Jami Burns
Photos
Title
Jami Burns
Identifier
OH43040-003
Format
audio
Type
Oral History
Interviewee
Jami Burns
Interviewer
Karen Musgrave
Interview Date
7/20/2009
Location
Marysville, Ohio
Transcriber
Kim Greene
Transcription
Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave and I'm conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Jami Burns. We are in the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio, although Jami is from Grove City, Ohio. Today's date is July 20, 2009. It is now 10:45 in the morning. Jami, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to do this interview with me. Please tell me about your quilt "Dear Jane Almost."
Jami Burns (JB): The reason it is called "Almost" is because I'm cheating on some of the blocks. I'm not an appliqué person [sigh.] so I have to confess I've taken Tom's Calla Lily block and I've only appliquéd three little pieces on there instead of the 15 that is supposed to be on there. I'm just not an appliqué person so I'm calling it "Dear Jane Almost" because I can tell you there is going to be some blocks that I haven't finished yet that aren't going to get finished the right way, but I figured that it is going to be okay because it is going to be my own design. I'm going to Jane's expertise in her [inaudible.] quilting and use it for my own purposes. So that is where I'm at with it and I'm about, I've got about 200 some blocks finished already and I'm working on the outside triangles right now, which is very challenging. I've got to pick up my next set. I'm actually doing it for a class which I get to about every three months because I work on Saturdays so it has kind of been one of the reasons why I think I'm not during it as well as I could because I'm not getting to the classes as often as I could. Once I get one of those professional appliqué people to show me how to do it, my appliqué turns out perfect, but as soon as I walk away from her, [laughs.] it's bad again. [laughs.] I've got one or two perfectly; beautifully appliquéd blocks and the rest are now getting to be machine sewn.
KM: What was the appeal of "Dear Jane"?
JB: Well, first of all, I wanted to do something in a class because I thought it would be fun to do it with other people. Even though I knew I would be limited on the number of times that I was able to go. Still, it has been encouraging and I wanted to learn more about appliqué and paper piecing and "Dear Jane" has a great deal of both of those in there, so that really gave me some experience for it and I'm making it for my son, Cole, who just turned 16 over the weekend. This is his quilt to take to college. I'm making it for him and I'm making one for my grandchildren as they get closer to college age too. I've made one for my daughter and I'm making one for my other son too. They all will have a quilt that mom made.
KM: Very nice.
JB: I don't know if they will appreciate it. I can't imagine this one getting through college too well, but it will be an experience. That is okay. By the time I'm done with it, he may want it.
KM: Is it being done in the tradition, the traditional Dear Jane colors or--
JB: No, I'm doing it in navy blue, and it has gold embossed in it and off-white and then I'm using some red and some green to just put some variety in it. Most of it is navy blue and off-white.
KM: Tell me about your interest in quiltmaking.
JB: I've always been a sewer. Well not always, for about as long as I can remember I can remember making doll clothes out of rags and things like that. So, I really love to sew, and I learned to sew professionally and would make wedding gowns and things like that for a number of years and made all of my children's baby clothes and things like that. When I was about 20, I met my first husband, and I made him a quilt that had little appliqué symbols on it of things that we had done and things that were important in our lives together and that was my wedding present to him. It wasn't very well quilted, but it was a lot of fun to make and I've just kind of always really enjoyed making the quilts. I'm not much of an art quilter. Although I love art quilting. I mean it is just gorgeous and I really wish I had the expertise to do it. I've just kind of like making the patterns. I like the designs so that has kind of been my interest in it and I've just continued quilting over the years. Haven't really made much that I've wanted to give away to too many people, but I have some quilts that I use at home and until recently, like the last five or six years I've gotten more involved in making quilts for other people because I've run out of places to use my quilts. I don't know what to do with them. [laughs.] What do you do with all of these quilts that you've made? I have to find people to give them too now.
KM: Tell me about the project here at the prison.
JB: The project came about because I'm interested in quilting, and I love art quilting. When I heard about the Sacred Threads exhibit, which takes place right here in Pickerington, Ohio, I just couldn't wait to go. I was so excited about it. I thought it was such a fabulous idea and I read about it in the Quilter's Newsletter. I went down there, and I was just blown away, I mean it was just fabulous. The details of the quilts and the emotion expression of the quilts were just; I mean I came away in tears because it was so beautiful. [coughs.] Almost as soon as I saw it, I just thought of the women here, that this would be a wonderful expression for them and a wonderful way for them to let some of the feelings and the emotions out that they have carried around with them. Because, of course, as the Chaplain here, I hear a lot of the emotion expressions that goes on. One of the things that gets put on the back burner, too, because they don't really have a place to express it or a way to express it that is appropriate and safe. I just immediately thought of the women here and how many of them would really benefit from doing a project like that. When I was down there, I talked to the volunteers that were working there and they introduced me to Vikki Pignatelli and Vikki was just connected immediately with having the women do it. We got started doing some emailing and got back and forth with one another and got some people to donate the materials because everything came in by donations and I put out a sign for the women to sign up and we had about 45 women sign up initially. Some of them were not about the right reasons, but for the most part they were really interested in doing it. Some of them I got overwhelmed with the idea of quilting because a lot of them were first time sewers. A lot of them had done nothing. Some of the quilts you will see today are from first time quilters. They were just really overwhelmed with the idea of making a whole quilt. Some of them then moved out, transferred out of the prison or left or something like that because this project took two years, but the ones that were left, because we started in 2007 preparing for the 2009 exhibit. We got everybody together and got started probably about I guess November or December of 2007 and started getting the materials together for them to do it. The ones that have finished their quilts I think really got a lot out of the process of expressing themselves through material. I'm just in awe of how bold they were in doing some of the things that they did and some of the quilts that they made and also how diligent they were in keeping up with making all the, doing all the sewing and learning how to sew and learning stitches and learning different stitches because they wanted it to look a certain way. All of that has really been interesting and really rewarding to see how they have grown in their expertise and in their ability to express because although some of them had done quilting before. A lot of them as I said, this is the first time they had ever quilted.
KM: How many women finished the quilts?
JB: Seventeen. Two of them have left since then, since the time they finished their quilts, but we ended up with 17 that finished and that is a pretty good average. I think that was perfect for the show, it wasn't too many.
KM: What kind of feedback have you gotten about the show?
JB: Fantastic feedback. I had people stop me when I went down to see the show. People stopped me and told me how much they were impressed with it, and they have little cards where you can write down your impressions and everything and they just talked about how much it touched them and how much they could just feel the depths of the emotion of the women. We got a lot of wonderful feedback from them. We had some interest, and I haven't heard anything else about this, about them possibly being exhibited at the Union County Fair, but nobody from the fair has contacted me, but I've had people email me from New York City and everything wanting to know how they can get a project like that going. It has been really rewarding. I think the most rewarding thing has been what the women have gotten out of it. For instance, one woman, can I mention names? [KM hums agreement.] Ronda Edwards, she never quilted before. She is a fantastic artist, but she mostly paints and so she is painting in her quilt as well as quilting with it. Just the way she put them together was just really phenomenal, but she talked about herself as two people and how she grew from one person to another person and how that changed her spiritual awakening. That has been really interesting. The women have found a lot of faith in what they've been doing too and a lot of expressions of faith. I think that they might have understood it more as a religious exhibit rather than a spirituality exhibit but for the most part I think that they have expressed what they have got, how they have grown spiritually and who has helped them with that spirituality and how they have made different decisions because of their growth and the experiences that they have had since they come to prison. I think it is really phenomenal especially for them to be able to express that.
KM: How many of them do you think will go on to make more quilts?
JB: I don't know. I know there is probably about five of them that are pretty consistent quiltmakers already. I hope that some of the other ones will continue to make quilts. For instance, Ronda, I really hope that she continues to use that as a medium of her artistic expression because she is a fabulous artist. Rosa [Angulo.], she was a first-time quilter and her quilt just turned out marvelously, so I hope she continues with it. Some of the other ones are more interested in making quilts, but more like baby quilts and stuff like that because we do have the Stitching Post project. The Stitching Post does a lot of community service and they make a lot of quilts for children who are coming from domestic violence homes and coming into police stations. I'm not sure exactly all the places that the Stitching Post goes to, but I know they go to Choices, and they go to the police stations. I hope that they continue making quilts through those avenues.
KM: How has it inspired you?
JB: [coughs.] They've inspired me to feel a little freer with my quilting because when I started quilting it was really just ad hop, it was real off the top of my head and since I've learned more about quilting I think part of what has happened is that it is actually stifled part of me that was just more expressive because I got so involved in the techniques of quilting and now it is time for me to let go of some of that and just get back into just the creating part. I've got a quilt that I'm making now for my sister that is using some Rhapsody quilt material. Are you familiar with that? Just having fun with that. To make it so it's more expressive of what I want, even though I don't like appliqué. It is kind of a challenge, but I think it is time for me to start breaking free of some of my self-imposed chains and get back into doing it for the artistic expression. I've always loved working with material. I was an art major for a number of years before I switched to philosophy and psychology, but my big focus was design and material design, fabric design when I was working as an art major. That has been what I've been doing. I love to think that sometime in the future I can put a quilt, submit a quilt to be considered for the spiritual Sacred Threads exhibit, but we will see. They are moving now. Vikki told me they were moving it to Washington, D.C. this year. I guess the next time it comes up, because she and Wendy are retiring from it and they felt that they needed to let it go, that they had done it for 10 years.
KM: I didn't know that.
JB: Some other people are going to continue it and move it to [Washington.] D.C., which I think is going to be a fabulous venue for it because so many more people will have access to it than Pickerington High School. [laughs.] I mean you really had to search for the place. [both laugh.]
KM: You mentioned not liking appliqué, so what are your favorite techniques and materials?
