Gayle Fraas
Photos
Title
Gayle Fraas
Identifier
ME04556-002
Format
audio
Type
Oral History
Interviewee
Gayle Fraas
Interviewer
Karen Musgrave
Interview Date
10/24/2008
Location
Edgecomb, Maine
Transcriber
Kim Greene
Transcription
Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave, and I am conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Gayle Fraas. Today's date is October 24, 2008. It is now 11:40 in the morning. I am in Edgecomb, Maine and thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with me. Tell me about the quilt "Watermark 'M' Mike" that you selected for the interview.
Gayle Fraas (GF): This piece is "Watermark 'M' Mike" named for the signal flag from which it's derived. It's part of a series of 26 quilts. Starting in 2000 we began this series that is based on the International Signal Flag alphabet. Each piece springboards from the graphic format of a flag from the alphabet and is intended to convey ideas of navigation, finding one's way safely home on the water, hence the water imagery throughout the series. Pieces are three different sizes 5 by 5 feet, 3 by 3 or 2 by 2 feet. "Watermark 'M' Mike" is 24 by 24 feet and based on a flag that has a white 'X' on a blue field. The multiple borders depict different forms of water- droplets, waves and reflection. The central island landscape includes contrails forming a white X in the sky. The piece is a compilation of ways we can portray the idea of water.
KM: How many pieces are in this series?
GF: 26, one for each letter of the alphabet.
KM: So, you did all 26?
GF: Yes -Most are painted, as is "Watermark Mike." Some are digital prints (from our drawings and paintings on paper), some have digitally printed pattern with painted landscapes.
KM: Why did you choose this particular quilt?
GF: Because it's from a recent series and it's indicative of our current work--dye painted whole cloth quilts.
KM: Let's talk about the 'we.'
GF: Okay, I work with Duncan Slade. We've been collaborating since we were twenty-one (1973), it came as a fluke, working together was unplanned. As undergraduates we began to share each other's technology and realized that we were visually drawn to the same things. I was working in textiles and Duncan in printmaking. I wanted to print fabric for an exhibit. Our first prints were done with litho ink on fabric - not the most pleasant surface. Eventually, we found the dyes while we were investigating the technical end of things. It was evident that our ideas combined could lead to something more. We sometimes compare the early collaboration to driving down the road with someone who notices the same things for similar reasons, which generates a conversation, expanding the ideas beyond each person's initial response. Our process is often like a conversation with visual evidence. It's been essential from the beginning that we both are able to do what we consider 'the good parts' - drawing and painting. Over time our painting styles have merged. We paint detailed landscapes that we feel can balance complex border patterns and compositions. We want the landscape to provide the viewer with visual respite from the adjacent patterns, allowing the eye to fall into the space the landscape creates. We're interested in extending the viewers' time with the piece. A billboard is designed to communicate quickly, we're after a longer visual distillation.
Because of our work, we'll travel to places of mutual interest, hike or kayak to areas to photograph and draw. We'll collect imagery that will help us narrate the specific place. Upon returning to the studio, we each produce numerous thumbnails (small sketches) that respond to where we've been. In the process ideas are exchanged- one of us may design a pattern that the other will modify and use in another piece. The elements we generate while drawing become part of our shared vocabulary- symbols become visual shorthand. During the painting process we criticize each other's work. A piece isn't 'done' until we're both happy with it. Our criticism needs to be honest since the work is signed with both of our names. The work has to represent both of our interests even though one or the other paints it. A push from the other person is inevitable. Once painting is completed, I sew the piece (we have discussions about what we need the stitching to accomplish). Duncan handles the framing. Through the process we both feel ownership of the piece. Sometimes years later we'll see a piece and ask, 'Did you paint that one or did I?' It's pretty homogenous.
KM: Why quilts?
GF: That's a hard one. In 1973 I was still a student, experimenting in different media, I hadn't found a specific media that seemed to fit. I went on a hiking trip with friends, in northwestern Connecticut and saw an exhibit of contemporary non-traditional quilts. I think it was work by Bernie Gorski. I've sewn all my life and my mother made a lot of my clothes, rarely from patterns directly, because I would do a drawing and she would combine patterns to make the garment. Seeing this exhibit I thought, 'This is crazy. I know this language; these are the materials I should be using.' The need to get original imagery on the fabric led me to the printmaking studio where Duncan and I worked together to produce our first printed images on fabric. Fabric was familiar and versatile. We could physically manipulate the finished print. Eventually we found the dyes, leading to five years of experimentation. We needed to experiment to know where our work would head. Work from that period looked like it came from all directions - we didn't worry and knew we needed to keep working to find our 'voice.' Eventually, we found a way of working that's pretty much the foundation of what we continue to do to this day.
Now I just consider fabric (and quilts) our language. The quilt, in its familiarity has the ability to let a viewer 'in' and it may cause someone to look closer, longer. The structure of the quilt gives it another layer beyond the painting. The stitching serves as a scrim-like layer that can be looked through. The quilted surface continues to be of interest to us. In the past we've worked on projects for buildings- public spaces where a textile wasn't appropriate, usually due to high light situations or high traffic conditions that would threaten the durability of a quilt. In these cases, we worked with enamel on aluminum, painting and screen-printing elements - using the same visual format as in our textile work, but in more durable materials. There is something about the possibility of what we can do with the quilt surface that really intrigues us and we're brought back to it over and over. Quilts are what we have been known for and they inform work we do on paper and in other mediums.
KM: Where is "Watermark 'M' Mike?
GF: The landscape is Hunting Island, off the end of Southport Island, Maine, which is probably a twenty-minute drive from here, we consider it our local neighborhood.
KM: Where is the piece?
GF: The piece is now in Columbus, Ohio. It's in the private collection of Jim Garland who has been collecting our work for a number of years.
KM: Very nice.
