Carole Lyles Shaw Interview Transcript
APA Citation for this video interview:
Furman, L., & Shaw, C. (2023). Black Diaspora Quilt History Project Interview with Carole Lyles Shaw [Video]. Quilt Index. https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=artists&kid=62-185-35

Relevant People, Names, & Links:
Carole Lyles Shaw
      •https://carolelylesshaw.com/
April Shipp
      •https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=artists&kid=62-185-6
Barbara Pietila
      •https://www.aaqb.org/
      •https://www.baltimoresun.com/2020/02/04/barbara-pietila-baltimore-quilter-and-fiber-artist-dies/
Bisa Butler
      •https://www.bisabutler.com/
Cuesta Benberry
      •https://quiltershalloffame.net/cuesta-benberry/
      •https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/arts/design/10benberry.html
      •https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=specialcolls&kid=12-91-465
Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi
      •https://carolynlmazloomi.com/ Gladys Marie Fry
The Gladys Marie Fry Papers (Archive at Michigan State University) https://findingaids.lib.msu.edu/repositories/4/resources/6345
Kahinde Wiley
Octavia Butler
      •https://www.octaviabutler.com/theauthor
Renee Stout
      •https://www.instagram.com/reneestout5/?hl=en
      •https://nmwa.org/art/artists/renee-stout/
Sanford Biggers
      •https://sanfordbiggers.com/
The Modern Quilt Guild
      •https://www.themodernquiltguild.com/

Note about Interview Transcription from Bailey Griffin & Dr. Liv Furman:
A crucial aspect of transcribing interviews for the Black Diaspora Quilt History Project (BDQHP) is accurately capturing the linguistic nuances of the conversations. Interviewees often use Black Language (Baker-Bell, 2020) in their storytelling, and preserving this cultural context is essential to our methodology. By transcribing these vernaculars verbatim, we ensure that the voices of the Black Diaspora are clearly represented. When conversations overlap, we mark this in the transcript using brackets [Speaker Name: overlapping speaking], often reflecting affirmative responses like "mhm." This approach maintains the conversation's authenticity and accuracy, highlighting the cultural and historical context of the speakers. These nuances convey unique expressions, idioms, and speech patterns integral to understanding their lived experiences. By capturing these elements, we honor the voices and stories of the Black Diaspora.

The interview transcriptions were created with the assistance of machine-generated transcription tools. Some punctuation and capitalization may be inconsistent.

Reflection Questions:
What does Carol Lyles Shaw’s experience highlight about the evolving role of modern quilting and quilt guilds in fostering community and inclusivity?
How might this influence your own understanding or practice of quilting?

Interview Transcript:
Liv
All right. All right. And here we are for another one of our Quilt Index Black Diaspora Quilt History Project Artist interviews. Here we are today with Carol Lyles Shaw. Umm. I'm going to say a little bit about the BDQHP, and then we'll get right into the questions. The Quilt Index Black Diaspora Quilt history Project is a national endowment for the Humanities Funded Initiative. The BDQHP is an intentional effort towards preserving and making accessible and the Quilt Index primary and secondary resources on African American, African and African Diasporic Quilt history. Umm.This is a two year project running from 2022 all the way through 2024. This will entail Quilt Index staff working with the diverse group of stakeholders to create digital humanities resources on African American, African and African diaspora quilt history. All of these resources will make known and honor the cultural legacy of Black quilters throughout the diaspora. So part of that legacy is actually having conversations with folks, hearing voices and seeing the actual quiltmakers talk about who they are. Any interesting things that you have to say about what makes you unique as a quilt Maker,as a scholar, as an interdisciplinary artist, all the things. With that, let's just start out with a quick introduction. So could you tell us who you are more about yourself? Anything you want to say.