JB: I like machine piecing and as far as materials I like bright colors. I just made a baby quilt for my new baby grandson that is only three weeks old. What I first went for was some bright oranges and yellows and I ended up making something that I think was more in blue tones because I wanted it to be something he can cover with and be a hugging blankie, but I'm going to make one of the oranges, green, yellows, and the bright greens and stuff. I really like the bright colors. I like working with just basic cottons. Just standard fabrics. Although I don't particularly like some of the prints. I love batiks. Batiks are gorgeous and they just turn out so well when you quilt. They are just fabulous. Those are kind of the materials I like. I like using, what is the name of the thread, Masterpiece thread. I think that is really good thread to work with. I like also metallics because I'm kind of a cross stitcher too. So, I will probably add some of that into the quilt whenever I make it. I'm just kind of thinking about which ways I want to go. I would love to make a quilt that is an example of our choir here. I just kind of let myself go free with that idea of what they symbolize to me because they are just really doing that for a job considering none of them are professionally trained or anything like that. They really love singing and it shows, and it makes the music so much better.
KM: Could you see doing another exhibit anytime in the future?
JB: With the women do you mean?
KM: Yes.
JB: I don't know. I mean I could certainly see doing it again but that would depend on what is going to happen with these changes. One of the things that is the problem is that there is a $20.00 entrance fee which may be more now I don't know. They were kind enough to wave that fee for us because of course the women could not afford it. I don't know how often they would be willing to do that, but I do see the potential of maybe some of the women that quilted this time hopefully they would have the opportunity to knit something in the future, if that is what they wanted. I would be more than happy to make contacts for them to find out whether or not they could knit something else. I can see doing a project again in maybe five or six years or something like that. Give them a chance for a new crop of quilters to come up and see if we can get some of the old ones involved too. What was also nice about the project is that a lot of the more experienced quilters helped the ones that were less experienced, so they really shared their knowledge and that was really nice to see.
KM: It really created a community then.
JB: Yah it did. They really came together. Tonight, we are going to view the CD of the exhibit and then I'm going to share all the comments with them. I made them all a copy of the program, so they all got to see their names in print and everything, so that was pretty exciting for them.
KM: It would have to help with self-esteem I would think.
JB: I think so. Just watching them struggle through the process of learning to make it. I mean we had one woman, who is no longer here, but she had never quilted anything and her design that she came up with was really very involved, but she pulled it off. She carried it off. She came up with this, which really expressed all the emotions she had. She was here for child endangerment. [someone enters the room with a question.]
Elizabeth Wright (EW): You are not mentioning names though? [EW is the Administrative Assistant to the Warden, and she sat in on all of the interviews.]
JB: No. The situation was that her boyfriend had actually killed the child. She had to grieve over the loss of that child, and she had not really given herself a chance to do that and so through the quilt she was able to really express a lot of the feelings that she had lost her baby and the hopelessness that she felt and anger she felt of herself and the anger she felt of the perpetrator and everything. I think it was really soul cleansing for her to make that quilt. Like I said, she is not here anymore, but what she did with the quilt was she incorporated a figure that had all these hands that were coming out of a body and just kind of like she was holding all the losses that she had and then down at the bottom she had God's hands holding her through it all. She used butterflies to symbolize her new hope. It was really powerful.
The other quilt that was really powerful I think was the one of mother [Tangie Thomas.] whose son had been attacked and she had to grieve over the loss of her hopes and dreams that she had for this child. She was not the perpetrator in that situation, but she had to grieve over what she had hoped for her son and how that was all gone now. I think the quilt helped her grieve over some of her losses. I mean she is still struggling with that of course, but you know I think she made a lot of steps in producing the quilt. I did a lot of counseling with her during the time that she was working on the quilt and just seeing the quilt develop and seeing her get some healing through that was really important.
Another one that was really important was one of the women from the Residential Treatment Unit, which are the severely mentally ill women and often have dual diagnoses. She made her quilt for the first. She was a first-time quilter and just putting together a very simple little story that she had of an angel holding some animals. Just expressed the love that she felt from God to her and just the safety that she was experiencing. That is something that I think people don't realize is that for some of these women this is the safest place they have ever been. Even though they think of prison as someplace horrible, for some it is taking them out of some place that is even worse. That was what she expressed through her quilt. There was a lot that really touched me in terms of the quilting, and I did a lot of extra counseling with the women when they were doing their quilts to deal with some of these losses and some of their grief that they had.
KM: Have you ever used quiltmaking to get through a difficult time?
JB: Yes, I have. I made a biblical quilt which I thought was really important. I ended up giving it to my daughter, but I basically made it because I was going through some grief and loss at the time. I had lost my mother and that was something that really helped me kind of refocus on my faith while I was doing it because I went back and did all the verses, the verses that the quilt pattern is made from. I looked at all those verses as I was going through my grieving and making the quilt and kind of got more into reading the Bible, so it brought me back to where my roots and my foundation is. That was important.
KM: What does your family think of your quiltmaking?
JB: My family is pretty resigned to the fact that we don't have a dining room table we just have a quilt room. It is just always quilting. What is mom doing, well mom is quilting today. I think they enjoy the results [laughs.] of getting quilts. [laughs.] They just kind of accepted I'm doing what I need to do. My extended family thinks they are pretty neat. My sisters. I'm very close to my sisters and they aren't sewers they are knitters so they kind of understand the desire to do something creative. We talk a lot about colors and things like that together.
KM: Why is quiltmaking important to you?
JB: First of all, as I said I love working with fabric. I mean fabric is the medium for my artistic expression and I'm not sure why, maybe it is from making all those doll clothes when I was five and six. I've always loved just loved the feel of fabric and the patterns in fabric and the colors in fabric, and I like the designs and the designs you can make through quiltmaking that are so, you take a piece of material that has one design on it and then you can totally change the design through the way you put the quilt together. I like the surprise of the quilt. For instance, the one that I just made for my grandson, I put 14-inch blocks together and put four 14-inch blocks together. But when I put them together there was a whole other pattern that was brought out through those 14-inch blocks, even though they had each had a unique pattern in them. When you combine them, they create new patterns and I like that. Like I said, the surprise of what are you going to find when you put these things together. I think the one thing I like, and I've done a little bit of is using the material in three-dimensional mode because it does have that added depth to it. I like that. I like material. [laughs.] If that makes any sense?
KM: How much do you have, how much material do you have?
JB: Tons and tons and tons. I have my stash. I'm getting it kind of all over the house now. I kind of keep it mostly in one room. I have converted a bedroom. When my older son moved out, I converted his bedroom into my quilting space, my sewing space, and my office area. It is quickly being taken over by material, like those mesh columns that you put together and have them stuffed with material and I have them hanging from the ceiling. Whenever I think of spending money that is what I think of spending money on. I have my favorite quilt store and they know my name and call me when something comes in. They are very tempting. I think quilting also has just continued to be a way that I can express myself, express the part of me that was an art major and never really wanted to have to make something that somebody else told me to make. Does that make sense? [KM agrees.] I kind of wanted to be able to be free in that area. That was an area that whenever I feel sad, I can go and make something creative. Whenever I feel happy, I can use it to express my joy in something. It has just been someplace for me to take my feelings and my emotions and keep it private for me but also share it with others. That is kind of what I get out of quiltmaking.
KM: What do you think makes a great quilt?
JB: Oh gosh, a great quilt I think is one that really expresses something about the person, and you want to know that person after you see the quilt. There were some great quilts in the Sacred Threads exhibit. Funny even though they have the National Quilt [Association.] exhibit in Columbus, I've never gone to it. I've gone to other quilt exhibits, but I've never gone to the national one. Sacred Threads I think had some great quilts in it. I like the Pignatelli quilt where it is the tree standing over the water and you almost can feel the coolness of the water coming off of it. That is a great quilt, but I think it also tells you something about who Vikki is. Vikki is a very calm person and that would be a place where she would find rest. You can feel the restfulness of the quilt. Another quilt that they had this year in the exhibit was one that was for--what I thought was a great quilt was this quilt for the men and women who had died in Iraq. I'm a pacifist and I'm a Quaker and this quilt had red poppies that symbolized the deaths and the blood that was shed, but it also had all different. They used military material and yet it was not a militaristic quilt. They used it to show the day-to-day experiences of the people that are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they weren't hiding the difficulty of it. I thought that was a great quilt.
There was another quilt that I remember the last exhibit where it was a person who was over in the corner of the quilt, it was a figure and the figure was in dark blues and purples and there were other people on the other side of the quilt in bright colors and the story behind the quilt was to come out of your depression and help people that are dealing with depression can't see the other people in their lives that are trying to help them out and the people that are trying to help them out don't understand the depression. I lost a sister to suicide so I could really resonate with that quilt because it was so hard to try to get in to where she was at and to bring her out where we wanted her to be, where she would be safe. Those are some great quilts. I'm sure I will see many more. I think some of the quilts that the women did are great quilts. I really, really liked the one of Joy's [Hoop Major.] where she put all of the names of all of the people that have helped her. That was such an expression of solidarity and community. I think that is a great quilt. I love Rosa Angulo's bird flying free in the midst of all the barbed wire and I think that is a great quilt, it really expresses where she longs to be and that she has found some freedom even within the barbed wires. I think that is a great quilt.
KM: I agree. Whose works are you drawn to? You mentioned all of these people, and why?
JB: One of the reasons I'm doing the "Dear Jane" quilt is because I'm really drawn to the fact that here is the woman who was suffering through a war that was devastating a country and yet she was focusing herself on making this very intricate quilt at a time where resources must have been so phenomenally scarce but when you try and make some of these blocks and you think why on earth did anybody take a one inch square and sew four one inch squares together. [laughs.]
KM: Think about the lighting she must have had.