GF: We've known him for years. He and I were on the board of the Maine Craft Association at one time. Jim is also on the board of Baxter State Park and invited Duncan and I to go on a camping trip with his family, then commissioned a work based on the park. We made numerous trips to Baxter needing time to explore before focusing on specific sites. We accused Jim of addicting us to the place, we returned time after time. The commission took nearly two years for us to deliver and through it we forged a great friendship.
KM: You hand quilt and machine quilt.
GF: Yes
KM: Talk a little bit about that for me.
GF: The machine quilting is used in places that we think of as a 'hard line,' that can delineate certain sections. We hand quilt large stitches as a scrim over the landscape, which holds the fabric back so it can be visually read it in the way we intend. If we don't quilt the landscape, it will bubble forward and ruin the perspective that we create with the painting. The stitches act like screening over the landscape. We feel that even though the stitches are large, your eye can override them. think of windowpanes or the screen on a window. There are some areas where stitching is used as another color layer. Generally, we each know how different areas of a piece are going to be stitched as we paint. Even though Duncan doesn't do the stitching, he understands what the stitching will accomplish on his pieces. There are hard and soft lines. The larger hand stitches are considered the softer lines and the machine stitches, the hard lines.
KM: How do you balance your time?
GF: Between the two of us or between--
KM: No, your personal work, how do you balance?
GF: I try to be here in the studio as much as possible, but because we live rurally, part of the day may be wound up in doing things outside, it's a combination of taking care of this place, gardening and growing some vegetables and of course spending a lot of time at the desk taking care of the business of being artists.
We're surrounded by a land trust so there are good trails for hiking out our back door. It's a combination of those things and kayaking in the summer. It's outside where we find many of our 'raw materials'. Winter is a really good time to be in the studio, it's easy to decide to stay put when the weather is bad. Each day is different with the central focus on the studio even when nothing seems to be 'happening' we keep mining through ideas, working in sketchbooks until we get refocused. Other times, several pieces are in the painting stage, and we'll paint each day until the painting stage is completed.
KM: Since we are in your fabulous studio, let's describe.
GF: The studio is 33 x 33 feet with a nine-foot ceiling. It's the first floor of an attached barn, that at one time had a center 'drive through' with stalls on either side. It dates from approximately 1860. It's two and a half stories high and is attached to our farmhouse. Many traditional Maine farmhouses are connected with a long room (the el) that attaches the living space and the barn, which would allow the farmer to get to their animals without having to go outside in winter. For the first eight years our studio was in the el (our work was small in scale during that time, usually 24 inches by 24 inches) and because we had ideas of self - sufficiency we had some animals- a goat, laying hens and at times turkeys. [laughs.] (We were on the tail end of the 'back to the land' movement in the 70's.) The el was a workable space until our work needed to be larger. We got a commission in Chicago and had to rent a space there to give ourselves the wall size we needed (11 feet by 14 feet). Returning home, we were faced with structural problems on the attached barn, and we could foresee needing a larger workspace. The sills on the north side of the barn rotted from years of manure being piled against it by previous owners. We jacked up the building and put a foundation underneath it. We hired two of our best friends to do most of the work required to finish this space as a studio. It's a versatile space that gets rearranged depending on what we are working on, we can run long tables down the middle of the space for printing fabric and when we printed aluminum tiles with enamels, we hung drying racks on either side of the printing runway .The best part about the space is the amount of natural light, we don't feel trapped inside when working, there is a view of a large rolling field bordered by white pine. It's calming for us. We can watch different animals come into the view.
KM: You each have your own table?
GF: Yes, but we work on different tables at different times. I'm kind of spread all over in here now. [laughs.] It depends who is working on what.
KM: You are very tidy.
GF: We've cleaned it up. [laughs.]
KM: Oh, I feel better now.
GF: Periodically, we need to do a big cleaning, things pile up and after a while it clogs our thinking. We just finished a commission proposal, so things were everywhere. To move on to other work we needed to reorganize. At times we need an area to draw, work with gouache or pastels and then we'll need another area designated for painting with the dyes.
KM: Tell me about the digital work.
GF: The digital work came about as we realized that it would be possible to use digital printing to replace screen-printing. We have often used screen-printing when we design a repeat pattern. Setting up a printing project with multiple screens, registration, blocking out can be tedious. With the digital process we could build more complex layering. Anything we could draw and paint on paper could be scanned or photographed, layered with other imagery and printed on fabric with the same dyes we paint with in the studio. Digital printing became another tool in the toolbox. When printing digitally, we'll cut, paste and collage our own drawings digitally. When designing repeat patterns, we'll draw/paint one unit, Xerox it, put the units together, and rotate them to create a pattern, and then use that as a guide to do it digitally. Our working process relates to the concepts in Photoshop. We can work with the same conceptual ideas but build more complex layering without the laborious set-up of screen-printing. With the "Watermark Project" we originally wanted to see if it was possible to produce a quilt as an artists' print (the original artwork doesn't exist until it is produced in an edition) with the dyes and the digital process. While it is possible, we often got pieces back in the studio and felt compelled to over paint and tweak color. The first five "Watermark" pieces are multiples. The remainder of the "Watermark" series incorporated digital printing (repeat pattern areas) and painting (landscapes) though most of the pieces were completely painted. Because we contracted the printing, the time lapse was frustrating waiting for fabric to come back to the studio led us right back to painting, where we are in control of all aspects. I would say we 're control freaks and in the end it's more comfortable when all the work is completely done by us in the studio.
Sometimes we have an idea from the very beginning of what a piece will look like. It's almost like a slide image of it appears in one's head. The drawing, painting and sewing become the journey to making it a reality.
KM: You frame all your work?
GF: The only pieces that are unframed are the multiples that are digitally printed. We felt comfortable not framing them because they could be reproduced. In general, framing protects work from a hostile environment. Framing isolates the piece so whether that piece is hung on a wall with toile or striped wallpaper, for example, the piece can remain in its own space. The idea of 'tactile' we think can be a cerebral concept. We all know what we are looking at when going into a museum and see a textile behind glass in dim lighting. We don't feel you have to touch it to experience it. When a piece is exhibited unframed, we're not allowed to touch it, there is a good reason why. Framing makes the work accessible to collectors who care for the work and preserve it for the future. When the New England Quilt Museum was organizing an exhibit of the first 25 years of our work, they borrowed pieces from collectors. We saw first-hand that framing kept the pieces in good shape and well protected.