Carole
And thank you, Liv for this wonderful invitation. Every time I have conversations about these topics, new thoughts suddenly pop up, so I'm always happy to chat. But I am Carol Lyles Shaw, and I've been quilting for over 30 years. I work in a variety of genres. Behind me, you see some of my modern quilts, and I also work in the art quilt world, and occasionally I'll make a semi traditional quilt. I started quilting when I lived in Baltimore, which is where I'm from, Baltimore, Maryland, self taught, watching TV shows and reading books from the library and magazines about quilting, quilt making. I had zero sewing skills, zero. And so I fumbled my way along. But fortunately, I met the founder and president of the African American Quilters of Baltimore, and her name is was is Barbara Patilla. She is no longer with us on this plane. But Barbara was a wonderful person, very generous and curious and open. She founded the African American Quilters of Baltimore, and I joined, I think the second or third year, something like that. But fortunate for me, Many of the members of the guild at that time were master quilters and seamstresses. I mean, they had serious sewing skills. They looked at what I was doing because I was beginning to move away from the traditional patterns and started to make my own patterns and my own blocks and experimenting with art quilting. They were very open and welcoming to my ideas. Except they said, I needed to learn how to sew. That my sewing skills were not so great. They took me under their wings, their wonderful wings and taught me the fundamentals, and I will be forever grateful to them for that. That's how I started. I wanted to make quilts for nieces and nephews, and a little quilt angel came and sat on my shoulder and said, Why don't you make some quilts for those wonderful young people? And so I did. And I've been making them ever since.

Liv
I love that. And when did you get the master teachers that you learned from, did they teach you those modern quilting techniques?

Carole
No. They were all very traditional quilters with the exception of Barbara, who was making story quilts. And she was the only one in the group at the time, you know, like this is like 20 some years ago, who was making something that wasn't a traditional quilt or a Baltimore album quilt, you know, those serious applique skills, and those kinds of quilts. Since I had only the barest minimal knowledge of how to choose fabric, stitches, using the right needles, both of my machine and some of the hand work skills you need. The members said to me, if you really learn these tools, then you can make anything you want. You can execute your ideas. I said, That's what's holding me back. I'm not really sure how to execute what I can see in my head. And they proceeded to give me those tools. So this is way before the Modern quilt movement was a thing because the modern quilt movement didn't really start until the late I want to say 1990s on Flicker. You know, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But Flicker was a social media platform. Those young people out there. And this is the pre Instagram pre pinterest time. But the modern quilt gild didn't get started until the late 90s, the modern movement first couple of books were published then the modern side is still a very young genre within the quilting world.

Liv
Yeah. And is that like your specialty or just something that you like? What's your relationship with modern quilts?

Carole
Oh great question. When I look back at quilts that I was making in the early 90s, When I look back at them, they were definitely using the principles of what we think of as modern quilting. But we didn't have words for it. There was no community for it really at the time. I was not. Aware, obviously. I was just doing designs that were more inspired by abstract art and geometric abstraction as an art movement, a fine arts painting movement. And those were and continued to be my main sources of inspiration for that part of my work, like the quilts you see behind me. If they were in oil, they could be paintings. Sometimes people look at photos of my work, say, Is that painted? No, It's pieced. It's fabric. But, people can clearly see my design roots are even more so in the fine arts world than the quilting world. However, in 2012 Ish, my husband and I moved to Florida and I had just found the modern quilt guild, searching around online, found them somehow. Hooked up with another person who had joined as an individual member who lived in the area. We met up, liked each other, had fun together, and said, Well, why don't we start a chapter, a guild here in Sarasota. So we met first I think the first couple of meetings were at my house, and we thought, Oh, there'll be eight or ten of us, and we'll have a little group, who knows where it'll go. By the third meeting, we had run out of space in my small living room and move to a local library where we just continued to grow. And people found us because of flyers we put in a few of the quilt fabric stores. Yeah. We had no idea that this many people would be interested, and we quickly grew to over 50 members, formerly became a guild. And about three years ago now, a second modern guild kind of sprung out of us to form here in Sarasota. So we're sister guilds, and we do activities together and separately. So we have very little overlap in membership. Okay. So there's like 100 folks who formally belong to the Modern Folk Guild in this immediate city. Plus, there's a group in Tampa, there's a group in Orlando, and lots of quilters who are interested in modern quilting and they visit as guests at either of our meetings and follow us online, join our Facebook group. Lots of interest in that genre. But as I said, early some of my early abstract quilts, were definitely in the modern genre. And some of the design ideas I was playing with then I continue to play with now. So part of me has always been a modern quilter.

Liv
I love that. I feel like out of that, I have like two follow up questions. I wanted to ask you—Modern quilting. What does that mean to you? Because I feel like for people who don't know what modern quilting is, they might not know how to differentiate that between other things. But I also want to put a tab on your notes about quilt guilds. I feel like quilt guilds within the African American community is very specific, but just like quilt guilds in general, I think play a very interesting role in quilts, quilt make stories and how they learn and how we commune together. Those two questions, if you want to touch on either of them, what are your thoughts, how are we thinking about that as well as Quilt Guilds, the role of them.