JB: Yes, I know, to do this all by candlelight. She didn't do paper piecing because she wouldn't have had paper. Just try to create something out of the misery that war must have cost this country. That is one of the reasons I was really drawn to it. Of course, being a pacifist that is a creative way to cope in the midst of all the violence and the turmoil and chaos that war causes. I can't really think. I mean Vikki's work is terrific and Wendy Brenner's work is terrific. I like Rhapsody quilts. Who is that? Ricky Tims. Those Rhapsody quilts, I just think they are a lot of fun, very expressive. I think that the things that draw me to quilts most of all are the ones that expresses something about the person, so that is one reason why the Sacred Threads exhibit is something that has just really been important to me, and I will go see it when it is in Washington, D.C. I may not see the National Quilt [Association.] exhibit in Columbus, but I will see the one in Washington, D.C. [laughs.] They also had last time in 2007, they had a lot of quilts that were made by Palestine and Israeli, and to find that community in the midst of all the turmoil and chaos there is. Really, it was touching for me.
KM: What advice would you offer someone starting out in quiltmaking?
JB: Have fun, have fun with it most of all. Try not to pressure yourself too much. I mean it is important to learn the techniques because they give you that background and they are challenging, but don't be so tied to technique that you forget to have fun in making quilts. One of the quilts that I'm making for my older son is the quilt that I saw made and I'm kind of changing it because he is into black and white, so I'm making it all in black and white, but it is going to be like a big comet coming through the black quilt. Just putting that together has been fun. It is not perfect but guaranteed nobody except a fanatic or maybe a quilt judge is going to look and see if each little stitch is perfect, so I think it is more important to have fun with your quilting and make something that you think is expressive.
KM: What advice did you give to the women here when they were starting their quilts?
JB: The same thing, to have fun with it. I told them to feel free with it, not to worry so much about whether it was going to be, whether they could sew, we would help them with that, we could teach them how to sew. What they had to do was come up with a design and have it be meaningful to them. That is what we kind of started out with. When they first started, they saw the CD from the last exhibit, so they saw the CD from the 2007 exhibit and Vikki read all the aressays. She came in one day and read all the quiltmakers' comments and the quiltmakers' essays that they had included in them. I think that really touched them a lot and it gave them a good understanding what the quilt shows as about so they could feel a little bit freer, and it was just matching up blocks or anything like that. That was kind of how we started it with Vikki coming in and showing them what had been done.
KM: How do you want to be remembered?
JB: How do I want to be remembered? [pause.] I heard an epitaph many years ago that somebody had said that she wanted to be remembered as having lived the Gospel and that would be how I would like to be remembered by. That I just lived the Gospel I spoke.
KM: Is there anything that you would like to share that we haven't touched upon before we conclude?
JB: I don't think so. I enjoy quiltmaking and it is something I want to keep doing. [laughs.]
KM: You mentioned you studied art; do you think of yourself more as an artist or a quiltmaker or do you make the distinction?
JB: I don't really make a distinction between the two of them. Quiltmaking is my art form so I wouldn't consider myself a quilt artist like some of the quilt artists that are out there where people are doing it on a professional basis, where they are doing it for a livelihood. I can certainly appreciate what they are doing, but I'm doing it for the fun of it and for the joy of it and so it is my art. If that makes any sense.
KM: That does make a lot of sense. I want to thank you for taking time out of your day and coming to share with me and helping me get into prison. [laughs.]
JB: Not a problem at all.
KM: [laughs.] We are going to conclude our interview at 11:26.
Jami Burns (JB): The reason it is called "Almost" is because I'm cheating on some of the blocks. I'm not an appliqué person [sigh.] so I have to confess I've taken Tom's Calla Lily block and I've only appliquéd three little pieces on there instead of the 15 that is supposed to be on there. I'm just not an appliqué person so I'm calling it "Dear Jane Almost" because I can tell you there is going to be some blocks that I haven't finished yet that aren't going to get finished the right way, but I figured that it is going to be okay because it is going to be my own design. I'm going to Jane's expertise in her [inaudible.] quilting and use it for my own purposes. So that is where I'm at with it and I'm about, I've got about 200 some blocks finished already and I'm working on the outside triangles right now, which is very challenging. I've got to pick up my next set. I'm actually doing it for a class which I get to about every three months because I work on Saturdays so it has kind of been one of the reasons why I think I'm not during it as well as I could because I'm not getting to the classes as often as I could. Once I get one of those professional appliqué people to show me how to do it, my appliqué turns out perfect, but as soon as I walk away from her, [laughs.] it's bad again. [laughs.] I've got one or two perfectly; beautifully appliquéd blocks and the rest are now getting to be machine sewn.
KM: What was the appeal of "Dear Jane"?
JB: Well, first of all, I wanted to do something in a class because I thought it would be fun to do it with other people. Even though I knew I would be limited on the number of times that I was able to go. Still, it has been encouraging and I wanted to learn more about appliqué and paper piecing and "Dear Jane" has a great deal of both of those in there, so that really gave me some experience for it and I'm making it for my son, Cole, who just turned 16 over the weekend. This is his quilt to take to college. I'm making it for him and I'm making one for my grandchildren as they get closer to college age too. I've made one for my daughter and I'm making one for my other son too. They all will have a quilt that mom made.
KM: Very nice.
JB: I don't know if they will appreciate it. I can't imagine this one getting through college too well, but it will be an experience. That is okay. By the time I'm done with it, he may want it.
KM: Is it being done in the tradition, the traditional Dear Jane colors or--
JB: No, I'm doing it in navy blue, and it has gold embossed in it and off-white and then I'm using some red and some green to just put some variety in it. Most of it is navy blue and off-white.
KM: Tell me about your interest in quiltmaking.
JB: I've always been a sewer. Well not always, for about as long as I can remember I can remember making doll clothes out of rags and things like that. So, I really love to sew, and I learned to sew professionally and would make wedding gowns and things like that for a number of years and made all of my children's baby clothes and things like that. When I was about 20, I met my first husband, and I made him a quilt that had little appliqué symbols on it of things that we had done and things that were important in our lives together and that was my wedding present to him. It wasn't very well quilted, but it was a lot of fun to make and I've just kind of always really enjoyed making the quilts. I'm not much of an art quilter. Although I love art quilting. I mean it is just gorgeous and I really wish I had the expertise to do it. I've just kind of like making the patterns. I like the designs so that has kind of been my interest in it and I've just continued quilting over the years. Haven't really made much that I've wanted to give away to too many people, but I have some quilts that I use at home and until recently, like the last five or six years I've gotten more involved in making quilts for other people because I've run out of places to use my quilts. I don't know what to do with them. [laughs.] What do you do with all of these quilts that you've made? I have to find people to give them too now.
KM: Tell me about the project here at the prison.
JB: The project came about because I'm interested in quilting, and I love art quilting. When I heard about the Sacred Threads exhibit, which takes place right here in Pickerington, Ohio, I just couldn't wait to go. I was so excited about it. I thought it was such a fabulous idea and I read about it in the Quilter's Newsletter. I went down there, and I was just blown away, I mean it was just fabulous. The details of the quilts and the emotion expression of the quilts were just; I mean I came away in tears because it was so beautiful. [coughs.] Almost as soon as I saw it, I just thought of the women here, that this would be a wonderful expression for them and a wonderful way for them to let some of the feelings and the emotions out that they have carried around with them. Because, of course, as the Chaplain here, I hear a lot of the emotion expressions that goes on. One of the things that gets put on the back burner, too, because they don't really have a place to express it or a way to express it that is appropriate and safe. I just immediately thought of the women here and how many of them would really benefit from doing a project like that. When I was down there, I talked to the volunteers that were working there and they introduced me to Vikki Pignatelli and Vikki was just connected immediately with having the women do it. We got started doing some emailing and got back and forth with one another and got some people to donate the materials because everything came in by donations and I put out a sign for the women to sign up and we had about 45 women sign up initially. Some of them were not about the right reasons, but for the most part they were really interested in doing it. Some of them I got overwhelmed with the idea of quilting because a lot of them were first time sewers. A lot of them had done nothing. Some of the quilts you will see today are from first time quilters. They were just really overwhelmed with the idea of making a whole quilt. Some of them then moved out, transferred out of the prison or left or something like that because this project took two years, but the ones that were left, because we started in 2007 preparing for the 2009 exhibit. We got everybody together and got started probably about I guess November or December of 2007 and started getting the materials together for them to do it. The ones that have finished their quilts I think really got a lot out of the process of expressing themselves through material. I'm just in awe of how bold they were in doing some of the things that they did and some of the quilts that they made and also how diligent they were in keeping up with making all the, doing all the sewing and learning how to sew and learning stitches and learning different stitches because they wanted it to look a certain way. All of that has really been interesting and really rewarding to see how they have grown in their expertise and in their ability to express because although some of them had done quilting before. A lot of them as I said, this is the first time they had ever quilted.
KM: How many women finished the quilts?
JB: Seventeen. Two of them have left since then, since the time they finished their quilts, but we ended up with 17 that finished and that is a pretty good average. I think that was perfect for the show, it wasn't too many.
KM: What kind of feedback have you gotten about the show?
JB: Fantastic feedback. I had people stop me when I went down to see the show. People stopped me and told me how much they were impressed with it, and they have little cards where you can write down your impressions and everything and they just talked about how much it touched them and how much they could just feel the depths of the emotion of the women. We got a lot of wonderful feedback from them. We had some interest, and I haven't heard anything else about this, about them possibly being exhibited at the Union County Fair, but nobody from the fair has contacted me, but I've had people email me from New York City and everything wanting to know how they can get a project like that going. It has been really rewarding. I think the most rewarding thing has been what the women have gotten out of it. For instance, one woman, can I mention names? [KM hums agreement.] Ronda Edwards, she never quilted before. She is a fantastic artist, but she mostly paints and so she is painting in her quilt as well as quilting with it. Just the way she put them together was just really phenomenal, but she talked about herself as two people and how she grew from one person to another person and how that changed her spiritual awakening. That has been really interesting. The women have found a lot of faith in what they've been doing too and a lot of expressions of faith. I think that they might have understood it more as a religious exhibit rather than a spirituality exhibit but for the most part I think that they have expressed what they have got, how they have grown spiritually and who has helped them with that spirituality and how they have made different decisions because of their growth and the experiences that they have had since they come to prison. I think it is really phenomenal especially for them to be able to express that.