KM: Exactly, where do you see your work going?
GF: Now we're working on a series of pieces that deal with different ways we look at the landscape literally and symbolically. We're working with map imagery. First, by studying a map we can figure out where to find specific views of the landscape, we can interpret topography and light direction at certain times of day. With nautical charts we can understand the depths of water, how the tide will affect our view. Much of our new work is still dealing with water imagery, water in the landscape, water as depicted on a map, water as reflection -- often focusing on the Maine coastline and in the last year we've been on Nantucket where we've spent time in a residency program. Thirty miles out to sea, Nantucket is nearly all sand. We could look at light on water any time of day, in any direction, the topography, flora and woodlands are very different from the rocky Maine coast. In recent years we've inadvertently, reduced the number of visual elements in each one of our pieces--that may shift as we find the need to create more complexity in the visual surface in order to 'narrate' the places (landscapes) we 're focusing on. We like to build visual ambiguity in a piece where the landscape may flow into the map, or the map is layered over the landscape. The shifting back and forth between how elements are perceived is really interesting to us.
KM: What do you think is your biggest challenge?
GF: Working faster. Although we like our process, at times it's very slow, sometimes it would be nicer if pieces happened more quickly. Because we usually work on the painting of pieces in large chunks of time, it's easy to become frustrated by the pace. After working on the dye painted pieces, we usually try to balance the slow pace by working on paper with gouache and pastel. This lets us move through ideas more quickly and we can get the satisfaction of completing a work that relates to or may inform the next textile pieces. (The works on paper are also exhibited). All in all, the textile output is slow. Our other big challenge is living and working as studio artists and supporting ourselves with our work without compromising the work's direction. We have to make sure that the next piece is one that can stand together with the whole body of work- whether it is for an exhibit or commission. We don't want to change the work for the marketplace. We want the work to change and grow on our terms. To do this we need to accept the 'trade offs'- being careful how we spend funds. Sometimes foregoing a trip, etc. Sometimes in doing this we inadvertently end up with more time in the studio which is what we really want. We have to focus on what we think is most important.
KM: How do you want to be remembered?
GF: Hopefully as an artist whose work reflects and identifies me as somebody whose work didn't look like someone else's. That's always been important and positive but sometimes it can leave you far outside the mainstream (at least in the quilt world). I think I would like to be known for having my own voice and a commitment that did not waiver.
KM: I think you have been successful.
GF: Hopefully. I'm not dead yet. [laughs.]
KM: But we're running out of time. That would be good right?
GF: Yeah, it's just; I want to survive doing the work that is important to me. I'm not sure how our work may change when we can no longer get out in the woods or out on the water to paddle around…we might have to go by motorboat. [laughs.]
KM: That brought up a funny image. Sorry. [GF laughs.] You and Duncan in a motorboat. [laughs.]
GF: It will happen. [laughs.]
KM: I'm sure it will. Is there anything else that you would like to add that we haven't touched upon?
GF: Oh, I don't know but there is a quote by Wallace Stegner that sums up what we think about. He says, 'No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends or monuments. Fictions serve as well as fact.' We make up stories about the places we see, some are based on stories that we've heard from other people, history -- from there we construct our own idea of that place. We end up creating our own fiction as we try to convey and understand the intensity of a particular place, what it means to generations of people, what happens to it, how it changes, how it stays the same.
KM: How do you think you've been drawn to the place?
GF: I grew up in suburban Connecticut and as a kid I wanted to be someplace where I could go outside, and no one could see me. I wanted to go out in the woods and be as alone as possible save for a plane passing overhead. Duncan had a similar desire. We left college and came to Maine because we wanted to have a good view to the outside.
At twenty-one it was a simplistic goal, but with a good workplace and a view we figured no matter what happened in the larger picture of the world we could look outside and feel some peace or the sense of understanding that our problems were small and insignificant in the scheme of things. Being in urban areas I would look out the window and feel that there might be a lot of people who might not be happy. Here I look outside, watch the light change on the field; watch a flock of turkeys walk by. For us, it is a good place to be.
KM: I want to thank you so much for taking time sharing with me. You did a great job.
GF: Thanks, thanks. Was that forty-five minutes?
KM: It is.
GF: Hope it made some sense. Sometimes when we give a slide lecture together, we'll be taking turns speaking, but there are times when I'm so intent looking at the image on the screen that I go to the right side of my brain and lose track of my initial thought, like trying to talk while painting. [laughs.]
KM: We are going to conclude our interview and it is now 12:12.
Gayle Fraas (GF): This piece is "Watermark 'M' Mike" named for the signal flag from which it's derived. It's part of a series of 26 quilts. Starting in 2000 we began this series that is based on the International Signal Flag alphabet. Each piece springboards from the graphic format of a flag from the alphabet and is intended to convey ideas of navigation, finding one's way safely home on the water, hence the water imagery throughout the series. Pieces are three different sizes 5 by 5 feet, 3 by 3 or 2 by 2 feet. "Watermark 'M' Mike" is 24 by 24 feet and based on a flag that has a white 'X' on a blue field. The multiple borders depict different forms of water- droplets, waves and reflection. The central island landscape includes contrails forming a white X in the sky. The piece is a compilation of ways we can portray the idea of water.
KM: How many pieces are in this series?
GF: 26, one for each letter of the alphabet.
KM: So, you did all 26?
GF: Yes -Most are painted, as is "Watermark Mike." Some are digital prints (from our drawings and paintings on paper), some have digitally printed pattern with painted landscapes.
KM: Why did you choose this particular quilt?
GF: Because it's from a recent series and it's indicative of our current work--dye painted whole cloth quilts.
KM: Let's talk about the 'we.'
