Casey Engel

Casey Engel

10/16/23

QSOS-219

audio

Casey Engel

Kimberly English

Remote

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<title>Creative practice / Learning quiltmaking</title>
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<partial_transcript>Hi, everyone. My name is Kimberly English, and today I am interviewing Casey Engel for the Quilters' Save Our Stories project. And today's date is October 16th, 2023.</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Casey Engel has been quilting about a year and a half. Her background is in interdisciplinary arts, particularly ceramics and printmaking. For her, quiltmaking arose out of Engel's desire to make clothes for herself. Before then, many people had attempted teaching her sewing, including her mother and grandmother. When she decided that she really wanted to sew clothing for herself, she learned by herself, although, though she eliminated the foot pedal at first to make machine sewing more approachable. Her interest in quilting arose from the scraps she generated while making garments. Her work with ceramics includes slab construction, which involves using flat patterns, making the transition to sewing easier. Engel also really likes slow processes, which hand quilting satisfies for her.</synopsis>
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<time>236</time>
<title>Design process</title>
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<partial_transcript>Um, can you talk a little bit about your design process? Like are you planning your quilts, are you working more improvisationally?&#13;
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<synopsis>Engel designs her quilts through both planning and improvisation. One side of her process is more improvisational, like when she fits her scraps together like a puzzle in order to tell a story. The other side is more planned and painterly, for example, when she buys cheap tablecloths and dyes them to suit a particular purpose. She is tries to respond to the natural pattern that is already in the cloth, at which point the composition of her piece becomes completely about the hand quilting.</synopsis>
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<title>Secondhand fabric</title>
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<partial_transcript>Um, I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about your material sourcing. I know you just mentioned tablecloths, but I know that you've used a ton of different secondhand and vintage fabric pieces, and I know that's like a really integral part of your process, so can you just talk about this interest a little more?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Engle is currently working with cloth that previously had a practical household purpose, but she is using them in art quilts that she expects will be displayed on a wall rather than having any pragmatic function. As a lap quilter, she is the only one who will experience the quilt on top of her. She enjoys the tension between the fabric's previous functionality, and its current aesthetic purpose. She also likes thinking about the ways that people may in the past have used the fabric she is working with. She wants to memorialize the past lives of the fabric, and in doing so, "elevates" it to an art object.</synopsis>
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<time>556</time>
<title>Studio practice</title>
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<partial_transcript>Um, following up on that and thinking about your process, I am dying to know about your time in the studio. What do you listen to when you're quilting, if anything? </partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Engel currently has six quilts in progress simultaneously. She enjoys that this gives her the flexibility to do whatever type of work she wants to do on a given day. When machine piecing, she enjoys listening to loud music. While hand quilting, she usually starts with roughly an hour of listening to music, but often switches to watching Real Housewives, and she talks about another artist who watches Real Housewives while doing tedious work. Engel finds that watching reality TV provides her with the stimulation she needs during an otherwise quiet part of the process.</synopsis>
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<title>Touchstone quilt</title>
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<partial_transcript>Um, speaking of tedious pieces, I'm wondering if we can jump into your touchstone quilt. Do you want to talk about that work?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Engel made her touchstone quilt, "Gatekeeper," at the same time as she was making another quilt called "Pathway." Because of that, she considers them sister quilts. The idea for them arose based on an upcoming exhibition that the gallery she is represented by was planning, and it was the first time she fully saw her quilts as sculptural pieces. For that exhibit, both quilts were hung in such a way that a viewer could look at them from any angle. "Gatekeeper" was fully hand-dyed and made from a bedsheet and other scraps. It was also a tied quilt, which is a type of quilting that she appreciates and first saw from her grandmother. She also thought a lot about the differences between the front and the back of the quilt, and worked on both sides in different ways. In "Pathway," she used the Shibori dying technique, and exaggerated her tied stitches by making them long and spidery.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Fabric - Hand-dyed; Tied quilts; Art quiltmaking; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Quilt memory</keywords>