KM: How many of them do you think will go on to make more quilts?
JB: I don't know. I know there is probably about five of them that are pretty consistent quiltmakers already. I hope that some of the other ones will continue to make quilts. For instance, Ronda, I really hope that she continues to use that as a medium of her artistic expression because she is a fabulous artist. Rosa [Angulo.], she was a first-time quilter and her quilt just turned out marvelously, so I hope she continues with it. Some of the other ones are more interested in making quilts, but more like baby quilts and stuff like that because we do have the Stitching Post project. The Stitching Post does a lot of community service and they make a lot of quilts for children who are coming from domestic violence homes and coming into police stations. I'm not sure exactly all the places that the Stitching Post goes to, but I know they go to Choices, and they go to the police stations. I hope that they continue making quilts through those avenues.
KM: How has it inspired you?
JB: [coughs.] They've inspired me to feel a little freer with my quilting because when I started quilting it was really just ad hop, it was real off the top of my head and since I've learned more about quilting I think part of what has happened is that it is actually stifled part of me that was just more expressive because I got so involved in the techniques of quilting and now it is time for me to let go of some of that and just get back into just the creating part. I've got a quilt that I'm making now for my sister that is using some Rhapsody quilt material. Are you familiar with that? Just having fun with that. To make it so it's more expressive of what I want, even though I don't like appliqué. It is kind of a challenge, but I think it is time for me to start breaking free of some of my self-imposed chains and get back into doing it for the artistic expression. I've always loved working with material. I was an art major for a number of years before I switched to philosophy and psychology, but my big focus was design and material design, fabric design when I was working as an art major. That has been what I've been doing. I love to think that sometime in the future I can put a quilt, submit a quilt to be considered for the spiritual Sacred Threads exhibit, but we will see. They are moving now. Vikki told me they were moving it to Washington, D.C. this year. I guess the next time it comes up, because she and Wendy are retiring from it and they felt that they needed to let it go, that they had done it for 10 years.
KM: I didn't know that.
JB: Some other people are going to continue it and move it to [Washington.] D.C., which I think is going to be a fabulous venue for it because so many more people will have access to it than Pickerington High School. [laughs.] I mean you really had to search for the place. [both laugh.]
KM: You mentioned not liking appliqué, so what are your favorite techniques and materials?
JB: I like machine piecing and as far as materials I like bright colors. I just made a baby quilt for my new baby grandson that is only three weeks old. What I first went for was some bright oranges and yellows and I ended up making something that I think was more in blue tones because I wanted it to be something he can cover with and be a hugging blankie, but I'm going to make one of the oranges, green, yellows, and the bright greens and stuff. I really like the bright colors. I like working with just basic cottons. Just standard fabrics. Although I don't particularly like some of the prints. I love batiks. Batiks are gorgeous and they just turn out so well when you quilt. They are just fabulous. Those are kind of the materials I like. I like using, what is the name of the thread, Masterpiece thread. I think that is really good thread to work with. I like also metallics because I'm kind of a cross stitcher too. So, I will probably add some of that into the quilt whenever I make it. I'm just kind of thinking about which ways I want to go. I would love to make a quilt that is an example of our choir here. I just kind of let myself go free with that idea of what they symbolize to me because they are just really doing that for a job considering none of them are professionally trained or anything like that. They really love singing and it shows, and it makes the music so much better.
KM: Could you see doing another exhibit anytime in the future?
JB: With the women do you mean?
KM: Yes.
JB: I don't know. I mean I could certainly see doing it again but that would depend on what is going to happen with these changes. One of the things that is the problem is that there is a $20.00 entrance fee which may be more now I don't know. They were kind enough to wave that fee for us because of course the women could not afford it. I don't know how often they would be willing to do that, but I do see the potential of maybe some of the women that quilted this time hopefully they would have the opportunity to knit something in the future, if that is what they wanted. I would be more than happy to make contacts for them to find out whether or not they could knit something else. I can see doing a project again in maybe five or six years or something like that. Give them a chance for a new crop of quilters to come up and see if we can get some of the old ones involved too. What was also nice about the project is that a lot of the more experienced quilters helped the ones that were less experienced, so they really shared their knowledge and that was really nice to see.
KM: It really created a community then.
JB: Yah it did. They really came together. Tonight, we are going to view the CD of the exhibit and then I'm going to share all the comments with them. I made them all a copy of the program, so they all got to see their names in print and everything, so that was pretty exciting for them.
KM: It would have to help with self-esteem I would think.
JB: I think so. Just watching them struggle through the process of learning to make it. I mean we had one woman, who is no longer here, but she had never quilted anything and her design that she came up with was really very involved, but she pulled it off. She carried it off. She came up with this, which really expressed all the emotions she had. She was here for child endangerment. [someone enters the room with a question.]
Elizabeth Wright (EW): You are not mentioning names though? [EW is the Administrative Assistant to the Warden, and she sat in on all of the interviews.]
JB: No. The situation was that her boyfriend had actually killed the child. She had to grieve over the loss of that child, and she had not really given herself a chance to do that and so through the quilt she was able to really express a lot of the feelings that she had lost her baby and the hopelessness that she felt and anger she felt of herself and the anger she felt of the perpetrator and everything. I think it was really soul cleansing for her to make that quilt. Like I said, she is not here anymore, but what she did with the quilt was she incorporated a figure that had all these hands that were coming out of a body and just kind of like she was holding all the losses that she had and then down at the bottom she had God's hands holding her through it all. She used butterflies to symbolize her new hope. It was really powerful.
The other quilt that was really powerful I think was the one of mother [Tangie Thomas.] whose son had been attacked and she had to grieve over the loss of her hopes and dreams that she had for this child. She was not the perpetrator in that situation, but she had to grieve over what she had hoped for her son and how that was all gone now. I think the quilt helped her grieve over some of her losses. I mean she is still struggling with that of course, but you know I think she made a lot of steps in producing the quilt. I did a lot of counseling with her during the time that she was working on the quilt and just seeing the quilt develop and seeing her get some healing through that was really important.
Another one that was really important was one of the women from the Residential Treatment Unit, which are the severely mentally ill women and often have dual diagnoses. She made her quilt for the first. She was a first-time quilter and just putting together a very simple little story that she had of an angel holding some animals. Just expressed the love that she felt from God to her and just the safety that she was experiencing. That is something that I think people don't realize is that for some of these women this is the safest place they have ever been. Even though they think of prison as someplace horrible, for some it is taking them out of some place that is even worse. That was what she expressed through her quilt. There was a lot that really touched me in terms of the quilting, and I did a lot of extra counseling with the women when they were doing their quilts to deal with some of these losses and some of their grief that they had.
KM: Have you ever used quiltmaking to get through a difficult time?
JB: Yes, I have. I made a biblical quilt which I thought was really important. I ended up giving it to my daughter, but I basically made it because I was going through some grief and loss at the time. I had lost my mother and that was something that really helped me kind of refocus on my faith while I was doing it because I went back and did all the verses, the verses that the quilt pattern is made from. I looked at all those verses as I was going through my grieving and making the quilt and kind of got more into reading the Bible, so it brought me back to where my roots and my foundation is. That was important.
KM: What does your family think of your quiltmaking?
JB: My family is pretty resigned to the fact that we don't have a dining room table we just have a quilt room. It is just always quilting. What is mom doing, well mom is quilting today. I think they enjoy the results [laughs.] of getting quilts. [laughs.] They just kind of accepted I'm doing what I need to do. My extended family thinks they are pretty neat. My sisters. I'm very close to my sisters and they aren't sewers they are knitters so they kind of understand the desire to do something creative. We talk a lot about colors and things like that together.
KM: Why is quiltmaking important to you?
JB: First of all, as I said I love working with fabric. I mean fabric is the medium for my artistic expression and I'm not sure why, maybe it is from making all those doll clothes when I was five and six. I've always loved just loved the feel of fabric and the patterns in fabric and the colors in fabric, and I like the designs and the designs you can make through quiltmaking that are so, you take a piece of material that has one design on it and then you can totally change the design through the way you put the quilt together. I like the surprise of the quilt. For instance, the one that I just made for my grandson, I put 14-inch blocks together and put four 14-inch blocks together. But when I put them together there was a whole other pattern that was brought out through those 14-inch blocks, even though they had each had a unique pattern in them. When you combine them, they create new patterns and I like that. Like I said, the surprise of what are you going to find when you put these things together. I think the one thing I like, and I've done a little bit of is using the material in three-dimensional mode because it does have that added depth to it. I like that. I like material. [laughs.] If that makes any sense?
KM: How much do you have, how much material do you have?
JB: Tons and tons and tons. I have my stash. I'm getting it kind of all over the house now. I kind of keep it mostly in one room. I have converted a bedroom. When my older son moved out, I converted his bedroom into my quilting space, my sewing space, and my office area. It is quickly being taken over by material, like those mesh columns that you put together and have them stuffed with material and I have them hanging from the ceiling. Whenever I think of spending money that is what I think of spending money on. I have my favorite quilt store and they know my name and call me when something comes in. They are very tempting. I think quilting also has just continued to be a way that I can express myself, express the part of me that was an art major and never really wanted to have to make something that somebody else told me to make. Does that make sense? [KM agrees.] I kind of wanted to be able to be free in that area. That was an area that whenever I feel sad, I can go and make something creative. Whenever I feel happy, I can use it to express my joy in something. It has just been someplace for me to take my feelings and my emotions and keep it private for me but also share it with others. That is kind of what I get out of quiltmaking.
KM: What do you think makes a great quilt?