GF: Okay, I work with Duncan Slade. We've been collaborating since we were twenty-one (1973), it came as a fluke, working together was unplanned. As undergraduates we began to share each other's technology and realized that we were visually drawn to the same things. I was working in textiles and Duncan in printmaking. I wanted to print fabric for an exhibit. Our first prints were done with litho ink on fabric - not the most pleasant surface. Eventually, we found the dyes while we were investigating the technical end of things. It was evident that our ideas combined could lead to something more. We sometimes compare the early collaboration to driving down the road with someone who notices the same things for similar reasons, which generates a conversation, expanding the ideas beyond each person's initial response. Our process is often like a conversation with visual evidence. It's been essential from the beginning that we both are able to do what we consider 'the good parts' - drawing and painting. Over time our painting styles have merged. We paint detailed landscapes that we feel can balance complex border patterns and compositions. We want the landscape to provide the viewer with visual respite from the adjacent patterns, allowing the eye to fall into the space the landscape creates. We're interested in extending the viewers' time with the piece. A billboard is designed to communicate quickly, we're after a longer visual distillation.
Because of our work, we'll travel to places of mutual interest, hike or kayak to areas to photograph and draw. We'll collect imagery that will help us narrate the specific place. Upon returning to the studio, we each produce numerous thumbnails (small sketches) that respond to where we've been. In the process ideas are exchanged- one of us may design a pattern that the other will modify and use in another piece. The elements we generate while drawing become part of our shared vocabulary- symbols become visual shorthand. During the painting process we criticize each other's work. A piece isn't 'done' until we're both happy with it. Our criticism needs to be honest since the work is signed with both of our names. The work has to represent both of our interests even though one or the other paints it. A push from the other person is inevitable. Once painting is completed, I sew the piece (we have discussions about what we need the stitching to accomplish). Duncan handles the framing. Through the process we both feel ownership of the piece. Sometimes years later we'll see a piece and ask, 'Did you paint that one or did I?' It's pretty homogenous.
KM: Why quilts?
GF: That's a hard one. In 1973 I was still a student, experimenting in different media, I hadn't found a specific media that seemed to fit. I went on a hiking trip with friends, in northwestern Connecticut and saw an exhibit of contemporary non-traditional quilts. I think it was work by Bernie Gorski. I've sewn all my life and my mother made a lot of my clothes, rarely from patterns directly, because I would do a drawing and she would combine patterns to make the garment. Seeing this exhibit I thought, 'This is crazy. I know this language; these are the materials I should be using.' The need to get original imagery on the fabric led me to the printmaking studio where Duncan and I worked together to produce our first printed images on fabric. Fabric was familiar and versatile. We could physically manipulate the finished print. Eventually we found the dyes, leading to five years of experimentation. We needed to experiment to know where our work would head. Work from that period looked like it came from all directions - we didn't worry and knew we needed to keep working to find our 'voice.' Eventually, we found a way of working that's pretty much the foundation of what we continue to do to this day.
Now I just consider fabric (and quilts) our language. The quilt, in its familiarity has the ability to let a viewer 'in' and it may cause someone to look closer, longer. The structure of the quilt gives it another layer beyond the painting. The stitching serves as a scrim-like layer that can be looked through. The quilted surface continues to be of interest to us. In the past we've worked on projects for buildings- public spaces where a textile wasn't appropriate, usually due to high light situations or high traffic conditions that would threaten the durability of a quilt. In these cases, we worked with enamel on aluminum, painting and screen-printing elements - using the same visual format as in our textile work, but in more durable materials. There is something about the possibility of what we can do with the quilt surface that really intrigues us and we're brought back to it over and over. Quilts are what we have been known for and they inform work we do on paper and in other mediums.
KM: Where is "Watermark 'M' Mike?
GF: The landscape is Hunting Island, off the end of Southport Island, Maine, which is probably a twenty-minute drive from here, we consider it our local neighborhood.
KM: Where is the piece?
GF: The piece is now in Columbus, Ohio. It's in the private collection of Jim Garland who has been collecting our work for a number of years.
KM: Very nice.
GF: We've known him for years. He and I were on the board of the Maine Craft Association at one time. Jim is also on the board of Baxter State Park and invited Duncan and I to go on a camping trip with his family, then commissioned a work based on the park. We made numerous trips to Baxter needing time to explore before focusing on specific sites. We accused Jim of addicting us to the place, we returned time after time. The commission took nearly two years for us to deliver and through it we forged a great friendship.
KM: You hand quilt and machine quilt.
GF: Yes
KM: Talk a little bit about that for me.
GF: The machine quilting is used in places that we think of as a 'hard line,' that can delineate certain sections. We hand quilt large stitches as a scrim over the landscape, which holds the fabric back so it can be visually read it in the way we intend. If we don't quilt the landscape, it will bubble forward and ruin the perspective that we create with the painting. The stitches act like screening over the landscape. We feel that even though the stitches are large, your eye can override them. think of windowpanes or the screen on a window. There are some areas where stitching is used as another color layer. Generally, we each know how different areas of a piece are going to be stitched as we paint. Even though Duncan doesn't do the stitching, he understands what the stitching will accomplish on his pieces. There are hard and soft lines. The larger hand stitches are considered the softer lines and the machine stitches, the hard lines.
KM: How do you balance your time?
GF: Between the two of us or between--
KM: No, your personal work, how do you balance?
GF: I try to be here in the studio as much as possible, but because we live rurally, part of the day may be wound up in doing things outside, it's a combination of taking care of this place, gardening and growing some vegetables and of course spending a lot of time at the desk taking care of the business of being artists.
We're surrounded by a land trust so there are good trails for hiking out our back door. It's a combination of those things and kayaking in the summer. It's outside where we find many of our 'raw materials'. Winter is a really good time to be in the studio, it's easy to decide to stay put when the weather is bad. Each day is different with the central focus on the studio even when nothing seems to be 'happening' we keep mining through ideas, working in sketchbooks until we get refocused. Other times, several pieces are in the painting stage, and we'll paint each day until the painting stage is completed.
