you quit because you wanted to teach this course?

JB: No, I quit number one because I was lucky enough financially to be able to do so. Let's get that one out of the way right away. It's a luxury to be able to do that, particularly since my youngest child just started college. For women of my generation, that's when they are going to work. They had stayed home. I hadn't stayed home and I'm quitting when everyone I know is going back to work. I had had my first one-person show at the same time that as the director of the school that I ran, I was taking incoming parents for the following year, and I also taught mornings. I was doing conference for those kids going on, and I never said I wanted to work ninety hours a week. I was going crazy. Quilting had become so important to me. I liked my teaching job, but I was overextended. I had to make a choice about what I was doing, and I opted for quilts.

HG: Tell me about the class.

JB: It's a class of permanent beginners. They never get any better. I shouldn't say that. There's one woman out of the six who has grown enormously, and is very interested in pushing her envelope. The others want to turn out very traditional quilts. It was really nice.

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<title>Touchstone quilt: "Rhode Island, February Snowstorm"</title>
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<partial_transcript>[Today?] is April 5th, 2003. The time is 4:15 p.m. This is Heather Gibson. We're here for the Art Quilts at the Sedgwick Project through the Quilters' Save Our Stories project at the Alliance for the American Quilt. And I'm sitting here with Judy Becker, and we're look-, looking at her piece that's in the show. Um, Judy, let's start off, out talking about this piece. What is the title?-</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Becker's touchstone quilt, "Rhode Island, February Snowstorm," is one of a series of perhaps twelve or fourteen landscape quilts set in Rhode Island. It is based on a snowstorm that Becker experienced, while staying at her family's Rhode Island beach house in winter. Of that experience, she says, "You couldn't find the horizon line. You couldn't find the ocean. There was no sky, there was no land. There was nothing except white, and that's what that quilt is about." The other quilts in the series are much more colorful. This piece is largely white, although it does incorporate other neutral colors. Because of the difficulty of finding varied shades and patterns of white cotton, Becker relied to a large extent on fabric intended for draperies. She also relied on her fabric stash, which, as of the time of the interview, has been built up through thirty-one years of quilting, and the fabric stashes of friends. Although, she is not sure, three years after making the quilt, she thinks she may have changed the appearance of some of the pieces of fabric by drawing on them. This quilt was submitted alongside two much more colorful quilts that represent Becker's most recent work. She included this piece, because it had not been shown previously. Becker, as of the time of the interview, has sold most of the other landscapes that are part of this series. Becker thought that the reason this piece had not been displayed previously, is that work is normally submitted in a slide format and that work that lacks bright colors does not show to advantage in that format. Becker says that her photographer is quite good. Based on the content of that year's "Art Works at the Sedgwick" (Philadelphia, PA), Becker credits members of the evaluating jury with finding "fairly subtle pieces" attractive for the show. Based on her own experience serving on exhibition juries, Becker thinks that which pieces make it into a show depend largely on who is on the jury. The label on the quilt notes the quilt depicts Rhode Island. Becker hopes that seeing the quilt will leave people feeling peaceful. </synopsis>
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<title>Interest in quiltmaking</title>
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<partial_transcript>Let's talk about your interest in quilting. How did you get started?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Becker started quilting in 1972. Her background was in art history and she really disliked sewing. She had two children of early elementary school age and had a substantial part-time job as a pre-school director. She had been working with clay, but felt there was enough mess in her life already. Then she went to the 1971 Whitney Show [presumably the quilt show held that year at the Whitney Museum of American Art], where she saw Amish quilts for the first time. Becker had not previously thought about whether quiltmaking should be considered an art form, but was quite attracted to it. It was something she could work on in the little bits of time she had available. As well, she said it "It was controlled, it was neat, it was tidy, and, and yet it could still be expressive." Becker, who also had a strong background in feminism by the early seventies, felt that "for [her] a feminist statement," since quilting, traditionally was a female task and the work that women do has traditionally been undervalued. Becker got a copy of The Perfect Patchwork Primer by Beth Gucheon. She first read it through in its entirety and then went back and started to work through the book chapter by chapter. During her first year of learning, she made traditional quilts, only, and she made multiple pillow covers as Christmas gifts. She has taken only one quilting class, a two-week program at Haystack [probably Haystack Mountain School of Craft (Deer Isle, ME)], which she attended fifteen years after starting to quilt. As of the time of the interview, she has, for more than fifteen years, participated with four other women in a critique group. </synopsis>