JB: Oh gosh, a great quilt I think is one that really expresses something about the person, and you want to know that person after you see the quilt. There were some great quilts in the Sacred Threads exhibit. Funny even though they have the National Quilt [Association.] exhibit in Columbus, I've never gone to it. I've gone to other quilt exhibits, but I've never gone to the national one. Sacred Threads I think had some great quilts in it. I like the Pignatelli quilt where it is the tree standing over the water and you almost can feel the coolness of the water coming off of it. That is a great quilt, but I think it also tells you something about who Vikki is. Vikki is a very calm person and that would be a place where she would find rest. You can feel the restfulness of the quilt. Another quilt that they had this year in the exhibit was one that was for--what I thought was a great quilt was this quilt for the men and women who had died in Iraq. I'm a pacifist and I'm a Quaker and this quilt had red poppies that symbolized the deaths and the blood that was shed, but it also had all different. They used military material and yet it was not a militaristic quilt. They used it to show the day-to-day experiences of the people that are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they weren't hiding the difficulty of it. I thought that was a great quilt.
There was another quilt that I remember the last exhibit where it was a person who was over in the corner of the quilt, it was a figure and the figure was in dark blues and purples and there were other people on the other side of the quilt in bright colors and the story behind the quilt was to come out of your depression and help people that are dealing with depression can't see the other people in their lives that are trying to help them out and the people that are trying to help them out don't understand the depression. I lost a sister to suicide so I could really resonate with that quilt because it was so hard to try to get in to where she was at and to bring her out where we wanted her to be, where she would be safe. Those are some great quilts. I'm sure I will see many more. I think some of the quilts that the women did are great quilts. I really, really liked the one of Joy's [Hoop Major.] where she put all of the names of all of the people that have helped her. That was such an expression of solidarity and community. I think that is a great quilt. I love Rosa Angulo's bird flying free in the midst of all the barbed wire and I think that is a great quilt, it really expresses where she longs to be and that she has found some freedom even within the barbed wires. I think that is a great quilt.
KM: I agree. Whose works are you drawn to? You mentioned all of these people, and why?
JB: One of the reasons I'm doing the "Dear Jane" quilt is because I'm really drawn to the fact that here is the woman who was suffering through a war that was devastating a country and yet she was focusing herself on making this very intricate quilt at a time where resources must have been so phenomenally scarce but when you try and make some of these blocks and you think why on earth did anybody take a one inch square and sew four one inch squares together. [laughs.]
KM: Think about the lighting she must have had.
JB: Yes, I know, to do this all by candlelight. She didn't do paper piecing because she wouldn't have had paper. Just try to create something out of the misery that war must have cost this country. That is one of the reasons I was really drawn to it. Of course, being a pacifist that is a creative way to cope in the midst of all the violence and the turmoil and chaos that war causes. I can't really think. I mean Vikki's work is terrific and Wendy Brenner's work is terrific. I like Rhapsody quilts. Who is that? Ricky Tims. Those Rhapsody quilts, I just think they are a lot of fun, very expressive. I think that the things that draw me to quilts most of all are the ones that expresses something about the person, so that is one reason why the Sacred Threads exhibit is something that has just really been important to me, and I will go see it when it is in Washington, D.C. I may not see the National Quilt [Association.] exhibit in Columbus, but I will see the one in Washington, D.C. [laughs.] They also had last time in 2007, they had a lot of quilts that were made by Palestine and Israeli, and to find that community in the midst of all the turmoil and chaos there is. Really, it was touching for me.
KM: What advice would you offer someone starting out in quiltmaking?
JB: Have fun, have fun with it most of all. Try not to pressure yourself too much. I mean it is important to learn the techniques because they give you that background and they are challenging, but don't be so tied to technique that you forget to have fun in making quilts. One of the quilts that I'm making for my older son is the quilt that I saw made and I'm kind of changing it because he is into black and white, so I'm making it all in black and white, but it is going to be like a big comet coming through the black quilt. Just putting that together has been fun. It is not perfect but guaranteed nobody except a fanatic or maybe a quilt judge is going to look and see if each little stitch is perfect, so I think it is more important to have fun with your quilting and make something that you think is expressive.
KM: What advice did you give to the women here when they were starting their quilts?
JB: The same thing, to have fun with it. I told them to feel free with it, not to worry so much about whether it was going to be, whether they could sew, we would help them with that, we could teach them how to sew. What they had to do was come up with a design and have it be meaningful to them. That is what we kind of started out with. When they first started, they saw the CD from the last exhibit, so they saw the CD from the 2007 exhibit and Vikki read all the aressays. She came in one day and read all the quiltmakers' comments and the quiltmakers' essays that they had included in them. I think that really touched them a lot and it gave them a good understanding what the quilt shows as about so they could feel a little bit freer, and it was just matching up blocks or anything like that. That was kind of how we started it with Vikki coming in and showing them what had been done.
KM: How do you want to be remembered?
JB: How do I want to be remembered? [pause.] I heard an epitaph many years ago that somebody had said that she wanted to be remembered as having lived the Gospel and that would be how I would like to be remembered by. That I just lived the Gospel I spoke.
KM: Is there anything that you would like to share that we haven't touched upon before we conclude?
JB: I don't think so. I enjoy quiltmaking and it is something I want to keep doing. [laughs.]
KM: You mentioned you studied art; do you think of yourself more as an artist or a quiltmaker or do you make the distinction?
JB: I don't really make a distinction between the two of them. Quiltmaking is my art form so I wouldn't consider myself a quilt artist like some of the quilt artists that are out there where people are doing it on a professional basis, where they are doing it for a livelihood. I can certainly appreciate what they are doing, but I'm doing it for the fun of it and for the joy of it and so it is my art. If that makes any sense.
KM: That does make a lot of sense. I want to thank you for taking time out of your day and coming to share with me and helping me get into prison. [laughs.]
JB: Not a problem at all.
KM: [laughs.] We are going to conclude our interview at 11:26.
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<title>Touchstone quilt: "Dear Jane Almost"</title>
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<partial_transcript>This is Karen Musgrave, and I'm conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Jami Burns. We are in the Ohio State Reformatory, Ohio Reformatory for Women, in Marysville, Ohio, although Jami is from Grove City, Ohio, and today's date is July 20th, 2009, it is now, uh, 10:45 in the morning, and Jami, thank you so much, for taking time out of your day to do this interview with me. So please tell me about your quilt, "Dear Jane Almost."</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Burns says the reason she included "almost" in the title for her touchstone quilt is that she is making some adaptations to the original "Dear Jane" design. In particular, she appliqued many fewer pieces to a particular quilt block pattern than were appliqued to it in the original and she anticipates that some other blocks will also not be done in the same way as their counterparts in the original. [Burns calls the particular block pattern to which she made the change "Tom's Calla block," but this is corrected to "Tom's Calla Lily block" in the transcript.] Applique is not one of Burns' strengths. As Burns sees it, by adapting the original pattern she is making the quilt to her "own design," but drawing on "Jane's expertise." As of the time of the interview, Burns has completed somewhat more than two hundred blocks and is making "the outside triangles." She is making the quilt for a class, but is rarely about to attend the class, as it conflicts with her work schedule. Some of her problems with quilting may arise from the fact that she is able to attend the class so infrequently. She reports that if someone with expertise in applique helps her, her applique skills improve markedly, but only so long as she is in the vicinity of that person. Despite her inability to get to the class more often, Burns describes it as "encouraging." One of the attractions of doing a "Dear Jane quilt" is that it incorporates quite a bit of paper piecing and applique, since those are techniques about which Burns wants more knowledge. Burns is making the quilt for her sixteen-year-old son to take with him when he goes away to college. Previously, she made a quilt for her daughter. As of the time of the interview, she is also working on a quilt for her other son. She also expects to make quilts for her grandchildren as they near college age. She is not sure that her son will appreciate "Dear Jane Almost," but hopes that he will by the time she finishes it. Instead of using the traditional "Dear Jane" colors, Burns is using mostly navy blue and off-white, with a little red and green for variety.</synopsis>
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<title>Interest in quiltmaking</title>
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<partial_transcript>Well, tell me about your interest in quiltmaking.</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Burns reports that as far back as she can remember, she has sewn. She used to use rags to make doll clothes. She progressed to making wedding dresses and the like, which she did for some years, and, eventually, to clothes for her own children. When she married for the first time, she made her husband a quilt for the wedding. She reports that, although it was not particularly well-done, that she had a good time making it. Burns thinks that art quilting is lovely, but requires skill that she does not have. What she likes to do, mostly, is made traditional patterns. Until a few years before the interview, Burns did not routinely give quilt away, but eventually ended up with more quilts than she had uses for. At that point she began to make quilts as gifts. </synopsis>
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<title>Prison quilt project</title>
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<partial_transcript>So, tell me about the project here at the prison.</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>The prison project was inspired by Burns' visit to the Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit. She learned about this event from the Quilter's Newsletter and wanted to go because of her love of quilting in general and of art quilting in particular. Burns was impressed by both "the details" and "the emotional expression of the quilts" at Sacred Threads. Since she is, as of the time of the interview, the Chaplain at the prison, she is aware of "a lot of the emotional expression that goes on..." among the women resident in the prison and also the ways in which the women give their feelings low priority, because they do not have suitable ways to express them. She thought that working on quilting something suitable for Sacred Threads would be helpful for many of the women. She consulted with Sacred Threads volunteers, who referred her to Vikki Pignatelli, who was enthusiastic about the idea. They started planning and soliciting donations of materials. When Burns announced the project, forty-five women indicated interest, not all of them for what Burns considered "the right reasons." Most, though, were legitimately quite interested. A fair number of the women had never sewn before. Some of the participants who finished their quilts had never quilted before and were really daunted by the prospect of doing a good-sized quilting project. Due to turnover in the prison population, some of the women left the group. The group of quilters started meeting in 2007 with the idea that they would produce quilts to exhibit at Sacred Threads in 2009. Burns thinks that those women who completed the project benefited from the self-expression. She says, "I'm just, in awe, of how bold they were in doing some of the things that they did and some of the quilts that they made...." She was also impressed by their hard work and their persistence in acquiring the sew skills necessary for their individual projects, as well as the growth in their skills for sewing and for self-expression.</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; Quilters Newsletter Magazine; Vikki Pignatelli; Quilt purpose - Art or personal expression; Quilt Purpose - Therapy</keywords>
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<time>544</time>