Carole
Absolutely. And as I said, the modern quilt movement is pretty new. There is an international organization called The Modern Quilt Guild, and on their website, the modern quilt guild.com, there is a definition. There's an overview of what makes a quilt modern. And there are a set of general design principles that we look for when we look at quilts to see how they might fall into that genre. It's not a yes or no question. Is it modern or not? It's more about where on the spectrum from very, very traditional like, I don't know, Love, Kevin traditional quilts or whatever to very, very modern, and then beyond that, sort of on the other side, are art quilts, which is another genre. But a modern quilt maker or the quilter who's making a modern quilt, would generally be looking at design elements like modern color palettes, meaning usually not those sort of civil war colors or 1940s feed sack kind of colors and designs. But bold graphic designs in the fabrics bold colors. When most of us started making modern quilts in the late ties, early 2000s, The fabric manufacturers hadn't caught up with us yet. So for instance, if you were looking for solid fabrics, there might have been 20 to choose from in a quilt shop. I have a color card by just one manufacturer that has 365 different shades of solid fabrics. And that's just one manufacturer. And the prints that are being offered now to make modern quilts and cotton fabrics are much more bold and influenced by mid century modern pop art. They might have abstract shapes on them or floral designs that are more abstract, not literal flowers. But at the same time, I tell my students, you can still use your traditional fabrics. You just have to use them differently in a modern quilt. The other thing we do in modern quilting is we take traditional blocks like a four patch, which is four squares of equal size, and we change the dimensions. We modernize traditional blocks. We like playing with big scale blocks or really, really tiny scale. We also do hand quilting. We use some of those same techniques, but our quilts just look different. They're usually bolder. Although there's something now called low volume, which is a quieter palette, very muted graphic designs. But you would not mistake it for a traditional piece of fabric or fabrics. Scale, design, asymmetry, improvisation, like the two quilts you see behind me. Those are irregular shapes. So you see a lot of that in modern quilting. But we also do block based quilts with modern block designs. A lot of different elements, like nine or ten elements that can be found in modern quilts, but not all modern quilts have all of the elements. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. And guilds, Community. Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, when quilt making I want to say emerged because there have been different types of quilted fabrics made all over the world for different purposes from quilted fabrics that went under armor or served as armor, for warriors. And of course, bed coverings to make walls for tents or to cover the walls of your cabin or whatever. So people have always been making some type of quilted objects. And we define a quilt as three layers, a top, which is usually pieced together, a middle, some type of filling, wool or cotton or now polyester and cotton, silk, bamboo, but some type of batting in the middle. And then a piece of fabric on the back. So three layers. That's the fundamental definition of a quilt. But we've been making quilts in groups for years. When you look at I don't know, photographs in the US of women in pioneer communities. Those women live pretty isolated lives on their farms and homesteads. So as they were making quilts, they would generally come together in groups, whether it might be a family group or just community to finish the quilt, to do the quilting stitch, to finish it off. When you look at photographs of enslaved women. Often you see them making their quilts at home, and at the same time, they would also when they could, when they were allowed, they would come together in groups to finish quilting. To pass on the tradition, usually the younger children, and there were male quilters, there always have been. The younger kids would be underneath the quilt. Sometimes which is a frame or table. They'd be on the floor playing around. But your first task I've read was to learn how to thread a needle. That was your first task. Of course, they were using very rudimentary scissors and making quilts by candle light. And when you see some of the old quilts, 150-years-old, and you look at the workmanship, It's really impressive because those men and women were working with nothing close to the tools we have today. Nothing close. But it's always been a community effort. And then in towns and cities, women would come together often through their church or place of worship. And women who were interested in making quilts would get together, teach each other, make quilts, and charity efforts were always a big part of it. In every war, groups of men and women were making quilts to send to refugees or to send to soldiers in camps or wherever they could. So passing on information, passing on knowledge, passing on new ideas has always been part of it. And it's still very important, even in our virtual oriented life now, Excuse me. There are virtual groups that never meet in person, and exchange information. They make blocks, they exchange blocks. They meet and encourage each other. They teach each other with workshops or invite teachers in to teach virtually teachers like me. So even though we may be sewing alone at home in our own little sewing space, we can still be part of community. Even if no one around us is interested, or we choose not to join a local group, we can join virtual groups.