KM: Since we are in your fabulous studio, let's describe.
GF: The studio is 33 x 33 feet with a nine-foot ceiling. It's the first floor of an attached barn, that at one time had a center 'drive through' with stalls on either side. It dates from approximately 1860. It's two and a half stories high and is attached to our farmhouse. Many traditional Maine farmhouses are connected with a long room (the el) that attaches the living space and the barn, which would allow the farmer to get to their animals without having to go outside in winter. For the first eight years our studio was in the el (our work was small in scale during that time, usually 24 inches by 24 inches) and because we had ideas of self - sufficiency we had some animals- a goat, laying hens and at times turkeys. [laughs.] (We were on the tail end of the 'back to the land' movement in the 70's.) The el was a workable space until our work needed to be larger. We got a commission in Chicago and had to rent a space there to give ourselves the wall size we needed (11 feet by 14 feet). Returning home, we were faced with structural problems on the attached barn, and we could foresee needing a larger workspace. The sills on the north side of the barn rotted from years of manure being piled against it by previous owners. We jacked up the building and put a foundation underneath it. We hired two of our best friends to do most of the work required to finish this space as a studio. It's a versatile space that gets rearranged depending on what we are working on, we can run long tables down the middle of the space for printing fabric and when we printed aluminum tiles with enamels, we hung drying racks on either side of the printing runway .The best part about the space is the amount of natural light, we don't feel trapped inside when working, there is a view of a large rolling field bordered by white pine. It's calming for us. We can watch different animals come into the view.
KM: You each have your own table?
GF: Yes, but we work on different tables at different times. I'm kind of spread all over in here now. [laughs.] It depends who is working on what.
KM: You are very tidy.
GF: We've cleaned it up. [laughs.]
KM: Oh, I feel better now.
GF: Periodically, we need to do a big cleaning, things pile up and after a while it clogs our thinking. We just finished a commission proposal, so things were everywhere. To move on to other work we needed to reorganize. At times we need an area to draw, work with gouache or pastels and then we'll need another area designated for painting with the dyes.
KM: Tell me about the digital work.
GF: The digital work came about as we realized that it would be possible to use digital printing to replace screen-printing. We have often used screen-printing when we design a repeat pattern. Setting up a printing project with multiple screens, registration, blocking out can be tedious. With the digital process we could build more complex layering. Anything we could draw and paint on paper could be scanned or photographed, layered with other imagery and printed on fabric with the same dyes we paint with in the studio. Digital printing became another tool in the toolbox. When printing digitally, we'll cut, paste and collage our own drawings digitally. When designing repeat patterns, we'll draw/paint one unit, Xerox it, put the units together, and rotate them to create a pattern, and then use that as a guide to do it digitally. Our working process relates to the concepts in Photoshop. We can work with the same conceptual ideas but build more complex layering without the laborious set-up of screen-printing. With the "Watermark Project" we originally wanted to see if it was possible to produce a quilt as an artists' print (the original artwork doesn't exist until it is produced in an edition) with the dyes and the digital process. While it is possible, we often got pieces back in the studio and felt compelled to over paint and tweak color. The first five "Watermark" pieces are multiples. The remainder of the "Watermark" series incorporated digital printing (repeat pattern areas) and painting (landscapes) though most of the pieces were completely painted. Because we contracted the printing, the time lapse was frustrating waiting for fabric to come back to the studio led us right back to painting, where we are in control of all aspects. I would say we 're control freaks and in the end it's more comfortable when all the work is completely done by us in the studio.
Sometimes we have an idea from the very beginning of what a piece will look like. It's almost like a slide image of it appears in one's head. The drawing, painting and sewing become the journey to making it a reality.
KM: You frame all your work?
GF: The only pieces that are unframed are the multiples that are digitally printed. We felt comfortable not framing them because they could be reproduced. In general, framing protects work from a hostile environment. Framing isolates the piece so whether that piece is hung on a wall with toile or striped wallpaper, for example, the piece can remain in its own space. The idea of 'tactile' we think can be a cerebral concept. We all know what we are looking at when going into a museum and see a textile behind glass in dim lighting. We don't feel you have to touch it to experience it. When a piece is exhibited unframed, we're not allowed to touch it, there is a good reason why. Framing makes the work accessible to collectors who care for the work and preserve it for the future. When the New England Quilt Museum was organizing an exhibit of the first 25 years of our work, they borrowed pieces from collectors. We saw first-hand that framing kept the pieces in good shape and well protected.
KM: Exactly, where do you see your work going?
GF: Now we're working on a series of pieces that deal with different ways we look at the landscape literally and symbolically. We're working with map imagery. First, by studying a map we can figure out where to find specific views of the landscape, we can interpret topography and light direction at certain times of day. With nautical charts we can understand the depths of water, how the tide will affect our view. Much of our new work is still dealing with water imagery, water in the landscape, water as depicted on a map, water as reflection -- often focusing on the Maine coastline and in the last year we've been on Nantucket where we've spent time in a residency program. Thirty miles out to sea, Nantucket is nearly all sand. We could look at light on water any time of day, in any direction, the topography, flora and woodlands are very different from the rocky Maine coast. In recent years we've inadvertently, reduced the number of visual elements in each one of our pieces--that may shift as we find the need to create more complexity in the visual surface in order to 'narrate' the places (landscapes) we 're focusing on. We like to build visual ambiguity in a piece where the landscape may flow into the map, or the map is layered over the landscape. The shifting back and forth between how elements are perceived is really interesting to us.
KM: What do you think is your biggest challenge?