<title>Public reception of quilt show</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>So, how many women finished qui-, the quilt?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Seventeen women finished their quilts, resulting in an exhibit that Burns considered an appropriate size. Burns received very good feedback about the show. Some people approached Burns individually to tell her how enthralled they were with it. Some people filled out comment cards and "talked about how much it touched them and how much, you know, they could just feel the depths of the emotion of the women...." At one point, it looked like there was some possibility that the Union County Fair (Marysville, OH) might show the exhibit, but no one from the fair followed up with Burns. People from other parts of the country have contacted Burns about how to start similar projects. Burns says, "I think the most rewarding thing has been th-, what, like, the women have gotten out of it...." As an example, she gives participant Rhonda Edwards, who is one of the women with no previous quilting experience. Edwards is, however, an artist, whose primary medium is paint, so she applied paint to her quilt. Burns was impressed both with the way Edwards combined media and with the way in which Edwards "talked about, you know, herself as two people, and how she, grew from one person to another person, and how that changed with her spiritual awakening...." Burns suspects that the participants viewed their exhibit as being not so much about spirituality as religion, but was also impressed with the way their quilts expressed faith, spiritual growth, and the changes that growth has made to the way they make decisions. The quilts also has been a way for them to express feelings about their prison experience. </synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Union County Fair (Marysville, OH); Rhonda Edwards; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; Quilt purpose - art or personal expression; Techniques</keywords>
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<subjects>Textile painting</subjects>
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<time>709</time>
<title>Aftermath of prison quilt project</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>How many of them do you think will go on to make more quilts?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns is unsure how many of the women who participated in the project to make quilts for the Sacred Threads exhibition will continue quilting. Roughly five were already quiltmakers and Burns had particular hopes that two other project participants would continue quilting. Some women want to continue to quilt through the Stitching Post, a charitable project that makes quilts for children who are removed from unsafe homes. The women involved in the project have "inspired [Burns], to, feel a little freer with [her] quilting...." She describes her approach to quilting as a beginner "as just really ad hoc." As she learned more about quilting, especially different techniques, her quilting became more constrained. She says, "And now it's time for me to get, let go of some of that, and just get back into, you know, the creating part." As of the time of the interview, she is working on a quilt for her sister and is aiming to "make it so it's more expressive, um, of what I want...." Although Burns ended up getting her degree in other subjects, she was an art major with a strong interest in design, especially "material design, fab-, fabric design" initially. As of the time of the interview, she would like to submit a quilt for consideration in the Sacred Threads exhibit at an indefinite point in the future. As of the time of the interview, the Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit was about to stop being a local event and to move to Washington, D.C., as of the following year.</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Rosa Angulo; Rhonda Edwards; Stitching Post; Choices (Dayton, OH); Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit</keywords>
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<point>
<time>935</time>
<title>Favorite techniques and materials</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>So, you've mentioned not liking applique, so what is your favorite techniques and materials?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns prefers machine piecing to applique. She also prefers more vivid colors to darker ones. As an example, she talks about a baby blanket she made for her grandson. She initially bought fabrics in vivid yellows and oranges for it, but switched to making a blanket, that, as she recalls, was largely in various shades of blue, "because I want it to be something that he can cud- cuddle with and, um, be a, hugging blankie...." Nevertheless, she would like to make another blanket using several colors in bright hues. As far as material goes, she prefers to use "just basic cottons." She is not fond of some prints, but does like batiks. For thread, she likes Masterpiece thread and metallic thread. As of the time of the interview, she thinks that a good possible project for the future would be a quilt depicting or celebrating the prison choir, because "of what they symbolize to me. So, you know, they've, just really do an excellent job, considering they, none of them are professionally trained or anything like that, but they really, you know, love singing and, they, it shows...."</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Use of color; Fabric - Batiks</keywords>
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<point>
<time>1072</time>
<title>Continuing with prison quilt project</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>Could you see you doing another exhibit in, anytime in the future?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>On the one hand, Burns can imagine herself going through the process of co-ordinating and shepherding a group of inmates through another exhibit. On the other, she is not sure what impact the changes the Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit is, at the time of the interview, about to undergo might have on the proposed second exhibit. For instance, for the original exhibit, the organizers did not require the women in the prison exhibit to pay the usual fee for submitting quilts to Sacred Threads. Burns is not sure that this courtesy would be repeated indefinitely. She does want the participants in the exhibit to have more opportunities to knit and is willing to connect them to other people who might be helpful. [The tape and the transcript both use the word "knit" twice at this point; this is probably an error for "quilt."] Burns can imagine "doing a project again" and thinks waiting "five or six years" would allow sufficient time for new quilters to appear on the scene. She also hopes that some quilters who worked on the first project might also take part. She notes that one of the successes of the first project was the assistance relatively experienced quilters offered to newer ones. The interviewer comments that this suggests that the project created a community and Burns agrees. Burns says that the plan for the evening of the day of the interview is to show the Exhibit CD and then pass on the comments that were made on the show to the women who participated. Previously, Burns had given copies of the program to each participant. Burns reports that the participants were excited "to see their names in print." The interviewer comments that this must be good for the self-esteem of the participants. Burns discusses the background and contexts of three participants, as relevant to the quilts that they made. While on this topic, Burns notes more than once that she provided considerable counseling to those women while they were making the quilts. </synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Tangie Thomas</keywords>
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<time>1435</time>
<title>Using quilting to get through a difficult time / Impact of quilting on family</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>Have you ever used quiltmaking to get through a difficult time?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns has used quiltmaking to get through a difficult time. After the death of her mother, Burns made "a Biblical quilt" based on Bible verses that were important to her during her mourning process. She says that the grief and Bible reading and quilting in combination re-oriented her towards her faith and "brought [her] back to [her], where [her] roots and [her] foundation is." Burns describes her immediate family as "resigned" to the effective replacement of their dining room with a "quilt room." They also have come to understand that Burns is "doing what [she] need[s] to do." That said, her immediate family members do like receiving finished quilts. Other members of her family appreciate her quilts, especially her sisters, who knit. She notes that her sisters, who knit, also comprehend the creative urge and that there are some areas of overlapping interest, such as colors, that they discuss.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Family; Quilt Purpose - Mourning; Quilt Purpose - Therapy</keywords>
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<time>1547</time>
<title>Importance of quiltmaking / Fabric stash</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>So, why is quiltmaking important to you?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns really enjoys using fabric and describes it as "the medium for [her] artistic expression." She does not really understand the reason why this should be so, but speculates that it may be related to the fact that as a five- and six-year-old child, she made many doll clothes. She enjoys the tactile qualities of fabric, as well as the visual qualities of pattern, color, and design. Burns discusses how a fabric pattern might appear one way on its own, but become part of a larger pattern when juxtaposed with other pieces of cloth in a quilt. The same is true of putting blocks together in a quilt. As an example she gives the quilt that she made for her grandson. She enjoys the "surprise" of new patterns emerging as the quilt is made. Although she has not done much of it, Burns also enjoys using fabric "in three-dimensional, um, mode, uh, because that's, because it does have that, you know, added depth to it...." Burns has a very large fabric stash. It has been expanding throughout the house, but the bulk of it is in her work space, which used to be a bedroom, but, as of the time of the interview, Burns used as combined sewing space, quilting space, and office. Her fabric takes up considerable space in that room. She even stores it in containers that are hung from the ceiling. She prefers buying fabric to buying anything else. The quilt shop she likes best telephones her "when something comes in." Quiltmaking is a form of artistic self-expression for Burns. She prefers to make things that she wants to, rather than things that other people have directed her to make. Quiltmaking is a way for her to express both positive and negative emotions. The emotional part, as Burns sees it, remains private, even when she "share[s] it with others."</synopsis>
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<keywords>Fabric stash; Fabric; Work or Studio space</keywords>
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<time>1774</time>
<title>What makes a great quilt</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>So, what do you think makes a great quilt?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns defines a great quilt as "one that really expresses, something about the person and you want to know that person after you see the quilt...." She thinks that some of the entries in the Sacred Threads exhibit were great quilts. As an example, she gives Vikki Pignatelli's quilt, which shows a tree by water. Burns describes how this very restful picture gives the viewer insight into Pignatelli's calmness. Another quilt Burns thinks is great was in the exhibit that took place the year of the interview. It commemorates armed forces members who died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another quilt in the same exhibit deals with depression and the difficulties for a depressed person and for potential helpers in creating a connection. Of the quilts in the Ohio Women's Reformatory exhibit, Burns thinks that quilts by Rosa Angulo and Joy are great quilts. [Joy in identified in a transcript note as Joy Hoop Major.]</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Vikki Pignatelli; Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; National Quilting Association; Quakerism; Joy Major; Rosa Angulo</keywords>
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<time>2030</time>
<title>Quilt inspiration</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>So whose works are you drawn to? You mention all these people, and, and, why?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns comments that one of the attractions of the Dear Jane quilt is that its maker opted to engage, during wartime, with a very complicated pattern that, for instance, required sewing together one-inch blocks of fabric to make four-inch blocks. Burns sees making that quilt as a admirable and creative coping response to "the violence and the turmoil and chaos that war causes." The interviewer comments on the lighting available to the creator and Burns conjectures that candles were the light source for the work. Burns is also drawn to the work of Vikki [presumably Vikki Pignatelli] and Wendy Brenner. Something else she is drawn to is Rhapsody quilts, which she finds both fun and expressive. [Since Burns mentions Ricky Tims, presumably the reference is to his book, "Rhapsody Quilts."] In general, Burns is drawn to a quilt "when it expresses something about the person...." That is why the Sacred Threads exhibit is important to her and why she will travel to Washington, DC, in order to attend that show when it moves there. She mentions that there were a number of both Palestinian and Israeli quilts at the 2007 show.</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Dear Jane quilts; Ricky Tims; Rhapsody Quilts (book by Ricky Tims); Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; Vikki Pignatelli; Quilt shows/exhibitions; National Quilting Association’s Quilt Show</keywords>
