< previous | next > Roberts, continued: There was an opening. I felt so free as I quilted that piece. I felt as if I was singing or dancing as I made that quilt. I felt like I was finding my voice and my vision. It was amazing. I was elated. I have always had a deep admiration for quiltmaking by African American, rural, and Amish women. I had always seen those quilts as a genuine and worthy artistic production. But I had abandoned what you called traditional quiltmaking years ago. In May 2005, there was another opening. A fusion. The quilt tops of my current work are acrylic on canvas, sometimes with a restrained use of beads or embellishments. There is the exaggerated thread length. My photographic work incorporates various photo transfer techniques. I then paint and draw on the transfers with oil pastels, chalk pastels, watercolors, calligraphy ink, graphite, more acrylics. Sometimes I write on them with pigments and ink. The back now features a complete traditional quilt made of cotton calicos. I combine contemporary quilts and traditional quilts in each piece. Each of my current quilts is actually two quilts joined together. It feels balanced and in harmony. It feels whole. Interviewer: So are you a traditional quilter whose work incorporates contemporary vehicles or a contemporary quilter whose work incorporates traditional vehicles? Roberts: Sure. (laughs) Interviewer: OK. I see you aren’t going to make this simple for me! (laughs) Roberts: Oh, but it is simple. It just is. Quilting is much too nuanced an art form to be crudely dissected into just two categories. Imposing two artificial designations upon thousands of years of cultural and artistic production is necessarily complicated, and insufficient. I understand the need for categorizing and creating a common language—but people have that need. Quilts don’t. Just let them be. These categories cannot adequately describe the entire canon of quilting. This paradigm is not useful. Ultimately, it doesn’t reveal any new insight or understanding. Besides, how can traditional and art even be useful monikers when there is no consensus on the meaning of those two words? Who defines tradition? Who owns tradition? Whose traditions do we prefer? Who defines art? Who gave them that power? Why do we listen to them? Every category we use to include objects and subjects we also use to exclude objects and subjects. Again, who has that power? And why do we listen to them?   < previous next >   © 2005 keisha roberts, all rights reservedphoto creditsdesigned by keroberts.com