Sylvain Bergeron

Sylvain Bergeron

IL60543-001

audio

Sylvain Bergeron

Karen Musgrave

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<title>Touchstone quilt</title>
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<partial_transcript>This is Karen Musgrave, and I am doing a Quilters' S.O.S - Save Our Stories interview with Sylvain Bergeron. It is now 9:43 in the morning on March 1st, 2008, and I want to really thank you for, um, taking your time to do this interview with me. So please tell me about the quilt that you brought today for the interview.</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Bergeron discusses how he developed the ideas and techniques that resulted in his touchstone quilt. In his role of teacher of Embroidery Design software, Bergeron told quilters in his classes that embroidery could be used anywhere in a quilt. He developed thread doodles, which are square designs, measuring 4 x 4, which can be substituted for a print fabric and also add texture to the design. He made fourteen of those for class and decided that he wanted to work more with one in particular. By this time he had rethought the relationship between embroidery and quilt and was wondering, "What if embroidery is the quilt?" Bergeron embroidered the squares of the touchstone quilt as individual units, pieced them together, and bound the quilt. The blocks work together. The quilt’s appearance changes as the viewer moves. On the advice of one of his co-workers at a sewing machine company, Bergeron entered the quilt in the International Quilt Festival (Houston, TX), despite his doubts that his work was at the appropriate level. It won the Master Award for Thread Artistry. Bergeron was surprised the quilt got so much attention, but eventually came to understand that he had introduced something new into quilting. He notes the visual qualities of thread, especially the potential it has to be layered and the fact that "each strand can catch the light and then return it." Bergeron originally intended the quilt as a "demonstration exercise" and asserts, "I was lucky, that, you know, the, the, the contest and the award were available" then. Bergeron also talks about his family of origin and craft maker parents, gender in relation to quilting, the sole art quilt he made prior to the touchstone quilt, the traditional quilt he made for his son, an art quilt he made after the touchstone quilt and exhibited at the International Quilt Festival (Houston, TX), the quantity of thread he uses in his quilts, quilters who have influenced him, and a quilt he just made to submit to the Quilt Nihon Exhibition (Tokyo, Japan). </synopsis>
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<keywords>Embroidery; Thread doodles; Techniques; Gender in quiltmaking; Superior Threads (Vancouver, Washington); Caryl Bryer Fallert; Libby Lehman; Scrap quilts; Quilt purpose - Utilitarian; Quilt series; John Flynn; Quilt Nihon Exhibition (Tokyo, Japan); Family; Harriet Hargrave; Log Cabin - quilt pattern; Grandmother’s Garden (quilt pattern); Time management; quiltmaking process; quilt shop; Teaching quiltmaking; International Quilt Festival (Houston, TX)</keywords>
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<time>1170</time>
<title>How started quiltmaking</title>
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<partial_transcript>So, tell me how did you come to quiltmaking?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Bergeron became interested in quiltmaking through his interest in embroidery and his employment with Bernina, where he started working as a webmaster. When he applied for a job, at Bernina, he submitted an embroidery sample, even though he had never previously done embroidery. Part of his work involves teaching people to use Bernina's equipment. After a few iterations of their embroidery design program, Bernina added a quilting program to the package, so Bergeron had to learn to use it, to be able to teach it. In this segment, Bergeron also talks about his work and educational background prior to starting at Bernina, his philosophy of art (including the concept of "complexity out of simplicity"), what he is interested in artistically (in particular, work that looks three-dimensional and layering thread), his approach to teaching (which includes encouraging students to play), his creative process, quilt labels (which he sees as "a distillation of the design"), hand quilting and machine quilting, art quilts, a quilted flag he created before making any actual quilts, his citizenship (he is a Canadian who became a US citizen), &#13;
the impossibility of knowing in advance what viewers will think of a piece of art, technology as a tool, and the sharing of techniques and ideas among sewers and quilters. He also tells a family story about not getting a spirograph for Christmas (which he connects to his interest in geometric designs) and describes his next quilting project, which he will do in memory of his best friend, who died eight years prior to the interview.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Bernina; Family; Techniques; Embroidery; Cornell University (Ithaca, NY); Al Gore; Artistic process; Quilt labels; Quilt Purpose - Mourning; Technology in quiltmaking; Teaching; International Quilt Association</keywords>
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<title>What son thinks of his quiltmaking and quiltmaking in general</title>
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<partial_transcript>What does your son think of, of your quiltmaking and quilting in general?technology, especially the use of computer technology to design quilts.. </partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Upon seeing Bergeron's first quilt, his son said it was "cool." Bergeron says his son is his "harshest judge" and asserts that by his son's age (thirteen at the time of the interview and not quite twelve when he first saw the quilt) boys generally think that "nothing's cool, anymore." He describes his son as "forming an artistic mind" and having some experience with sewing. The son goes along with Bergeron when he teaches in a nearby store. The store staff give the son tasks to do. According to Bergeron "kids love participating in a grown-up project." This store is involved in putting together children's quilts for two local hospitals. A volunteer gets blocks ready on Saturdays for this project. When Bergeron's son was last there, he was recruited to piece blocks together and worked on it seriously and carefully for about an hour and a half. Bergeron discusses the attention and carefulness that his parents, both craftspeople, brought to their crafts and, specifically, describes his father working in this way. He feels that his parents influenced his own approach to crafts. Bergeron talks about the next technique he would like to learn (piecing), as well as making potholders with his wife for family gifts. Bergeron describes how he decorated his son's room and mentions that his son and his son's friends like it. He says, "I wanted his room to be special, what parent doesn't want to, but he's also learned, you know, how, how to balance, you know, he, he likes, because he helped actually in, in conceiving of the design, so, I, you know, I hope I'm planting seeds with him...." Bergeron comments on how his son wants to use Bergeron's sewing machine with a touchscreen instead of one of his older ones. Bergeron adds that technology has gotten so good that quilts designed on computer look, when finished, just like the computer design.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Edward Hospital (Naperville, IL); Northeastern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital (Winfield, IL); Technology in quiltmaking; Family; children; Crafts; piecing</keywords>
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<title>Studio</title>
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<partial_transcript>Describe your studio.</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Bergeron's studio is in his house's master bedroom, because it is large enough to hold all his equipment and furniture. It has three windows and faces north. He would theoretically have more space if he worked in his basement, but he is not fond of basements. The studio tends to get hot and he bought an air conditioner for it, after a day on which he thinks his work suffered a bit because he was hot. Even though the space is large, he would like a room large enough to leave extra space between the different work areas, "because that space is where your mind is able to unfocus from the material around you and it. it's, it's processing in the background." Bergeron enjoys opening the windows and piecing in the breeze and light. The feeling that "the atmosphere, the ambience" induces a sense of wellbeing and peace in him.</synopsis>
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<title>Anything wants to add</title>
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<partial_transcript>Is there anything you want to add?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Bergeron recommends creating things as a way of reaching a Zen state of mind, which centers us in our own bodies and involves each of our senses. Making things, in his opinion, is the only way to reach that state. He asserts that there is no such thing as free time, anymore, and thus we have to create it.</synopsis>
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<transcript>Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave and I am doing a Quilters' S.O.S. -