GF: Working faster. Although we like our process, at times it's very slow, sometimes it would be nicer if pieces happened more quickly. Because we usually work on the painting of pieces in large chunks of time, it's easy to become frustrated by the pace. After working on the dye painted pieces, we usually try to balance the slow pace by working on paper with gouache and pastel. This lets us move through ideas more quickly and we can get the satisfaction of completing a work that relates to or may inform the next textile pieces. (The works on paper are also exhibited). All in all, the textile output is slow. Our other big challenge is living and working as studio artists and supporting ourselves with our work without compromising the work's direction. We have to make sure that the next piece is one that can stand together with the whole body of work- whether it is for an exhibit or commission. We don't want to change the work for the marketplace. We want the work to change and grow on our terms. To do this we need to accept the 'trade offs'- being careful how we spend funds. Sometimes foregoing a trip, etc. Sometimes in doing this we inadvertently end up with more time in the studio which is what we really want. We have to focus on what we think is most important.
KM: How do you want to be remembered?
GF: Hopefully as an artist whose work reflects and identifies me as somebody whose work didn't look like someone else's. That's always been important and positive but sometimes it can leave you far outside the mainstream (at least in the quilt world). I think I would like to be known for having my own voice and a commitment that did not waiver.
KM: I think you have been successful.
GF: Hopefully. I'm not dead yet. [laughs.]
KM: But we're running out of time. That would be good right?
GF: Yeah, it's just; I want to survive doing the work that is important to me. I'm not sure how our work may change when we can no longer get out in the woods or out on the water to paddle around…we might have to go by motorboat. [laughs.]
KM: That brought up a funny image. Sorry. [GF laughs.] You and Duncan in a motorboat. [laughs.]
GF: It will happen. [laughs.]
KM: I'm sure it will. Is there anything else that you would like to add that we haven't touched upon?
GF: Oh, I don't know but there is a quote by Wallace Stegner that sums up what we think about. He says, 'No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends or monuments. Fictions serve as well as fact.' We make up stories about the places we see, some are based on stories that we've heard from other people, history -- from there we construct our own idea of that place. We end up creating our own fiction as we try to convey and understand the intensity of a particular place, what it means to generations of people, what happens to it, how it changes, how it stays the same.
KM: How do you think you've been drawn to the place?
GF: I grew up in suburban Connecticut and as a kid I wanted to be someplace where I could go outside, and no one could see me. I wanted to go out in the woods and be as alone as possible save for a plane passing overhead. Duncan had a similar desire. We left college and came to Maine because we wanted to have a good view to the outside.
At twenty-one it was a simplistic goal, but with a good workplace and a view we figured no matter what happened in the larger picture of the world we could look outside and feel some peace or the sense of understanding that our problems were small and insignificant in the scheme of things. Being in urban areas I would look out the window and feel that there might be a lot of people who might not be happy. Here I look outside, watch the light change on the field; watch a flock of turkeys walk by. For us, it is a good place to be.
KM: I want to thank you so much for taking time sharing with me. You did a great job.
GF: Thanks, thanks. Was that forty-five minutes?
KM: It is.
GF: Hope it made some sense. Sometimes when we give a slide lecture together, we'll be taking turns speaking, but there are times when I'm so intent looking at the image on the screen that I go to the right side of my brain and lose track of my initial thought, like trying to talk while painting. [laughs.]
KM: We are going to conclude our interview and it is now 12:12.
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<partial_transcript>This is Karen Musgrave, and I'm conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Gayle Fraas. Today's date is October 24th, 2008. It is now 11:40, in the morning. I am in Edgecomb, ME, and thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with me. And tell me about the quilt, "Watermark," that you selected, for the interview.</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>The touchstone quilt, "Watermark 'M' Mike," is one of a twenty-six quilt series representing what Fraas calls the "International Signal Flag" alphabet. [Most likely, this is the alphabet portion of what is generally called the "International Code of Signals."] The quilts are all based on the visual appearance of the relevant flags, on imagery of water, and on "Ideas of navigation and finding one's way safely home." The size of the quilts in the series vary significantly. The flag corresponding to "Watermark 'M' Mike"' shows a white cross against a square blue background. The quilt's borders depict various aspects of water. In the center is an "island with a jet stream forming a white X...." Fraas describes the quilt as a collection of "many different ways we can delineate the idea of water." Like most of the other quilts in the series, the quilt is painted. In other quilts in the series, digital prints or a combination of painting and digital prints are used. Fraas created this series in conjunction with Duncan Slade. She chose this quilt as her touchstone quilt, because it was one of the quilts that she made herself. Of her work with Slade, she says, "our collaboration is, um, is, uh, is, is pretty much our conversation." She and Slade have worked together artistically since they were twenty-two. At the time, Fraas's area of expertise was fabric and Slade's was printing. Their interests converged when Fraas became interested in printing on fabric. Their collaboration grew from there. It works in part because they structure their work so that they both work on "good parts," which she defines as "the drawing and the painting parts." Their styles have, over time, become increasingly similar. They both think using a "really representational landscape" is critical, as it gives viewers something to look at when they are tired of the intricacy of the border and this ideally prolongs the amount of time viewers spend looking at the piece. Fraas and Slade's creative process begins with a trip, often by kayak, to look at a particular setting, where they take photographs and draw. Once they have returned, they do many small sketches. She says, "what really pushes our work is, is the idea of how we respond and react to landscape and how we perceive it...." Their differences in perception of the place fuel "the conversation" and "the understanding about what that place really is." From there they "trade ideas back and forth." One of them eventually creates a design for and then paints a quilt, but the other person provides honest opinions about the work in progress. They both need to feel that the painting is all right before it has been finished. Once it has been completed, Fraas does the sewing and Slade the binding.</synopsis>
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<synopsis>As a student, Fraas tried out many different art media. While on a hiking trip her senior year, she attended a quilt exhibit. Fraas had always sewn and Fraas' mother made Fraas' clothing based on pictures Frass had drawn. Her response to the quilt exhibit was, "I know this language so well...that's probably what I should be doing." Fraas decided "to put [her] own color and imagery on fabric," which is what drew her to print making. Fraas was attracted to fabric both because it was so familiar, but also because, unlike paper, many different things can be done to the fabric's surface, once it has been painted. Fraas and Slade spent a lot of time experimenting. Their work with fabric has become their "language." Fraas thinks that quilts, because they are familiar, draw viewers in, while the quilting forms "a scrim that you look through." Fraas and Slade work in other media, but keep returning to quilting and the flexibility inherent in the medium. </synopsis>
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<synopsis>Fraas describes the location on which the touchstone quilt is based as a tiny island "off the tip of Southport," about twenty minutes by car from the location of the interview. The quilt is currently in Jim Garland's collection in Ohio. Fraas and Garland met when they were both on the board of the Maine Crafts Association. Garland was also on the board of Maine's Baxter State Park. Fraas and Slade went to Baxter State Park numerous times, while working on a commission from Garland. Fraas and Slade use both hand quilting and machine quilting, but use the two techniques for different purposes. Fraas and Slade typically employ machine quilting to mark the boundaries between discrete areas of the quilt. Hand quilting, on the other hand, they employ "as large stitches as a scrim over the landscape...." The hand stitching keeps the fabric and the painting on it in place, without being visually obtrusive. Fraas and Slade also sometimes use stitching "for an added interest that adds another, um, layer of color...." While painting the fabric, Fraas and Slade both have a pretty good sense of the role the stitching will have in the project and the overall impact the stitching will have on the project, even though Slade does not do any of the stitching himself.</synopsis>