Liv
Yeah. I look how that progressed over time with technology. I think I always found a way to make a way.

Carole
Right. And to celebrate each other. When you look at the world's fair and state fairs, they've always been categories for the home arts, home crafts, including quilt making.

Liv
I would love to hear more about the role of Guilds for your own quilt making practices. How do you think that has advanced your skills as a quilt artist or challenged you in different ways? Like what's your biggest takeaway from working with groups?

Carole
My biggest takeaway is the importance of an inclusive, welcoming and supportive environment. And that applies to all elements of diversity, identity, and interests. I've had so many quilters who like modern quilts, tell me that they went to the local quilt guild that was in their state or city town and brought their more modern quilt. And at Show and Tell, they'd hold it up and people would either say nothing, crickets, or would make comments that were just subtly disguised insults. Like, well, it's interesting that your blocks don't all line up. Or I could never use those colors. Not in an admiring way. Yeah. And so they never went back. And unfortunately, some of what we would call the more traditional guilds, have taken a hit because they didn't figure out quickly enough that there was a new type of quilting interest out there and welcome it in. They just missed the boat on that one. Of course, with the pandemic, a lot of guilds stopped meeting, most of them in person, had to embrace technology really fast. Some were very successful with it, and their members got on board and learned together to use Zoom. And they continue to thrive. The guilds that welcome the newer styles of quilt making that are more inclusive are thriving. The ones that are not that interested are slowly aging out. As their members get older and older, they start to shrink. That's unfortunate because there's a lot of knowledge there that could be passed on, too. But that's what I have seen, and my guild experience, I'm really glad to say, has been nothing but positive because the first Guild I joined was the African American Quilters of Baltimore. And they had not seen what I was doing, done by anybody. Yet they said, Oh, that's interesting. I don't know if I could do that, but that's interesting, however, we really want to teach you how to sew. So you can keep doing what you're doing. It was very funny because by, I think the third annual show that we had a quilt show that the Guild had. There were several people now making more modern or arty kind of quilts. When as the first year, the second year, it was me and Barbara. And by the third year, there was a whole bunch of us experimenting and still making traditional work as well. Now, when I moved to Sarasota, there were several guilds in the area. And some of the members of those guilds and a couple of the guilds were making art quilts, which typically you're drawing, you're printing, you're painting on fabric, you're manipulating the fabric and then making the piece, not exclusively, but more typically. And I brought some of my older more abstract quilts, and people were very nice to me. I mean, I did not have that really negative experience. But the reason I co-founded the Sarasota modern quilt guild is because I wanted a community that was focused on modern quilting, not the traditional quilting. I admire it still to this day. I love seeing those quilts. But it's not where my interests are. It's not what I'm developing ideas around. So I needed my own community. So when I don't have a community, I start one. It's easy to do.

Liv
On that note, could you tell us more about even what I think is really interesting that has come up in this conversation often is how quilt making has progressed over time and using technology. You use more technologies than most quiltmakers that I know, with all of the podcast, with your online shop, with the tutorials and lessons. Can you talk to us how imagining yourself these days using technology and quilt making, how it comes together, how you're able to do some stuff that quiltmakers were doing previously or do things that are different.