Save Our Stories interview with Sylvain Bergeron [who lives in Oswego,

Illinois.]. It is now 9:43 in the morning on March 1, 2008. I want to really

thank you for taking your time to do this interview with me. Please tell me

about the quilt that you brought today for the interview.

Sylvain Bergeron (SB): The quilt was actually an application of an idea that

came through embroidery, machine embroidery. I have been teaching Embroidery

Design software classes for nine years and I have been telling my students, some

of whom were quilters, that they could add embroidery to a quilt as a design

element, whether it is on the border, on the sashing or in the main block. I

came up with thread doodles that is what I call them. They are little patches of

four by four inches that you could use if you did not find the print, the fabric

that you wanted. You could lay thread tracks on it, get the colors and the added

benefit of texture because thread does have texture in addition to just color. I

made about fourteen of those that I taught in a class how to make them and how

you could find them. One of the blocks I really liked and I told my students I

would play with it some more. I evolved from you can add embroidery to the quilt

to the question "what is embroider is the quilt" and I have not seen anything

like that, so I just wanted to see if on fabric, so I went along and spend two

hundred and some hours to make the first quilt. When I saw the quilt I said okay

this works, but I was not aware that this had not been done really before, so I

was encouraged by colleagues to pursue the idea and entered it in IQF

[International Quilt Festival.] in Houston. This is a series that I have done,

it is five pieces, and there will be a sixth piece when I'm done. This piece we

are talking about today is "Tied in Knots." It was at the International Quilt

Festival in Houston in the fall of 2006, and won the Master Award for Thread

Artistry, which was the first year that award was given, sponsored by Superior

Threads. The way it works is that each block, four by four (inches), is

embroidered separately and then it is pieced in a very conventional basic square

sashing and I used what I call a window frame binding to give it a little more

substance to the binding because these are really wall tableaux, they are not

really derived from the traditional quiltmaking process. Growing up, my mother

quilted some but she mostly made garments and projects for the house. Although

there was sewing in the house, quilting was not really of the essence and I'm

realizing a lot of men come to quilting without that historical background. We

learn about it along the way, which is awesome, it is interesting, but we don't

come through the tradition, so we don't know we're supposed or not supposed to

do it a certain way. I just applied it and the way these blocks work, the

embroidery works, it is not just self-enclosed blocks. Really each one connects

to the next so the design is meant to flow. I used four layers of color, and

[laughs.] and the joke in Houston is that no drugs were required in the

formulation of the pattern and no drugs are required for the viewing of the

pattern. I have a funny story in Houston, because if you step away from these

quilts, this series, the layers of colors separate as you get about ten, fifteen

feet away from the quilt, and if you move in a hemisphere, in a semi-circle in

front of the quilt the twist of the thread and the arcs in the design of the

quilt makes for instance a yellow motif and the motif will twist so the quilt

appears to be shifting, depending on the angle of view and the amount of light

shed on the quilt.

KM: Did you know that was going to happen when you designed it?

SB: No, no. The first one I did were pure circles, so four circles offset from

each other, yellow on top, red underneath, and then blue and then green. As you

walk about ten, fifteen feet from the quilt, if you look over your shoulder

sideways and just keep walking by, the circles spin, because they look like the

back of a CD, and that was the one, that was the joke about the drugs came up.