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<time>1328</time>
<title>Works in progress</title>
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<partial_transcript>Can you talk a little bit about the work behind you? Um, they, I see similarities between them, but I also see connections with the work that you just spoke about. I'm wondering if you just want to share what you have up?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Engel discusses two recent quilts that are intended for a solo exhibition at Converse University. The quilt tops are both finished, but she doesn't yet know how she will quilt them or what she's going to title them. One is made out of scraps left over from making clothing and scraps of repurposed clothing. The other quilt-top is made from feed sacks dyed in different colors, which Engel bought at the Ashville Quilt Show. Engel describes the three fabric colors in the quilt and notes that some text continues to be visible, even though the fabric was dyed and pleated in some areas. Engel talks about her relatively slow process in making this quilt, in order to make less impulsive decisions, and the way in which she plans to do the quilting. </synopsis>
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<partial_transcript>I really want to ask you who you're looking at in terms of inspiration, whether that's other artists, or writers, or movies, um, yeah, what's like filling up your, your vision board?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Engel is inspired by a variety of artists, and her list is always changing. Some of those inspirations are Eva Hesse, Rachel Whiteread, Al Taylor, and Martin Puryear. She is also inspired by unexpected and anonymous quilts, and lost or unfinished quilts that don't have a home. She's very inspired by the Gee's Bend quilters, considering them some of the greatest quilters to exist. Sallie Mann's memoir, Hold Still, has made a big impact on Engel's work, inviting her to reclaim her Southern identity.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Aesthetics; Gee's Bend quilts; Art quilts; Quilt history</keywords>
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<time>2052</time>
<title>What makes a great quilt</title>
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<partial_transcript>Um, what do you think makes a great quilt? I know that's a really hard question, but I want to ask you what you think about that question?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Engel says that she this was a question she really had to mull over prior to this interview. She points out the subjective nature of the question, and says that there are so many beautiful quilts, and that she enjoys seeing the way that quilting is evolving with younger generations. On the matter of personal preference, she always leans toward hand quilted projects. The texture and effect that hand quilting has on fabric is what draws her in at museums or shows. She enjoys when the quilting is a statement, but still responds to and is incorporated into the design of the quilt top. She also appreciates unexpected color relationships.</synopsis>
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<time>2229</time>
<title>Quilts in museums or special collections</title>
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<partial_transcript>What, in your opinion, makes a quilt appropriate for a mu-, museum or a special collection?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Engel was preparing for this question beforehand, and out of curiosity, asked the director of the gallery she is represented by. His opinion was that a piece belongs in a collection if it matches the mission of the particular collection in question. Personally, Engel believes that every gallery and museum should show the work of at least one textile artist. She sees that the amount of quilters recognized in the museum world is growing, but thinks it should continue to increase. She also thinks that quilt institutions, such as museums and quilt shows, should include more hand-quilted work.</synopsis>
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<keywords>Quilt Purpose - Exhibition; Quilt shows/exhibitions; Quilt preservation; Hand quilting; National Quilt Museum (Paducah)</keywords>
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<time>2404</time>
<title>Quilting as sculpture</title>
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<partial_transcript>Is there anything else that you think we missed that you want to talk about before we log off?</partial_transcript>
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<synopsis>Engel talks about a quilt top that she had made and had then shown on a stretcher in an art gallery before quilting it. Engel liked the way that cloth displayed in that way looked, and seriously considered never actually quilting the quilt top. She asked herself if a quilt top always has to be quilted for her to consider it to be finished. But, after taking the aforementioned quilt top off of the stretcher and starting the quilting process, she decided that quilting is a necessary part of her process. She values the transformation of cloth that can only be achieved with quilting, and quilting appeals to her in a sculptural sense as well, so she would never be content with creating a quilt top without the intention of quilting it. </synopsis>
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<keywords>Quilt Purpose - Artistic expression; Hand quilting; Art quiltmaking; Aesthetics; unfinished objects (UFO)</keywords>
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