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<partial_transcript>This is Karen Musgrave, and I'm conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Gayle Fraas. Today's date is October 24th, 2008. It is now 11:40, in the morning. I am in Edgecomb, ME, and thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with me. And tell me about the quilt, "Watermark," that you selected, for the interview.</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>The touchstone quilt, "Watermark 'M' Mike," is one of a twenty-six quilt series representing what Fraas calls the "International Signal Flag" alphabet. [Most likely, this is the alphabet portion of what is generally called the "International Code of Signals."] The quilts are all based on the visual appearance of the relevant flags, on imagery of water, and on "Ideas of navigation and finding one's way safely home." The size of the quilts in the series vary significantly. The flag corresponding to "Watermark 'M' Mike"' shows a white cross against a square blue background. The quilt's borders depict various aspects of water. In the center is an "island with a jet stream forming a white X...." Fraas describes the quilt as a collection of "many different ways we can delineate the idea of water." Like most of the other quilts in the series, the quilt is painted. In other quilts in the series, digital prints or a combination of painting and digital prints are used. Fraas created this series in conjunction with Duncan Slade. She chose this quilt as her touchstone quilt, because it was one of the quilts that she made herself. Of her work with Slade, she says, "our collaboration is, um, is, uh, is, is pretty much our conversation." She and Slade have worked together artistically since they were twenty-two. At the time, Fraas's area of expertise was fabric and Slade's was printing. Their interests converged when Fraas became interested in printing on fabric. Their collaboration grew from there. It works in part because they structure their work so that they both work on "good parts," which she defines as "the drawing and the painting parts." Their styles have, over time, become increasingly similar. They both think using a "really representational landscape" is critical, as it gives viewers something to look at when they are tired of the intricacy of the border and this ideally prolongs the amount of time viewers spend looking at the piece. Fraas and Slade's creative process begins with a trip, often by kayak, to look at a particular setting, where they take photographs and draw. Once they have returned, they do many small sketches. She says, "what really pushes our work is, is the idea of how we respond and react to landscape and how we perceive it...." Their differences in perception of the place fuel "the conversation" and "the understanding about what that place really is." From there they "trade ideas back and forth." One of them eventually creates a design for and then paints a quilt, but the other person provides honest opinions about the work in progress. They both need to feel that the painting is all right before it has been finished. Once it has been completed, Fraas does the sewing and Slade the binding.</synopsis>
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<partial_transcript>So, why quilts?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>As a student, Fraas tried out many different art media. While on a hiking trip her senior year, she attended a quilt exhibit. Fraas had always sewn and Fraas' mother made Fraas' clothing based on pictures Frass had drawn. Her response to the quilt exhibit was, "I know this language so well...that's probably what I should be doing." Fraas decided "to put [her] own color and imagery on fabric," which is what drew her to print making. Fraas was attracted to fabric both because it was so familiar, but also because, unlike paper, many different things can be done to the fabric's surface, once it has been painted. Fraas and Slade spent a lot of time experimenting. Their work with fabric has become their "language." Fraas thinks that quilts, because they are familiar, draw viewers in, while the quilting forms "a scrim that you look through." Fraas and Slade work in other media, but keep returning to quilting and the flexibility inherent in the medium. </synopsis>
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<keywords>Sewing; Techniques</keywords>
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<time>624</time>
<title>Location depicted on touchstone quilt / Location of touchstone quilt itself / Hand quilting vs machine quilting</title>
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<partial_transcript>So where is "Watermark M Mike"?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Fraas describes the location on which the touchstone quilt is based as a tiny island "off the tip of Southport," about twenty minutes by car from the location of the interview. The quilt is currently in Jim Garland's collection in Ohio. Fraas and Garland met when they were both on the board of the Maine Crafts Association. Garland was also on the board of Maine's Baxter State Park. Fraas and Slade went to Baxter State Park numerous times, while working on a commission from Garland. Fraas and Slade use both hand quilting and machine quilting, but use the two techniques for different purposes. Fraas and Slade typically employ machine quilting to mark the boundaries between discrete areas of the quilt. Hand quilting, on the other hand, they employ "as large stitches as a scrim over the landscape...." The hand stitching keeps the fabric and the painting on it in place, without being visually obtrusive. Fraas and Slade also sometimes use stitching "for an added interest that adds another, um, layer of color...." While painting the fabric, Fraas and Slade both have a pretty good sense of the role the stitching will have in the project and the overall impact the stitching will have on the project, even though Slade does not do any of the stitching himself.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Jim Garland; Baxter State Park; Maine Crafts Association (Gardiner, ME); Hand quilting; Machine quilting; Techniques; Nature</keywords>
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<subjects>Art--Commissioning</subjects>
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<time>840</time>
<title>Balancing time / Studio</title>
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<partial_transcript>So, how do you balance, your time?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>On the one hand, Fraas tries to maximize her time in the studio. On the other, she has tasks, such as gardening and caring for the land she lives on, that requires time spent outside. In good weather, she also spends time hiking and kayaking, "because those, those are the places where we find our raw materials." She tends to spend more time in the studio during inclement weather. Every day is different, but she thinks it important to spend as much time in the studio as feasible, "even when nothing happens," because it focuses her attention on whatever ideas she may have and because spending time with the sketchbooks is useful. Fraas and Slade's studio is a converted barn, which is attached to their house with an ell. During their first eight years in residence on their land, Fraas and Slade kept animals in the barn and used the much smaller ell as their studio space. When they started taking large commissions, their ell was no longer big enough. In the short term, they rented workspaces in other areas as a partial solution. In the long term, since they were also concerned about the condition of the back wall of the barn, they arranged for some significant renovations, which shored up that wall. The studio can be used in different ways. It gets good light and looks out on a field. Fraas describes the view as "really calming." At any given time, they each have a separate work area, but the uses of the different tables rotate. The interviewer comments on how tidy the space is and Fraas explains that she cleaned beforehand, and that, at the time of the interview, they have just finished a project, so needed to clean up, anyway. It is not uncommon for Fraas and Slade to work on different commissions simultaneously. When that happens they need separate tables for the separate activities.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Time management; Work or Studio space</keywords>
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<time>1287</time>
<title>Digital work</title>
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<partial_transcript>Tell me about the digital work.