No you don't need to take anything. [laughs.] From that one I evolved and opened

up the design. It was funny. I came with no quilting background basically. This

is my second art quilt. I had made my first and only traditional quilt from old

blue shirts that I slashed in five inch squares and then made about a bed quilt

to keep my son warm at night. It is called "Old Blues" and when I made that

first quilt out of a man's large size shirt I found that you can get nineteen,

five inch squares. [laughs.] If there is no worn spot. I can get reliably. When

I was six squares to finish the grid, I went to the closet and I said, 'Here is

the right blue color.' Pulled the last shirt, slashed it up and made a quilt.

That is the only traditional quilt I have made. It was done in the traditional

fashion to keep a child warm at night. From there I went into the embroidery and

posed the question (what if embroidery is the quilt), and then I had to prove it

to myself. The joke in Houston was I'm a guy, I had to prove it. [laughs.] I put

it out and then when people saw this. I work for a sewing machine company, and

they sponsor an award in Houston, so they're in touch with quilting and all that

and one of the people told me you need to enter this in Houston. I was like,

fine. [laughs.] I did not know. I knew of Houston, but it is like you run a

fifteen hundred meter in your neighborhood, and somebody says look you need to

apply for the Olympics, and I was kind of doubtful. They surprised me, the fact

that there was so much interest in something like this. What I realized is that

it opened up a new design space in quilting. I don't say that with any bragging

intended, it is just that embroidery is just very visual. It is like you had

drawn it, and the fact that the thread is layered, if you did the same thing

with a print it would not work, it would be flat. Because it is thread, each

strand can catch the light and return it, and I told people in Houston use your

flash. The more light you throw at one of these, the more color you get back.

The whole point of this was a demonstration exercise and the rest is basically I

was lucky that the contest and the award were available to match at the same

time, but it was just a demonstration piece. I have done it a larger version, a

larger piece of this series that was in Houston in '07, and they get very heavy.

[laughs.] I decided the middle size is more manageable because the thread is

actually heavy. So it is color and line which is what I like and actually as I

said in Houston that the key influences in my mind when I entered the quilting

field. Before making any quilts, my artistic mind invested part of its attention

into quilting when I saw Caryl Bryer Fallert's work. When I saw the "Solar

Corona" I stopped breathing for a few seconds. I was taken, and then when I saw

Libby Lehman's "Thread Play." As I said in Houston she put the two magic words

together, thread and play. There is three miles of thread on this piece and it

is sixty-eight inches by forty-five more or less. The one I did for Houston this

year was I think seven miles of thread. I have one in Tokyo right now that is

five miles of thread. It uses a lot of thread because that is the entire design.

The only fabric I use for this series is the navy, there is only one fabric used

for the background and the sashing and the backing, everything.

KM: Is it cotton?

SB: Yes, it is a solid cotton and everything the whole color is thread. That is

what people don't realize when they first see the pieces, they ask, 'How did you

get the color?' and I only say, 'It is all thread.' I just think the second

question or a closer look and then they can see 'oh wow it is all thread.' The

third influence was John Flynn. His piecing is maniacally precise and very

geometric. I like abstract geometrics and lines and colors, so these things kind

of bubbled in the slow cooker, these things bubbled in my head for two or three

years and then pop, it happened. I made the first one. I was told you have to

keep up with it. I just made it to see it, and lucky for me it worked. I enjoy

doing this. Knowing that there was an exhibition coming up in Tokyo [the 9th

Quilt Nihon Exhibition.] I made a piece to submit, to enter the contest, and

knowing the precision of the Japanese are known for I went in Zen mode. I

systematically forced my machine to half speed, [laughs.] so I would take my

time and it worked. I took the time, I enjoyed it. I'm pretty high speed by

nature, and sewing is one of the few places where I can enter the zone and slow

down to a half speed and actually enjoy it. It took me a little while to learn

that, but it actually, it slowed me down, and I'm in this kind of suspended

zone. You are in the Zen. So the one for Japan actually I literally applied that

as a principle and said that this is as much the journey this time. The

block--the basic block was already created I just had to execute it. That was my

best workmanship so far, so I was happy to see that knowing who you are making

it for influences how you are making it.

I grew up in a family where my father and mother were both craft people. My

father could make anything out of wood. He could build a house from foundation

to chimney cap. My mother could take an adult jacket and make a child's winter

coat out of it, and always measured twice, cut once. It applied in woodworking

and in sewing. So I had very good examples that way, and I find it easier to

apply them now that I'm in my mid-forties [laughs.] than when I was in my teens

or twenties, you know, and taking the time. I am trying to show my son how to

take his time. Actually the one for Tokyo, part of it was a teaching moment for

my son. I mean I enjoyed doing it, the whole process, but my son is thirteen and

I was telling him, we are trying to get him to applying himself more at school

and get the best results he can. Of course, a thirteen year old that can take a

little convincing. So I was telling him if you have an idea and you are willing

to work at it and ten percent inspiration, ninety percent perspiration, you

might be going half way around the world and watch people looking at your idea.

It is not about the pride of doing that, it is if you have an idea and you are

willing to work at it, you can give it to people and let it go, then it will

travel. I was seeing other people's quilts, it starts something in you, and if

one day somebody comes back and tells me they saw my quilt and they decided to

try something because of it. I'm a teacher at heart. That will make me happy.