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<partial_transcript>And what is the name of that group?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>The members of Becker's critique group simply refer to themselves as the "crit group." As of the time of the interview, they have shown their work in conjunction with each other fairly often. All the members have shown their work at Quilt National at least once, while Becker, herself has shown her work there four times. All the group members live in the greater Boston area. The group is a great context for Becker to learn from other members. One of the reasons she has not needed to take classes is that other group members can teach her how to do different techniques. Becker's participation in this group started when Nancy Crasco invited her to help start a group of quilters who were doing something other than traditional quilting. Becker and Crasco first met when Crasco was looking for quilts to be part of a "US Information Service" [corrected in transcript to US Information Agency] show she was creating to send to South America. In relation to that, Crasco asked if she could look at Becker's work, after she had seen some of it displayed in a quilt guild show. Becker has found the critique group "totally transformative, in terms of having wonderful feedback...." When the group began, the members used to exchange considerable information about quilt shows. As of the time of the interview, that is less necessary, as they all know the basics. That said, a group member whose language skills have led to her teaching quilting in Europe, recently brought to the group information about what quilters are doing in Europe, as of the time of the interview. During meetings, member also share whatever projects they are working on with each other. They critique each other's work honestly. Becker says, "We can say, something negative, which is terribly useful." Becker's family is full of artists. Her husband makes pottery and draws and her daughter blows glass. Both her daughter and her son-in-law have MFAs. She has an inherently supportive environment. Becker says, "My best critic is my husband." He comments both on very broad issues in her work and much more specific ones.</synopsis>
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<partial_transcript>Do you think that quilts could fit into an MFA curriculum?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Becker thinks that the primary barrier that prevents quilts from being incorporated into MFA programs is a lack of open-mindedness. She says, "They're doing all those things that, people are doing in other mediums." When asked if quilts are more approachable as art, Becker says that yes, because people often have some sort of personal or family connection to quilting in their backgrounds, that they tend to start off with good feelings about quilting, but that, for the same reason, they do not see quilts as having much importance. Quilt shows [from context, perhaps specifically those held at museums] draw very large crowds, but tend to focus on quilts produced by "marginalized women," rather than say, those quilts shown at Quilt National. Becker has somewhat mixed feelings about this, as she perceives that there are also good reasons to focus in on those marginalized groups. When asked what sort of quilts belong in museum collections, Becker says that that varies by museum. The answer is different for a quilt museum, a contemporary art museum, or a history museum. Becker is a member of the acquisitions committee of the New England Quilt Museum (Lowell, MA), which has to grapple with some of those issues occasionally. At the time of the interview, they want to fill out the museum's collection with a greater number of quilts from the present day, rather than solely historical quilts. That is, in fact, how Becker ended up on the committee.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Gee's Bend quilts; Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); Quilt National; New England Quilt Museum (Lowell, MA)</keywords>
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<title>How quilts fit into spectrum of art history / How would write chapter on quilts in art history text / Feminism and quilting</title>
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<partial_transcript>Well, as an art historian, how do you feel that quilts fit into the spectrum of art history?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>When asked how quilts fit into the spectrum of art history, Becker says that they do not fit into it. Instead, quilts will find their way into history texts "as an American phenomenon, and a female one...." She sees quilts and jazz as art forms that developed in America. Were Becker to write a chapter in a canonical art history text, she would feel compelled to talk about what quilts meant to women between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries. She would prefer to write a book with another focus, however. Becker talks in modest detail about her experience of attending Stanford Law School (Stanford, CA) as one of only five women in the three classes then attending the school. She decided not to finish the program. Becker grew up in a family of girls and her parents did not give her the impression that women were restricted in any way. It took a while for Becker to understand the realities of women's lives at that time, but once she had reached that understanding, she wanted to address them. Feminism was not the reason why Becker took up quilting, but it did, from her perspective, give quilting extra value. </synopsis>