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<time>2177</time>
<title>Advice for beginning quilters / Prison quilt project advice</title>
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<partial_transcript>What advice would you offer someone who's starting out in quiltmaking?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns would advise beginning quilters to enjoy the process and to avoid pushing themselves excessively. She acknowledges, "it's important to learn the techniques, because they give you, you know, um, that background and, they, you know, they're challenging...." Nevertheless, she suggests not letting an undue focus on technique interfere with enjoyment. Burns talks about making a quilt depicting a comet for one of her sons. She describes the process of making it as "fun," but the quilt itself as "not perfect." She thinks, however, that only a very limited number of viewers will focus in detail on the quality of a quilt's stitching. Quilters should, instead, prioritize expressing themselves and enjoying the process. Burns told the participants in the Sacred Threads exhibit project to enjoy themselves. She advised them to create a design that was personally meaningful, without worrying too much about whether they had the skills to implement it. She promised the assistance of more advanced quilters with the sewing. At the beginning of the project, the organizers showed the participating women the 2007 exhibit CD. Vikki [presumably Vikki Pignatelli] "read all the, the quiltmakers' comments and the quiltmakers' essays" about the quilts they had made to the project participants in the prison. In addition to the participants' emotional response, the women also gleaned a pretty good sense from the material about the exhibit presented to them of what the Sacred Threads exhibit is about. </synopsis>
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<keywords>Teaching quiltmaking; Vikki Pignatelli</keywords>
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<time>2317</time>
<title>Final thoughts</title>
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<partial_transcript>How do you want to be remembered?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>When asked how she wants to be remembered, Burns refers to someone else's epitaph, which says that "she wanted to be remembered as having lived the Gospel." Similarly, the trait for which Burns would like to be remembered is "I just lived the Gospel I spoke." When asked if there is anything else she would like to say, Burns says she likes to makes quilts and wants to keep on making them. The interviewer reminds Burns that she has a background in art and asks if Burns considers herself primarily as a quiltmaker or an artist. Burns sees those roles as pretty much the same thing in her own life. At one and the same time, she sees quilting as the particular type of art that she practices, but does not consider herself a quilt artist. This is at least in part because she does not see herself as being at the same level as people who work professionally as quilters and make their living from quilting. She may like the work of those people, but she does her own quilting for enjoyment.</synopsis>
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<title>Touchstone quilt: "Dear Jane Almost"</title>
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<partial_transcript>This is Karen Musgrave, and I'm conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Jami Burns. We are in the Ohio State Reformatory, Ohio Reformatory for Women, in Marysville, Ohio, although Jami is from Grove City, Ohio, and today's date is July 20th, 2009, it is now, uh, 10:45 in the morning, and Jami, thank you so much, for taking time out of your day to do this interview with me. So please tell me about your quilt, "Dear Jane Almost."</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns says the reason she included "almost" in the title for her touchstone quilt is that she is making some adaptations to the original "Dear Jane" design. In particular, she appliqued many fewer pieces to a particular quilt block pattern than were appliqued to it in the original and she anticipates that some other blocks will also not be done in the same way as their counterparts in the original. [Burns calls the particular block pattern to which she made the change "Tom's Calla block," but this is corrected to "Tom's Calla Lily block" in the transcript.] Applique is not one of Burns' strengths. As Burns sees it, by adapting the original pattern she is making the quilt to her "own design," but drawing on "Jane's expertise." As of the time of the interview, Burns has completed somewhat more than two hundred blocks and is making "the outside triangles." She is making the quilt for a class, but is rarely about to attend the class, as it conflicts with her work schedule. Some of her problems with quilting may arise from the fact that she is able to attend the class so infrequently. She reports that if someone with expertise in applique helps her, her applique skills improve markedly, but only so long as she is in the vicinity of that person. Despite her inability to get to the class more often, Burns describes it as "encouraging." One of the attractions of doing a "Dear Jane quilt" is that it incorporates quite a bit of paper piecing and applique, since those are techniques about which Burns wants more knowledge. Burns is making the quilt for her sixteen-year-old son to take with him when he goes away to college. Previously, she made a quilt for her daughter. As of the time of the interview, she is also working on a quilt for her other son. She also expects to make quilts for her grandchildren as they near college age. She is not sure that her son will appreciate "Dear Jane Almost," but hopes that he will by the time she finishes it. Instead of using the traditional "Dear Jane" colors, Burns is using mostly navy blue and off-white, with a little red and green for variety.</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Ohio Reformatory for Women (Marysville, OH); Dear Jane quilts; Family; Tom’s Calla Lilly (quilt block); Tom’s Calla (quilt block); Quilt design; Techniques; quiltmaking classes</keywords>
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<time>216</time>
<title>Interest in quiltmaking</title>
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<partial_transcript>Well, tell me about your interest in quiltmaking.</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns reports that as far back as she can remember, she has sewn. She used to use rags to make doll clothes. She progressed to making wedding dresses and the like, which she did for some years, and, eventually, to clothes for her own children. When she married for the first time, she made her husband a quilt for the wedding. She reports that, although it was not particularly well-done, that she had a good time making it. Burns thinks that art quilting is lovely, but requires skill that she does not have. What she likes to do, mostly, is made traditional patterns. Until a few years before the interview, Burns did not routinely give quilt away, but eventually ended up with more quilts than she had uses for. At that point she began to make quilts as gifts. </synopsis>
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<keywords>Sewing; Art quiltmaking; Quilt Purpose - Gift or presentation; Quilt Purpose - Personal enjoyment; Family</keywords>
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<time>316</time>
<title>Prison quilt project</title>
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<partial_transcript>So, tell me about the project here at the prison.</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>The prison project was inspired by Burns' visit to the Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit. She learned about this event from the Quilter's Newsletter and wanted to go because of her love of quilting in general and of art quilting in particular. Burns was impressed by both "the details" and "the emotional expression of the quilts" at Sacred Threads. Since she is, as of the time of the interview, the Chaplain at the prison, she is aware of "a lot of the emotional expression that goes on..." among the women resident in the prison and also the ways in which the women give their feelings low priority, because they do not have suitable ways to express them. She thought that working on quilting something suitable for Sacred Threads would be helpful for many of the women. She consulted with Sacred Threads volunteers, who referred her to Vikki Pignatelli, who was enthusiastic about the idea. They started planning and soliciting donations of materials. When Burns announced the project, forty-five women indicated interest, not all of them for what Burns considered "the right reasons." Most, though, were legitimately quite interested. A fair number of the women had never sewn before. Some of the participants who finished their quilts had never quilted before and were really daunted by the prospect of doing a good-sized quilting project. Due to turnover in the prison population, some of the women left the group. The group of quilters started meeting in 2007 with the idea that they would produce quilts to exhibit at Sacred Threads in 2009. Burns thinks that those women who completed the project benefited from the self-expression. She says, "I'm just, in awe, of how bold they were in doing some of the things that they did and some of the quilts that they made...." She was also impressed by their hard work and their persistence in acquiring the sew skills necessary for their individual projects, as well as the growth in their skills for sewing and for self-expression.</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; Quilters Newsletter Magazine; Vikki Pignatelli; Quilt purpose - Art or personal expression; Quilt Purpose - Therapy</keywords>
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<time>544</time>
<title>Public reception of quilt show</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>So, how many women finished qui-, the quilt?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Seventeen women finished their quilts, resulting in an exhibit that Burns considered an appropriate size. Burns received very good feedback about the show. Some people approached Burns individually to tell her how enthralled they were with it. Some people filled out comment cards and "talked about how much it touched them and how much, you know, they could just feel the depths of the emotion of the women...." At one point, it looked like there was some possibility that the Union County Fair (Marysville, OH) might show the exhibit, but no one from the fair followed up with Burns. People from other parts of the country have contacted Burns about how to start similar projects. Burns says, "I think the most rewarding thing has been th-, what, like, the women have gotten out of it...." As an example, she gives participant Rhonda Edwards, who is one of the women with no previous quilting experience. Edwards is, however, an artist, whose primary medium is paint, so she applied paint to her quilt. Burns was impressed both with the way Edwards combined media and with the way in which Edwards "talked about, you know, herself as two people, and how she, grew from one person to another person, and how that changed with her spiritual awakening...." Burns suspects that the participants viewed their exhibit as being not so much about spirituality as religion, but was also impressed with the way their quilts expressed faith, spiritual growth, and the changes that growth has made to the way they make decisions. The quilts also has been a way for them to express feelings about their prison experience. </synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Union County Fair (Marysville, OH); Rhonda Edwards; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; Quilt purpose - art or personal expression; Techniques</keywords>
<keywords_alt/>
<subjects>Textile painting</subjects>
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<point>
<time>709</time>
<title>Aftermath of prison quilt project</title>
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<partial_transcript>How many of them do you think will go on to make more quilts?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns is unsure how many of the women who participated in the project to make quilts for the Sacred Threads exhibition will continue quilting. Roughly five were already quiltmakers and Burns had particular hopes that two other project participants would continue quilting. Some women want to continue to quilt through the Stitching Post, a charitable project that makes quilts for children who are removed from unsafe homes. The women involved in the project have "inspired [Burns], to, feel a little freer with [her] quilting...." She describes her approach to quilting as a beginner "as just really ad hoc." As she learned more about quilting, especially different techniques, her quilting became more constrained. She says, "And now it's time for me to get, let go of some of that, and just get back into, you know, the creating part." As of the time of the interview, she is working on a quilt for her sister and is aiming to "make it so it's more expressive, um, of what I want...." Although Burns ended up getting her degree in other subjects, she was an art major with a strong interest in design, especially "material design, fab-, fabric design" initially. As of the time of the interview, she would like to submit a quilt for consideration in the Sacred Threads exhibit at an indefinite point in the future. As of the time of the interview, the Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit was about to stop being a local event and to move to Washington, D.C., as of the following year.</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Rosa Angulo; Rhonda Edwards; Stitching Post; Choices (Dayton, OH); Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit</keywords>