I'm on to the next thing [laughs.]. I enjoyed it, but I don't have enough walls

in my house to put all the quilts up. That was another purpose. It was really to

see it, to see a picture made. It was a lot of fun. I have been lucky. Having

the right idea at the right time. I have noticed since that if you enter a

judged contest for instance and the same piece, this one, won a major award in

Houston and in another show nothing, because the judges favored a different

slant, maybe more traditional or more this, more of that, or less of this, and I

find that because it is new, basically it is a new technique. It is not

necessarily understood the first time. That is fine. If I have to sell the idea

that embroidery can be the quilt, it could go back fifteen, twenty years ago,

completely machine made quilt, including the quilt stitching. Harriett

Hardgrave, who was a pioneer, she had to fight. She had to push the idea and

thanks to her now some of the best work in the world is all machine made. Some

of the best work in the world is still handmade. I bow to the people who have

the patience to make a whole quilt by hand. I don't have the time, I don't have

the patience. [laughs.] I bow to them, they have something there. But there is

beautiful machine work. Caryl Bryer Fallert does all the work by machine and

when I look at that, I hope I can do it half as well one day. It is great to see

the world of quilting. I've been following it for eleven years now, more since I

have been working for a sewing machine company, and to see how it has evolved,

it is exploding. To me it is like a super nova of colors, shape, techniques, and

then there is no limit to where we are going with this. It is great because it

opened the door for me, the fact that it has opened up so much. You see all the

art quilt shows now. I did get questioned in Houston on this, that it is not a

quilt. You can't put this one on a bed. I know it is too heavy. The one that I

made this year weighs like sixteen pounds, as I found out when I shipped it to

the quilt show. They have to weigh it to charge you shipping. I thought of first

putting the circles, the ones that spin on my bed that was the original idea.

Then I realized I would have to install a railing in my bedroom because once you

walk in and you see the quilt on the bed, you would get dizzy, the room would be

spinning in front of you and I decided that wouldn't work, so the quilt hangs on

my wall above my bed. It is perfect there and it is also smaller. [laughs.]

Sanity prevailed there. It has opened, the fact that the quilting world is

literally exploding, this thrust of creative energy. Even the old traditional

designs, the grandmother garden, the Log Cabin, they are being spun in so many

ways it is awesome. You look at that, and if you look at one square inch of that

quilt, 'oh, I can do something with it.' You never know when an idea will spin

closer and then come back. When I taught those doodles, in fact it was on a

cruise that was organized by a lady who does embroidery software classes, so I

showed the students. I like to teach on the cruise ship, the backdrop is

beautiful. [laughs.] I'm teaching this, we are talking how do you do this, how

do you do that, we are having fun, it is like being in the kitchen and you are

showing one of your friends how you don't follow the recipe and you do something

different. We are talking and I held up the one block, and I said I like this

one and I want to play with it some more. One lady was at the award ceremony in

Houston, she was the first one to walk up to me after we were done and they say

go stand by your quilt to answer questions, and she walks up to me and she says

remember me? She was in that class when I held up the block and I said I will

play with this one some more. It is like the world just went whooshing, I had

this big whoosing of three years coming to a point, and I hugged her. [laughs.]

That was like, 'wow, the world is a small place in time in space.' That is what

I'm trying to teach my son. He is very creative and he is at the age where,

thirteen years old, he is not comfortable in that body because it is changing

too fast for him. I remember that age. I did not believe I had any artistic

sense. I made candles. I might have baked bread. I did a whole bunch of stuff. I

did not accept the fact that I had artistic abilities, and I would like to see

classes that let children play, no end result in mind. Not that you have to make

a costume, you have to make this, or a painting. Here is a bunch of stuff, make

something out of it, whatever it is, small or big, I don't care. If it means

something or not I don't care, just play with it. Quilting for me is very

seasonal. I do not quilt in the winter. When the light goes down my energy goes

down. I teach evening classes, have a daytime job. I'm a single parent half the

time so people say, 'When do you find the free time?' I say, 'Time is not free.

You have to buy it. There is a price.' I don't have TV. Twenty-seven years and

no TV, and people say what do you do? I recover that time. I don't quilt every

night, I don't quilt every week, I don't quilt every month, I am a slow cooker

and then this idea will fall in my mind and then when that spark hits, I will go

and take a week off from work to finish a quilt for Houston for instance. I will

get at it and then it is fever pitch. Balancing the fever with the Zen.

[laughs.] That has been the tricky part. My sewing room is like an artistic

sweatshop. When I go at it I do it in concentrated periods. I get up at 5:00,

run embroidery blocks until 7:30 when I leave for work, while I'm mixing some

breakfast, shower and everything, run the machine and then come back, and when I

come home at night I will be up until 11:00 or 11:30. I will do that for about a

month to get a piece done, and then I'm tired and I need a little break. In the

summer I'm more outside and so on, but that is when I capture ideas. I run a

ratio for about one quilt I make I have about ten ideas describing others in a

word processor document that are waiting and I do hope to make them. So the joke

now is official I can not afford to die I have so many projects. [laughs.] That

used to be an abstract idea, when people would say that and I couldn't relate to

it, now I do. I don't come from the quilting world and I am quilting though

because it allows me to make a tableau and this square fashion is perfect for

that, in this series especially. I'm an innovator. I have always known that, I

don't follow the recipe. I would read enough to know what to do with a certain

type of chicken, with pork, and then after that let's do what feels right now.