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<synopsis>Fraas describes digital printing as "another tool that we could kind of put in our little toolbox." She and Slade had done a lot of silk screening in the past, but found some aspects of putting together a project involving multiple screens tiresome. They liked the potential for creating "a more complex layer" with digital printing. They also, at an early stage in a project, experiment with putting pieces of their existing drawings together in different ways, She felt Photoshop allowed them to do things equivalent to what they did with screen printing and layering colors, but at a more complex level. What they initially aimed for in the Watermark series was to produce equivalent "multiples" or "artist's prints" of pieces that would have no physical existence before being printed onto fabric. It turned out, for a number of reasons, to be trickier than anticipated to print absolutely identical prints, so Fraas and Slade gave up on that approach after the first five in the series. She anticipates that as technology improves, multiple identical copies may become possible. Fraas and Slade started the Watermark project by having each piece printed in its entirety, but as the series progressed, they began to have cloth printed with patterns and then painting on top of the patterns, as well as creating some of the pictures solely by painting. They like doing as much of the work as possible themselves, rather than sending it all out to the printer, as they work to create the picture they initially envisioned.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Technology in quiltmaking; Techniques; Digital printing; Quilt series; Printmaking</keywords>
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<time>1435</time>
<title>Framing work </title>
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<partial_transcript>Now you frame all of your work?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Fraas and Slade have framed most of their work, with the exception of the pieces of the Watermark series that were intended to be multiples. (They thought that if that work was damaged, they could reprint it.) Normally, however, they frame the work they create to protect it. Also, they think that a frame marks a quilt as a single, distinct unit, even if, for instance, it is displayed against a wallpaper with a busy pattern. Fraas acknowledges that there is an argument that framing makes a quilt inaccessible as a tactile piece and that there is some merit to that argument, but points out that fabric pieces displayed in museums are "behind the glass," and that in venues when fabric is displayed without a frame, viewers are told not to touch it. Since care of a framed quilt is considerably easier than care of an unframed quilt, framing makes a quilt more appealing for collectors. When Fraas and Slade asked collectors to temporarily lend Fraas and Slade pieces they had made for a "survey of [their] work," they found that. even after twenty-five years, the pieces were in good condition. Fraas attributes their condition to the framing. </synopsis>
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<keywords>Printmaking; Framing; Techniques; Digital printing</keywords>
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<time>1571</time>
<title>Where sees work going</title>
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<partial_transcript>So where do you see, where do you see your work going?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Fraas says that, at the time of the interview, she and Slade are creating a series that examines landscapes from different perspectives. They are incorporating maps and nautical charts into individual pieces in the series. They are also focusing on water, largely because they are working with landscapes that are accessible by kayak, and they are "interested in how light plays on water...." They are, at the time of the interview, about to do a residency in Nantucket and anticipate that their "next, um, body of pieces is going to, um, be focused on some, uh, Nantucket. landscapes...." Nantucket is a different type of landscape with different plants and animals than Maine, but is also close enough to Fraas and Slade to be relatively accessible. Fraas expects that they will continue working with landscapes. She says, "pretty much we just keep playing with the parts of, um, what we're working on, to keep. um, shifting your visual understanding of what a landscape looks like."
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<keywords>Quilt series; Nature</keywords>
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<time>1737</time>
<title>Biggest challenge / How wants to be remembered</title>
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<partial_transcript>What do you think is your biggest challenge?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>When asked about her biggest challenge, Fraas names two. Her initial response is "working faster." Her and Slade's textile pieces are time-consuming. Sometimes, they "get really frustrated with that" and switch to using paper "out of frustration of needing to work through a bunch of ideas and seeing where they go." The second challenge is "living and working as an artist, and supporting ourselves with our work, without compromising the work." She identifies that challenge as simultaneously simple and difficult. As she sees it, the trick to meeting that challenge is remembering that whatever work she and Slade are about to produce must "stand with" everything they have produced in the past. Sticking to that goal means making some sacrifices, such as not going on trips they might otherwise like to make. Fraas says that she wants herself and Slade to be remembered as "artists that, um, were able to make work that identified, with themselves." She would "like to be known for having a, my own voice. And a commitment to that that, um, didn't waiver...." The interviewer comments that she thinks Fraas has been successful at that. Fraas expresses concern about what direction their work will take when she and Slade "can no longer get out in the woods and paddle around...." She suggests motorboat as an alternative means of transit. </synopsis>
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Collection
Citation
“Gayle Fraas,” Quilters' S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories, accessed October 15, 2026, https://qsos.quiltalliance.org/items/show/1796.