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<title>Network when started out</title>
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<partial_transcript>Who was your network in the beginning?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>During her second year of quilting, Becker became involved with Quilters' Connection, a quilt guild based in a Boston suburb, Arlington, MA. Its members included some people trying to move beyond traditional quilting. Becker says that this "gave a lot of ferment to that, that experience." Among those quilters were Nancy Halpern, Ruth McDowell, and Rhoda Cohen. McDowell's work, in particular, when she initially came to a Quilters' Connection meeting made a significant impression on other members. In Becker's words, "You could hear the gasp go up in the room...." In addition to the "ferment" created by members interested in doing non-traditional work, their presence fostered an attitude of support for such work, as well as a disinclination to police adherence to rigid standards. Becker notes that, her distaste for that sort of oversight not withstanding, that the "workmanship" of her pieces is important to her and she does a good job with it. Becker used to make bed quilts, when she was starting out as a quilter. Even now, she makes baby quilts. She adds, "Every year, I make at least one comfort quilt" and she makes it "in a traditional way." For those quilts, she chooses a motif, such as a star or a heart, that she thinks a child will like, but she creates a pattern for the quilt herself, rather than relying on a pattern someone else has designed. Becker also teaches traditional quilting, in a class that meets biweekly.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Nancy Halpern; Ruth McDowell; Rhoda Cohen; Quilt guild</keywords>
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<subjects>Quilters' Connection (Group)</subjects>
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<time>1260</time>
<title> What organization teaches through / Why quit previous job / Class</title>
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<partial_transcript>What, what do you teach through?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>When asked what she teaches through, Becker says, "Through myself, I teach -- my own studio." Teaching is what she has been doing since leaving a previous job that was not quite full-time. She left that job because she was in a financial position to do so. At the time, she was going against the trend of her generation, where women largely stayed home until the children were in college and then returned to work. She, on the other hand, had been working all along, but quit when her children were in college. She had been he director of a school, but found it very stressful to be dealing with the admissions process and teaching while her first solo show was in process. When it became obvious that she needed to make a decision about what to keep in her life and what to stop doing, she chose to keep quilting. Becker describes most of the members of her class as "permanent beginners." It has five members who are not particularly interested in expanding their skills or their understanding of their own work. The remaining member has "actually grown enormously and is very interested in this point at pushing her envelope." Of the less ambitious approach of the other members, Becker says, "That's fine. I try very hard as a teacher to be a facilitator and not a teacher." When asks why these women have continued to take this class (which has evidently been going on for some time), Becker says that it is pretty much "the one thing they do for themselves, and it's a very safe environment." They also finish a project, mostly a bed quilt, annually, which is something they can feel good about. Becker adds that most quilters similar to her [presumably in skill level] are not interested in teaching people whose skill level is low. She, personally, enjoys it. Becker is, however, at the time of the interview, also teaching a three day workshop intended to help quilters "trying to break out of their own little envelopes."</synopsis>
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<keywords>Teaching quiltmaking</keywords>
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<time>1489</time>
<title>Does successful quilt artist need artistic background / What makes a great quilt</title>
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<partial_transcript>Do you think you can become a successful, quilt artist, without having other artistic background?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Becker thinks that acquiring some artistic background somewhere along the way is a good idea, in the same way that it would be appropriate to get some background in any area with which a person might want to develop some expertise,. She admits, "I'm someone who does tends to go after information after I've, gotten to the point where I don't know what it is that I'm doing, but I need to know what it is that I don't know what I'm doing first." Once she knows what she is aiming for, she is quite good at teaching herself how to do it. When asked what makes a great quilt, Becker says, "Who knows?" She rewords the question to ask the same thing about painting and then about art in general. She adds, "For me, it's got to hit me in the pit of my stomach, when I walk into the room." Very few artistic works have that impact on her, although Becker likes a great many artistic works that do not effect her that strongly. Becker describes in some detail a work by sculptor Anish Kapoor that did have the type of impact on her that she associates with great works.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Anish Kapoor; Henri Matisse</keywords>