Usually it works after you've cooked long enough and all that, but with quilting

luckily there are enough people who know, and I teach at a local quilt shop,

lucky for me if I have any questions on any technique I can get help. I can not

encourage people enough to go to the quilt shop and keep the quilt shop alive.

Make it a point to buy something from there once in a while, because that way

the experts will be there, available. You go to the big chain fabric and craft

stores and often times the person who is cutting the fabric does not sew or they

try to hire people who do but they don't necessarily sew, but the local quilt

shop they will be able to help you. When I came to the basic technique, I was

able to get my questions answered and demonstrations and so on, so it is kind of

two worlds that came together. Lucky for me it worked, so I will keep on making them.

KM: Tell me how did you come to quiltmaking?

SB: I came from the embroidery side and I saw a lot of people who were quilters.

KM: I know, but how did you come to the embroidery? How did this path? How did

you get on this path?

SB: I came to the embroidery through my current job. I am actually the webmaster

for a sewing machine company.

KM: You can say Bernina.

SB: Okay I work for Bernina. I went to Ag [agriculture.] school. People go 'how

do you get there from ag school?', I studied the potato Irish famine disease,

the potato blight and I was a grad student at Cornell and I realized that the

world of research was too repetitive, to dronish for me. I wanted to work with

people, so I want to teach computer workshop at Cornell and from there what

happened is that I was teaching people to build websites. The joke was when Al

Gore invented the Internet I was there. [laughs.] I was teaching people how to

build websites before there was web design software. There was no front page.

There was no DreamWeaver, nothing. We used notepad and copy/paste everything and

I sewed as a hobby. I learned to sew right when I finished college actually. My

philosophy is that you jump in the deep end. You don't wait for people to fill

the pool. [laughs.] You learn a lot that way. I came from a garment and Home Dec

and making a wood carrier for the woodstove and give me something to mend. I

love mending because it is a fun mental game where how can you, how do you build

a bridge over a running river type of thing. You have never done it before and

you have to get across, so that is a lot of fun, because it engages your

faculties, it is a very positive challenge. I was, I came to work for Bernina as

a webmaster because I sewed, actually I had submitted a project to them and

there was embroidery that was in 1996. I had never touched embroidery in my

life. Back then it was like Peter Rabbit that we put on a tee shirt and a

sweatshirt. I mean it is great for, big part of the market is grandmothers do

this for their grandchildren, and it is often for that. It is not my thing. I am

more abstract that that. Artistically I'm very abstract and geometric. I love

geometry. Actually one story I told when I won the award for this quilt, when I

was nine years old I wanted a Spirograph, you know the geometric spinning tool.

My sister asked for the same thing. We were six kids and my folks wouldn't buy

the same toy for two, so [laughs.] lucky for her, she got the Spirograph. So

after about $10,000 worth of equipment, I have a Spirograph and I'm making

quilts with it. [laughs.] Really that is what it is. That is the reason why I

wanted the Spirograph. I was attracted to those repetitive lines. My last piece

is for Japan and the last sentence of the description was "complexity out of

simplicity", and actually I would like to apply it, I believe in that in life,

every year I hope to peel a layer off, so when I am old, when my teeth are

falling out, I will have reached a level of simplicity where it won't bother me

any more. Out of the deceptively simple concept is an image. You can look at it

in a thousand different ways and you will see a thousand different pictures, so

I like that. I have always liked simple concepts that are kind of assembled in

3-D and even through this medium I have tried to achieve a 3-D result and with

the layering of the thread it is possible. It would not be as easy with layering

fabric or with just flat print, but with the layering of the thread actually you

can. It started from the embroidery world teaching embroidery design software

and then when the software evolved to Versions 1, 2, 3, 4, and as of Version 4

they introduced a quilter program in it. We had a training at the office before

we go and train the shop owners, so I'm in the training and of course I knew how

to use the software, I was teaching on it, so I look at the menus and okay. I

was fooling around with it and I tell people play is the essence. I tell my

students today too, when I teach a software class, you might not make anything,

but you will learn one, two, three techniques that on your next project a light

bulb will go on and 'ah ha!, I know how to do this.' Yet you just "wasted an

hour" or spent an hour fooling around with it. That is how you learn how to use

the tool and then when the day you actually need the tool you know it. I came

through that route in embroidery. My slow cooker was in the background, this is

not what I want to do, this is not what I want to do, what if, what if, and then

one day when I did those doodles, that was it, I had enough building blocks that

the spark hit, like the hay was dry and the spark hit and then it happened. It

went, in about a month I made the first quilt and that was kind of a

demonstration piece, the thread technique was actually different, it was heavier

which worked for that design but I wanted more translucence between the layers

of color so I came down with the stitch track, it is a straight stitch that goes

out in an arch and then it comes right back onto itself. So it is actually two

stitches where the first one is a triple straight stitch which is more dense so

the top color would cover up the bottom colors more. It may look like it is

spinning, but it did not let the colors come through. My technique has evolved.

When I complete this series, the next quilt, it is a personal quilt. My best

friend, my soul sister died of breast cancer eight years ago, and I miss her

more every year. I had a photo of her and I will digitize it with about one inch

size thread dots and will render the picture just with thread dots, but each one

will be separate. I am going to do a quilt as you go. The dots will be raised

above the background so she will raise out of the quilt, one memory, fragmented

memory is one dot at a time and it is only by stepping back that you will be

able to see the whole her. Her name was Chantal.