Carole
Yeah, I was fortunate because in my corporate life, you know, the job job, I was using Zoom and Web X and those kinds of, you know, virtual meeting technologies. A few years before the pandemic. So I had a slight knowledge, and I had run some training programs for my clients using Zoom. And so I had, you know, that introduction. So I was a little bit ahead of most quilts and quilting teachers when the pandemic hit. And for me, the pandemic accelerated the inevitable. We would have had to begin as a community. Quilting would have had to begin to Excuse me, look at alternative ways to deliver content, whether it's a webinar, whether it's an interview like this, or teaching classes because not all quilters belong to guilds. In fact, I think most quilters do not belong to a guild. And Guilds were typically the organizations that would hire a teacher, like me, I'd come do a lecture and then I'd do a day or two of teaching to some members of that guild, but that was in person in that city. And so we had to travel around and so forth. And That was getting a little bit more difficult and a lot more expensive. You know air fares were going up, hotels were going up. It was expensive for Guilds to continue to deliver in that mode exclusively. Yeah. Pandemic hits. We all have to come back home. We're not meeting in groups for a couple of years. And I had planned to launch on demand classes, pre-recorded tutorials, workshops. I had been planning that for, like, 2.5 or three years before the pandemic, looking at the options, which at that time were very expensive. You had to hire a film crew or go to a studio and I mean, it was and I just said, I'm not sure I'm ready to invest that. But the year before the shutdown, I met a couple of teachers who had started to teach online who very generously shared with me the kind of technology, cameras, and whatever and how they made their courses, how they created their courses. So I studied with one of them in particular, and that gave me the tools. And I'm comfortable on camera. The camera thing doesn't bother me. And so that's how I got into delivering content virtually. Then I discovered, Well, you need a YouTube channel, you gotta make some videos for that. And so forth. I've just slowly been learning. I don't use a lot of technology in designing and making my quilts. I use one software program primarily called EQ eight, which is a quilt design software program, which I love. It's got lots of bells and whistles. Occasionally, I'll draw some of my abstract designs and procreate on my iPad. Then sometimes I'll pull out one of my paper and pencil sketch books and sketch my ideas in that. I have some friends who are usually engineers and scientists by training who use even more technology to design their work than I do, and I really admire them, and I'm always watching what they do because I think it's fascinating. But the tools I'm using right now are good enough for my needs at this point in time. I do plan to create some fabric using old photographs that I've taken of family and places I've been. I want to start creating some fabric and have that fabric printed to use in quilts. I'm hoping to get to that this year. That's my next tech use, but that's not high tech.

Liv
But I feel like it all connects. Well, thank you for sharing more about that. I know I've asked a lot of questions. [Carole: It’s okay] Is there anything you want to give voice to that connects to any of the things that we've said so far.

Carole
Just one other thing I will say about the guild world. I think one other area, and I'm speaking really about the US because that's where I live. That's my environment. I think it's interesting that the guild world is often racially segregated as well as a lot of American life. For me, it's similar to the way in the past, at least we've been racially segregated in our religious life. Not all churches and whatever are that way. However, the trends are there, as our neighborhoods for years, certainly in my lifetime, were racially segregated. And I see the same thing in guilds. And what it—I understand particularly why African American women form guilds that are predominantly African American women and men. Because we need that safe space to do our work, express our design interests, use of color, use of fabrics, et cetera, whatever they might be. We need that welcoming safe space that we don't always find as individuals when we move or join guilds that are, where we are very much the minority. We are one of 20, three of 50, you know, those kinds of numbers. The downside, of course, is that it's another way in this country we don't get to know each other. And that's the loss. I'm hoping that as we move forward, groups that may not have interacted with each other in the quilt world, will find more and more ways to come together. I'm not saying all African American guilds need to be part of predominantly Caucasian guilds. I am not saying that at all. And we can come together. Just as my modern guild, we have interacted at different times with the more traditional oriented guilds in our area. Whether it's supporting their workshops, by signing up for them. Sometimes our members have joined the traditional guilds and put work in the shows. I've helped a couple of traditional guilds figure out how to create a modern quilt category for their annual quilt show. I mean, those kinds of interactions are also important. But I hope that our ability to be inclusive across all demographics, all identities, is really a priority. I know it's now very much a priority of the modern quilt guild. I applaud them for their efforts, and I see in other groups as well. Other organizations, the Quilt Museums, for example, and the other large quilt shows, have really done, I think, increasingly a better job of outreach, and I just want that to continue.

Liv
Yeah. No, I feel you. I feel like I've now that you say that, I'm starting to realize I've noticed similarly, and that's getting me to thinking. I think of the quilt conferences as spaces where I see a little bit more people coming together and having conversations. [Carole: Yes] But I do find in many ways. Yeah. But I think that that's many spaces especially in the United States Society, cultural spaces. Often reflect the larger separations and assumptions. So seeing how that's also laded into quilt spaces. Yeah. I know Any other things you want to add to that?

Carole
Can't think of anything else at this point.

Liv
All right. I feel like this might be a good time to chat about the Afrofuturism and quilts show. [Carole: Sure.] I'll briefly just say for people who are watching the interview who have no familiarity, Afrofuturism and quilts exhibition. I was a curator for that show. It is now up in the MSU Museum. It has been up April through July 19, 2024. The whole show is a curated exhibition of Black women and Femmes talking about Afrofuturism, different Afrofuturists artists and creatives and films and figures from our history that all have to connect with Afrofuturism and what we think of our liberated Black future. So in this show, I think we have eight quilt artists who all have pieces. And Carol has a beautiful piece in the quilt show. So if you could Yeah, chat about that piece. Show us. [Carole: And one question for you, what is MSU because that means a lot of things to different things to different people.] MSU is Michigan State University up here in East Lansing, Michigan.