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<time>1647</time>
<title>Should quilts be show with other art forms / Publication of work </title>
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<partial_transcript>Do you think quilts should be exhibited with other mediums?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Not only does Becker think that quilts should be shown with other genres of art, but her work is usually shown in exhibits displaying many genres. She has been submitting her work to quilt shows relatively rarely over the past five years and those submissions have been to Quilt National and to one other event. That was, in part, because, for the first few years of that time period, there was too much going on in her life, already, and, given limited time, she preferred to work rather than exhibit. She also, however, felt, "I've been there, done that...." and was not entirely certain why she kept exhibiting work. Since she was invited to exhibit in some shows to which she did not submit work, she did exhibit rather more times than is evident from her initial description. In addition, she made a decision to focus on mixed media shows, "just to try to, to get to break that barrier down." She comments that she would prefer to avoid the phrase "quilt ghetto," as she has strong affection for that community and it has "been really good for" her, but she also thinks it would be good for the community as a whole if the barrier between quilting and other art media were broken. Becker's work has been published in perhaps twelve to fourteen books related to quilting. In particular, she mentions a picture of her work being published in one of Robert Shaw's books about art quilts. She also likes the inclusion of her work in "Sue Pierce's Full Deck project" [probably Sue Pierce's deck of cards and museum exhibit, with exhibit catalogue, "Art Quilts: Playing with a Full Deck." Verna Suit is sometimes given as an additional author.] As well, a couple of times, publications that are not quilt- related have bought the photographic rights to one of her quilts. At the time of the interview, Becker has had a difficult couple of years, with about a year of medical problems for her parents, both of whom eventually died, rather more than a year before the interview. During much of that time, Becker had trouble working, other than knitting at bedsides. She finally decided that simplicity would be the best approach and started a series of designs of "twenty-four inches, one color." The long-term result of her experimentation has been a large number of pieces in sizes much smaller than any of Becker's previous work. This work is not similar to her previous work. She finds her new direction exciting, but points out that it developed out of a difficult situation, her inability to concentrate on a larger and lengthier project, and a lack of "emotional energy." Her first several pieces were in single colors reflecting her emotional state at the time. She eventually moved on to complementary colors and then, when that started to feel too confining, "just playing."</synopsis>
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<keywords>Quilt National; Art shows/exhibitions; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Therese May; Robert Shaw; Art Quilts: Playing with a Full Deck (deck and exhibition book created by Sue Pierce. Verna Suit is sometimes given as an additional author)</keywords>
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<time>2008</time>
<title>Where sees quilting career heading / Future of quilting</title>
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<partial_transcript>Where do you see your, work going, your career in quilting, heading?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Becker notes that, to her mind, she has largely answered the question about where her career is heading, but elaborates on the topic a bit more. Unlike Becker's landscapes, which she stopped doing about two years prior to the interview, she does not feel that her current body of work can be sold. Nonetheless, she does not want to return to doing landscapes. Becker has not exhibited anything from her current batch of quilts. She is not concerned that she will probably not be able to sell her new work, beyond the fact that eventually too many quilts will accumulate and she will have to pass them on to other people for free. She feels that her latest pieces are too "abstract" and "not recognizable." In her experience, pieces that are more realistic sell better. She no longer has "to make a living," although she can and does cover costs, such as fabric and photography expenses, related to her quilting career.. She acknowledges how fortunate she is to be able to focus on her "passion." Becker hopes that quilting will receive "wider recognition in the quote art world." She does not find the distinction between arts and crafts to be personally significant, especially in a context where there is considerable use of mixed media. She is not working on addressing that issue and, in fact, is unsure that there is anything that can be done about it. She adds, "It's not going to be my battle." She would prefer to focus exclusively on her work, instead.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Selling quilts; Landscape quilts</keywords>
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