That one, for the back, for the label I show you the label, I tell people I have

more fun with the labels. Its, I will be remembered for anything it is for my

labels. The label is distillation of the design so in this case, in this piece

you can see that it echoes the shapes, you can see on the front, and I used the

salient color of the quilt, the dominating color to actually do the writing on

it. These are panels that are pieced together, so the labels are fun, because it

is really when I'm doing the quilt or sometime before I am designing the quilt I

let everything decant and what is left at the bottom is the label. I tried to

grab the key elements of the quilt.

So for this quilt, everybody who knew her I will have them sign a memory block,

memory pieces of fabric, and assemble the frame and the back to make the label.

It will be a personal quilt. Then there is twenty some more I have ideas for. It

is fun and I was told I had the bug when I walked into the exhibit in Houston

last year. I go to the bathroom, to the kitchen at work to get a glass of water

and come back to my desk with two more ideas. My assistants, my two assistants

quilt both of them. I would describe what I want to do and they look at me like

'you need a sabbatical.' [laughs.] I would love a sabbatical. Once you start,

again the word is play. If this, I couldn't afford to do this for a living. I

need my full time, my daytime job. This being that you actually need the job

with benefits. At this time, I love my job, I love what I do. It is very

technological and it is exposing me to all of this. This is technology, but to

me technology for its own sake means nothing, to me it is a design tool and the

quilted software for instance is my canvas. I can change the color background on

it so I can actually create with the fabric color I want and then I can

literally design right off of there. By the time I see the quilt I can see the

entire quilt on the computer. When people think that the computer is an abstract

thing, I tell my students, pick one thing you like to do with the computer. All

my students are in their fifties, sixties, sometimes seventies, and they will

say I hate the computer or I wasn't born with a computer, it is easier for the

younger people and all that, just find one thing you like to do with it, whether

it is emailing with your grandchildren or your children or a pen pal, anything,

find one thing you like to do and you work through the kinks of the keyboard and

the this and that, and by the time you are done with that you can now open up to

other things you like to do. I say, you like to do embroidery that is a perfect

way to learn how to use your computer. Keep it simple. My goal is actually to

show that the technology is a tool. The electrical sewing machine is a tool and

you know in the quilting world I have become aware of the debate between machine

made quilts and hand made quilts and so on over the years, and how they are

evolving. People have to remember that the first, the number one sold model of

sewing machine about 1948 and 1955 was the electric motor, just a single motor,

not a machine. People were retrofitting motors on all the treadles. Like art

quilting is more accepted now. There is a segment of the quilting public who

doesn't necessarily appreciate or is not interested or doesn't value art

quilting, but the way I look at it, the first day and I'm pretty sure it was a

mother who went and actually bought fabric from the store in town or from the

catalogue instead of using scraps from shirts and garments to make quilts for

the bed, the first time a mother actually scrounged and scraped to save in order

to buy fabric to make a special quilt, all color coordinated, whatever the

design was, was a wedding bed quilt for her daughter, an art quilt was born.

Because that quilt was not going to be used every night. People would keep it

for special use. It was made to a bed size where today they're made for walls in

most cases, but an art quilt was born and there is that connection still to

keeping your children warm and making something beautiful for them. Actually my

first project, I had forgotten. I don't consider it a quilt, but my first

quilted project was an art project, was an American flag that I did. I designed

the stars for embroidery and I finished them up on a navy wool and I called them

federal colors because those were the colors, a dark navy wool and then I used

kind of a tea dye colored flannel, but it has a little stripe in it, vertical

stripe for the thirteen stripes and then the red, the red stripe has a little

black fleck in them. From a distance you don't see any of that, it just looks

like the white has yellowed and the little specks create a rippling visual

effect, and I used a feather stitch to assemble everything together, and I gave

that to a colleague of mine because he got his citizenship right after I got

mine. When I became eligible for citizenship in 1998 I applied because I wanted

to be able to vote. I had been in the U.S. already for a decade.

KM: We should say you are Canadian.

SB: I'm Canadian by birth. Yes I am French Canadian, but I have been a citizen

since 2000, so I'm a CanAmerican now. [laughs.] Then I told my colleague, I told

him you can't vote and that is no good, you are eligible now so you should get

your citizenship and he said, 'You are right,' so he did it. After his induction

ceremony that first Monday after that when he came to work, I presented him with

his first American flag. His wife who was American, she was tickled too because

it meant a lot. You can become full participant in society. Before that I was a

walking case of constitutional violation. I had taxation without representation.

[laughs.] That was the first, actually, first time I designed a quilt, the

design was dictated by the flag, but I had to, I combined embroidery and the

quilting and put that away and five years later I made my first art quilt. I am

a very slow cooker that way. Those ideas will go to the background and one day,

the wave will come back and something will be born out of it. It has been a lot

of fun. It is creative play that is all it is really. Lucky for me, when it

comes to the award, you never know when people will recognize your work or not.

Don't do it for that, do it just to see your idea out. Usually when you have an

idea like that, people want to see it, because people are interested in ideas.