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<point>
<time>935</time>
<title>Favorite techniques and materials</title>
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<partial_transcript>So, you've mentioned not liking applique, so what is your favorite techniques and materials?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Burns prefers machine piecing to applique. She also prefers more vivid colors to darker ones. As an example, she talks about a baby blanket she made for her grandson. She initially bought fabrics in vivid yellows and oranges for it, but switched to making a blanket, that, as she recalls, was largely in various shades of blue, "because I want it to be something that he can cud- cuddle with and, um, be a, hugging blankie...." Nevertheless, she would like to make another blanket using several colors in bright hues. As far as material goes, she prefers to use "just basic cottons." She is not fond of some prints, but does like batiks. For thread, she likes Masterpiece thread and metallic thread. As of the time of the interview, she thinks that a good possible project for the future would be a quilt depicting or celebrating the prison choir, because "of what they symbolize to me. So, you know, they've, just really do an excellent job, considering they, none of them are professionally trained or anything like that, but they really, you know, love singing and, they, it shows...."</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Use of color; Fabric - Batiks</keywords>
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<point>
<time>1072</time>
<title>Continuing with prison quilt project</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>Could you see you doing another exhibit in, anytime in the future?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>On the one hand, Burns can imagine herself going through the process of co-ordinating and shepherding a group of inmates through another exhibit. On the other, she is not sure what impact the changes the Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit is, at the time of the interview, about to undergo might have on the proposed second exhibit. For instance, for the original exhibit, the organizers did not require the women in the prison exhibit to pay the usual fee for submitting quilts to Sacred Threads. Burns is not sure that this courtesy would be repeated indefinitely. She does want the participants in the exhibit to have more opportunities to knit and is willing to connect them to other people who might be helpful. [The tape and the transcript both use the word "knit" twice at this point; this is probably an error for "quilt."] Burns can imagine "doing a project again" and thinks waiting "five or six years" would allow sufficient time for new quilters to appear on the scene. She also hopes that some quilters who worked on the first project might also take part. She notes that one of the successes of the first project was the assistance relatively experienced quilters offered to newer ones. The interviewer comments that this suggests that the project created a community and Burns agrees. Burns says that the plan for the evening of the day of the interview is to show the Exhibit CD and then pass on the comments that were made on the show to the women who participated. Previously, Burns had given copies of the program to each participant. Burns reports that the participants were excited "to see their names in print." The interviewer comments that this must be good for the self-esteem of the participants. Burns discusses the background and contexts of three participants, as relevant to the quilts that they made. While on this topic, Burns notes more than once that she provided considerable counseling to those women while they were making the quilts. </synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Tangie Thomas</keywords>
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<point>
<time>1435</time>
<title>Using quilting to get through a difficult time / Impact of quilting on family</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>Have you ever used quiltmaking to get through a difficult time?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns has used quiltmaking to get through a difficult time. After the death of her mother, Burns made "a Biblical quilt" based on Bible verses that were important to her during her mourning process. She says that the grief and Bible reading and quilting in combination re-oriented her towards her faith and "brought [her] back to [her], where [her] roots and [her] foundation is." Burns describes her immediate family as "resigned" to the effective replacement of their dining room with a "quilt room." They also have come to understand that Burns is "doing what [she] need[s] to do." That said, her immediate family members do like receiving finished quilts. Other members of her family appreciate her quilts, especially her sisters, who knit. She notes that her sisters, who knit, also comprehend the creative urge and that there are some areas of overlapping interest, such as colors, that they discuss.</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Family; Quilt Purpose - Mourning; Quilt Purpose - Therapy</keywords>
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<point>
<time>1547</time>
<title>Importance of quiltmaking / Fabric stash</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>So, why is quiltmaking important to you?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns really enjoys using fabric and describes it as "the medium for [her] artistic expression." She does not really understand the reason why this should be so, but speculates that it may be related to the fact that as a five- and six-year-old child, she made many doll clothes. She enjoys the tactile qualities of fabric, as well as the visual qualities of pattern, color, and design. Burns discusses how a fabric pattern might appear one way on its own, but become part of a larger pattern when juxtaposed with other pieces of cloth in a quilt. The same is true of putting blocks together in a quilt. As an example she gives the quilt that she made for her grandson. She enjoys the "surprise" of new patterns emerging as the quilt is made. Although she has not done much of it, Burns also enjoys using fabric "in three-dimensional, um, mode, uh, because that's, because it does have that, you know, added depth to it...." Burns has a very large fabric stash. It has been expanding throughout the house, but the bulk of it is in her work space, which used to be a bedroom, but, as of the time of the interview, Burns used as combined sewing space, quilting space, and office. Her fabric takes up considerable space in that room. She even stores it in containers that are hung from the ceiling. She prefers buying fabric to buying anything else. The quilt shop she likes best telephones her "when something comes in." Quiltmaking is a form of artistic self-expression for Burns. She prefers to make things that she wants to, rather than things that other people have directed her to make. Quiltmaking is a way for her to express both positive and negative emotions. The emotional part, as Burns sees it, remains private, even when she "share[s] it with others."</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Fabric stash; Fabric; Work or Studio space</keywords>
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<point>
<time>1774</time>
<title>What makes a great quilt</title>
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<partial_transcript>So, what do you think makes a great quilt?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Burns defines a great quilt as "one that really expresses, something about the person and you want to know that person after you see the quilt...." She thinks that some of the entries in the Sacred Threads exhibit were great quilts. As an example, she gives Vikki Pignatelli's quilt, which shows a tree by water. Burns describes how this very restful picture gives the viewer insight into Pignatelli's calmness. Another quilt Burns thinks is great was in the exhibit that took place the year of the interview. It commemorates armed forces members who died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Another quilt in the same exhibit deals with depression and the difficulties for a depressed person and for potential helpers in creating a connection. Of the quilts in the Ohio Women's Reformatory exhibit, Burns thinks that quilts by Rosa Angulo and Joy are great quilts. [Joy in identified in a transcript note as Joy Hoop Major.]</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Vikki Pignatelli; Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; National Quilting Association; Quakerism; Joy Major; Rosa Angulo</keywords>
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<point>
<time>2030</time>
<title>Quilt inspiration</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>So whose works are you drawn to? You mention all these people, and, and, why?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns comments that one of the attractions of the Dear Jane quilt is that its maker opted to engage, during wartime, with a very complicated pattern that, for instance, required sewing together one-inch blocks of fabric to make four-inch blocks. Burns sees making that quilt as a admirable and creative coping response to "the violence and the turmoil and chaos that war causes." The interviewer comments on the lighting available to the creator and Burns conjectures that candles were the light source for the work. Burns is also drawn to the work of Vikki [presumably Vikki Pignatelli] and Wendy Brenner. Something else she is drawn to is Rhapsody quilts, which she finds both fun and expressive. [Since Burns mentions Ricky Tims, presumably the reference is to his book, "Rhapsody Quilts."] In general, Burns is drawn to a quilt "when it expresses something about the person...." That is why the Sacred Threads exhibit is important to her and why she will travel to Washington, DC, in order to attend that show when it moves there. She mentions that there were a number of both Palestinian and Israeli quilts at the 2007 show.</synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Dear Jane quilts; Ricky Tims; Rhapsody Quilts (book by Ricky Tims); Sacred Threads Quilt Exhibit; Vikki Pignatelli; Quilt shows/exhibitions; National Quilting Association’s Quilt Show</keywords>
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<time>2177</time>
<title>Advice for beginning quilters / Prison quilt project advice</title>
<title_alt/>
<partial_transcript>What advice would you offer someone who's starting out in quiltmaking?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>Burns would advise beginning quilters to enjoy the process and to avoid pushing themselves excessively. She acknowledges, "it's important to learn the techniques, because they give you, you know, um, that background and, they, you know, they're challenging...." Nevertheless, she suggests not letting an undue focus on technique interfere with enjoyment. Burns talks about making a quilt depicting a comet for one of her sons. She describes the process of making it as "fun," but the quilt itself as "not perfect." She thinks, however, that only a very limited number of viewers will focus in detail on the quality of a quilt's stitching. Quilters should, instead, prioritize expressing themselves and enjoying the process. Burns told the participants in the Sacred Threads exhibit project to enjoy themselves. She advised them to create a design that was personally meaningful, without worrying too much about whether they had the skills to implement it. She promised the assistance of more advanced quilters with the sewing. At the beginning of the project, the organizers showed the participating women the 2007 exhibit CD. Vikki [presumably Vikki Pignatelli] "read all the, the quiltmakers' comments and the quiltmakers' essays" about the quilts they had made to the project participants in the prison. In addition to the participants' emotional response, the women also gleaned a pretty good sense from the material about the exhibit presented to them of what the Sacred Threads exhibit is about. </synopsis>
<synopsis_alt/>
<keywords>Teaching quiltmaking; Vikki Pignatelli</keywords>
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<point>
<time>2317</time>
<title>Final thoughts</title>
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<partial_transcript>How do you want to be remembered?</partial_transcript>
<partial_transcript_alt/>
<synopsis>When asked how she wants to be remembered, Burns refers to someone else's epitaph, which says that "she wanted to be remembered as having lived the Gospel." Similarly, the trait for which Burns would like to be remembered is "I just lived the Gospel I spoke." When asked if there is anything else she would like to say, Burns says she likes to makes quilts and wants to keep on making them. The interviewer reminds Burns that she has a background in art and asks if Burns considers herself primarily as a quiltmaker or an artist. Burns sees those roles as pretty much the same thing in her own life. At one and the same time, she sees quilting as the particular type of art that she practices, but does not consider herself a quilt artist. This is at least in part because she does not see herself as being at the same level as people who work professionally as quilters and make their living from quilting. She may like the work of those people, but she does her own quilting for enjoyment.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Gospel</keywords>
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Collection
Citation
“Jami Burns,” Quilters' S.O.S. -- Save Our Stories, accessed October 15, 2026, https://qsos.quiltalliance.org/items/show/1897.