Especially quilters, they are very generous of their time of finding out how did

you do this, how did you do that. Garments sewers are sort of like that too,

people who sew like to share stitches. There is a common thread running through,

and it is great. In Houston last year, there was a joke, the security guard told

me, he gave me two thumbs up, he said good crowd control. I told him I needed

the electric slide song on a CD with a boom box because for people to see the

quilt. I would have them stand back about ten feet and then go sideways, and

then it would look like a group of people learning to do the electric slide.

[laughs.] We had a lot of fun, that was the exercise portion of the program.

[laughs.] I like to--I will explain my technique without any problem to anyone

who asks me, then it is okay, what are you making, and I want to find out what

you are making. It is unbelievable, you walk the quilt show, in Chicago the IQA

[International Quilt Association.] show comes to Chicago in Rosemont [Illinois.]

and just to walk the aisles and see, if you ask seven hundred people what is

your idea of quilting, you would be getting a completely different idea, and you

could spend hours on each one. I take my son to the show to see it.

KM: What does your son think of your quiltmaking and your quilt in general?

SB: Actually when he saw the first one, this one last year, he was going to be

twelve and with boys, nothing is cool anymore. [laughs.] He used the word "it's

cool", so that, this is my harshest judge. [laughs.] Actually, in many ways that

was my best validation for the work, he thought it was cool, I mean and also for

him he is forming an artistic mind, so it was cool. He had done some sewing

projects, I'm not sure he will stick with it, but he has tried. When I teach at

the local store, he will come with me. They will put him to work. They have him

change light bulbs, they put him to work, and actually he likes doing that, he

feels a sense of value. Kids love participating in a grownup project and they do

at the local store that is something I would encourage people to look for. Most

quilt shops have a quilt for a charity or community causes. At the local store

in Naperville here, they make quilts for children at Edward's Hospital or

Central DuPage and to children, they bring a quilt so it makes a difference.

There is a lady who is there on Saturdays. She is one dynamo of a lady. She is

retired and she gets there. She gets all the fabric prepared to piece blocks.

Last time I was there they got my son down for about an hour, hour and a half

and he pieced blocks together. I noted that he was applying himself and he was

being more methodical and careful and while a good machine makes for good

results, still he was applying himself. So the work, the quality, what I call

the quality of work ethics, because to me work when it comes to quality, you

want to do it right. I could see where his eyes thought something about it,

[inaudible.] [laughs.] He just sits down there, they show him how and he feels

like he has to do it right, and he wants to do it right, it is working.

Actually, through both my parents, both being craft people, we learned how to

work and do it right. I have seen my father put his big hands, who would handle

wood and nails and cement all week long, he would pass his hand on a table after

he sanded it and he could find if there was a micron that needed to be sanded

and he would go back and redo it. I remember that from early on. Actually not

long ago I had to do a railing for my house, I bought it unfinished, just raw

wood and I sanded, stained it, and I was able to do it. My father passed away

over twenty years ago, and I believe it is his memory, I was going way, way back

seeing his work and I found out that I knew how to do it, even though I had

never done a railing, never had to stain work like that. I have done stain work,

I've done varnish, but never like that, and you learn from people you have a

chance to work with. What I would like to do next is find somebody who has been

quilting for a long time and spend some time with them to learn, just like

piecing, I keep my piecing simple. It is not really what my Zen so far, but I'm

getting a little more into it every time because I'm taking my time now. Slow

down. [laughs.] It comes natural early on, but it is a little easier now, so I

hope to be able to sit down with people and learn how they do it. I might even

want to learn how to do hand piecing, because then you can do it anywhere.

Mostly for small pieces. Actually, I don't consider it quilting, but when I was

married one of our first projects, the first year my wife and I were together,

we made potholders for the clan, for the tribe. We both came from big families,

six children each. Big tribe. Some people are still using those potholders. We

were using that fabric. We even bought some fabric at one point to make fancy

ones. [laughs.] Towels, we used corduroy that was meant to cover a couch as a

slipcover. Corduroy makes the best potholder fabric. [laughs.] Some of my

relatives still use those potholders. You make something for people. It is an

everyday thing. I mean potholders, it is going to get burned some day, it is

going to get ketchup spilled on it, something, people still get attached to

them. There is something to the making of things that I learned from both my

parents. The last year my father was alive, that year at Christmas all the

presents for all the children, every one of us, my mother had made something by

hand, one or two pieces each, and my father had made things by hand. This is not

just an example. I consider myself the son of my father and my mother, and when

I make things by hand, it is not like oh I have to live up to the standards they

set, no way. I want to do this. It is part of me. It is part of who I grew up to

be. When I form the image of myself growing up, making things and making things

for other people was very important. This, these art pieces are for my own

enjoyment, visual enjoyment and hopefully other people will enjoy them as well,

but in a way I get more satisfaction when I have trimmed the last stitch off

that old quilt for my son, or when we do a pillow cover for his bedroom. A few

years ago I bought a beautiful batik dragon. It is called a Chinese Lung, a

beautiful dragon. The lady who did it. I can't remember what state she is in,

but if I need her to get other quilts, I'm going to look for more pieces. I

wanted to make a wall quilt for my son out of it, very simple, I used a stitch

regulator and just outlined it as much as I could and then I spun a border

around it based on the colors in the batik, just stripes swirling around the

border and put that on the wall, I made a cornice with a kit and put red and

black silk on it and we dangled Chinese lanterns and put Chinese danglers on

both ends. He likes it. I repainted his room while he was away at Christmas with

his mother and her folks and he came back and he says 'wow.' I think he is used

to it now. He is a thirteen year old. The funny thing is that whenever he brings

a new friend home they see his room and I hear "whoa". I know it is a new friend

in his room when I hear the 'whao.' For me it was not about getting wow, it was

about wowing him. I wanted his room to be special, what parent doesn't want to,

but he also learned how to balance designs and he likes to help in conceiving

the design. I hope I'm planting a seed within him and then we will see. Whenever

he makes something he refuses to use one my older machines, which I would give

him one to use, like the mechanical old fashion sewing machine. He likes the

touch screen machine better so I can't blame him, I like it too. [laughs.] It is

not about technology. Although the technology is so good now that what I see on

my computer screen is exactly what you see on the table today [quilt]. You can

now formulate an idea and validate it on the screen and go with it on fabric.

Ninety percent of the time it is a needle going through fabric and the humming

of that motor and then piecing it and pressing it and all that stuff. That is

still quilting, but you can often see it and you literally do it on screen and

then execute it on fabric afterwards. That I hope is something that I can just

show as an example and hope that more people will play with that.

KM: Describe your studio.

SB: My master bedroom is my sewing studio because it is the only room big enough

to hold my two embroidery machines, my regular sewing machine, my overlockers,

my cutting table and the little computer desk there. Luckily now sewing machines

use USB sticks so whenever I do my design work I don't even bother hooking up

the cable which I have. I just put it on the stick and take it to the machine.

It is north faced. It has three windows. My house is the cheap cardboard modern

construction suburban house. [laughs.] With plastic siding, but the first time I

walked in it had windows. My basement would give me a bigger sewing room but I

slept in the basement for eleven years as a kid and I'm sorry but, we also

stored potatoes in the unfinished portion but I think, for me I would rather

have the potatoes in the basement, I do not like being in the basement, that is

me personally. So north face is ideal because I don't get direct sun on the

fabric and machines and so on. It gets hot in the summer because it is under the

roof, so this last summer I found that if I had to chill that room I would have

to freeze the house. So this last summer I got a window air conditioner. It's

high efficiency, you know, quiet. Actually in one of my quilts the workmanship

suffered a little bit because it was eighty-five, ninety degrees in that room at

9:00 in the morning and I had to work there all day. I realized [that.] the air

conditioner cost me $100.00 and it is very high efficiency so it doesn't cost

much. I close the door and only refrigerate that room. Otherwise I'm Canadian, I

don't like air conditioning. I like the breeze. It is my master bedroom and I

wish it was bigger. One day I want a sewing room that I have to wear

rollerblades to go between the stations. [laughs.]

KM: That would be fun.

SB: [laughs.] My bedroom could be a ship cabin, a bunk, because that is fine

with me. I'm an early riser and the minute I'm out of bed I'm out of my bedroom,

so it could be the smallest room possible. I would like to have space in between

stations, because that space is where your mind is able to unfocused from the

material around you and it is processing in the background. I tell people,

people ask me sometimes, you are both left and right brain aren't you, I say oh

yah, you should see the sparks in the middle. [laughs.] It's one of those where

when you stop looking at something, you are tracking. Your brain is freed for at

least a few seconds to assemble something. I'm very visual, so my brain goes

through a lot of images and I would like to have a little more open space.

Luckily I have the windows right there. When I piece I open the windows and the

breeze is coming right over me. I will have that sensation like a place. It is

not just the quilting. It is not just the breeze. It is not just the natural

light. It is all of that together. The being, the being in the space and the

atmosphere, the ambiance, which is very functional, but with the breeze and the

light and the project of making something, that is a unique experience there. I

can only get it there. I love it. I can sew for a half an hour or hour there and

I come out of there with no worries in the world. My time at peace. [laughs.]

KM: Believe it or not, we have talked for forty-five minutes. [SB laughs.] Is

there anything you want to add? I always give people that chance.

SB: I would say if somebody, it doesn't necessarily have to be with quilting, it

could be with cooking, anything making things, there has, to me there is nothing

more worth the time in the world than to stop, cancel an evening what you were

planning to watch, let Tivo record the program and make something. There is a

Zen in making that we don't get anymore, not just because it is active. It

engages all the senses that gives us the whole self, the whole body. The self is

what where we are as a physical being, and when we are engaged physically in

something like this, we usually make something beautiful out of it, be it very

simple, a coaster or a wall size quilt, the scale is really just a matter of

degree, but making something, there is a Zen in it. There is a quality. There is

a state of being we reach there that we can not purchase. We can not visit. We

can not acquire. It can not be given to us, we have to make it. The free time

doesn't exist in this day and age. We have to make it. I like to print my

calendar on stretchable material. [laughs.] Just open up more time, making

something. When I'm old [laughs.] if there is one nugget of wisdom that I could

pass on to my son or my grandchildren, it would be that, make something, as

simple as it is, fold a piece of paper, make a paper airplane, make something.

The rest if just a matter of scale, but make something and you can make it with

somebody else. You can give it to somebody, there is a whole bunch of

ramifications from there. Making something is where I get the most enjoyment in life.

KM: Thank you so much for taking your time to do this interview with me, and it

is now 10:32.
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