Carole:
You're welcome. Yes, I was so excited when I connected with Liz and saw that she would—Liv. Sorry, Liv. Liv. I don't know where Liz came from. Liv and saw that she and her colleagues were planning a series of events around creating a dialogue around Afrofuturism and including a quilt show as part of that. Because I've been reading about Afrofuturism. When I was a teenager, I was reading science fiction. Gradually discovered African American writers like Samuel R. Delany, and eventually Octavia Butler. There weren't many of them. So I was excited when I found them. But I have always loved science fiction, the future, what the future might look like. Of course, we all celebrated Star Trek with Nichelle Nores who broke that barrier as to a role that a person of the African diaspora could play in the future. And it was a solid, substantive role, and she created without us realizing what was happening, but she created a path for so many efforts since then. But Afrofuturism is a very intellectual or scholarly dialogue. And so I was getting deep into these scholarly tracks and thinking, Oh, my gosh, I feel like I'm back in graduate school. I got to look up this term. Who is this person? Of course, we know in music. I mean, Sun Ra, Earth Wind and Fire, you know, Bootsy Collins. I mean, those musical artists were creating not only the music, but their whole look. That was different from Rock and Roll, from R&B, et cetera. Saying, Okay, this is how we also might look in the future. But there was nothing really in the in the quilt world that I could see, particularly around Afrofuturism. And not a whole lot around futurism in general, I think. This is very much on the cutting edge, this exhibit. I was thrilled because I had been saying, I want to make some pieces, I want to do something, of course, we always need a deadline. Something new. And that said, Okay, I got to think about this. And I want to share a few slides where I'm going to talk about how I made the piece that I made, so people know what is Carol talking about? Let me get my slide show going here. [Liv: It is such a beautiful quilt. I want to say that again.] Thank you. Thank you so much. It was a joy to make it. It was interesting because when I started thinking about, okay got a deadline, Afrofuturism, I started going back to some of my books and articles I had read and so forth, thinking about the music. I thought I was going to go down that path and I wasn't feeling it. I was just feeling, this is I don't really have an idea. Then I thought, Why don't you go back to one of your sources, and for me, the source was the work of Octavia Butler. And her work just resonated with me in so many ways in so many levels. And this is the piece that I created based on the main character and one of her trilogies of books around what happens to humanity after it nearly destroys itself. The book that was the inspiration is called Dawn, and this is a cover that I snatched off the Internet. Not sure if this is the original cover or not, but the book was first published in 1987 as and became a trilogy. You might want to Google Octavia Butler as she talks about writing this series and her other series and some of the struggles she had just herself with these ideas and what she was trying to do with them. But three books published between 1987 and 89, they're still in print, very much in print because people are still reading them and discovering them. This is only one of her series around the future of humanity and the role that people of color will play in that future. And so I picked up the first book. I had read it years ago and I remembered the series was really powerful for me. So I thought, I'm going to go back to that source, pick up the first book, but I got it as an audio book because I often listen to audiobooks as I’m working in my studio. I started listening to it and then started making the piece because after maybe 45 minutes an hour into listening to the book. I knew what the piece was going to be. I knew what the piece. It was not based really on this cover or anything like that. It was really based on the words and the imagery in Octavia Butler's book. Let me just talk about the genre that this is in. I have been making a series of portrait quilts that are not representational. They are not meant to show the person's face, like a drawing or something. Or traditional portrait. I call them spirit portraits because what I am endeavoring to do is represent the context or the story of that individual. And most of my spirit portraits are about real people or characters from fiction. Like this particular one. And I do not plan out the entire piece in advance. I will usually be working with pencil and paper in my sketchbook. I have a whole bunch of them around here and I've been keeping sketchbooks for years. I do go back to some of the old ones and find ideas I was working on and say, Oh, you know, that just showed up in something I made last year. But I like capturing ideas. For me, paper and pen and crayon, whatever's handy is really the way to do that. I have to use my hand. So I start with in my sketchbook, excuse me, a general idea about overall size and the proportionality of the figure image in the entire size of the piece. I don't have photos of the sketches, but they're very rough and I have, I don't calculate very precisely. It's not a pattern. It's a jumping off point. Then I usually make a paper cut out of the figure and start Putting that well, I start by putting that paper cut out. Before there's any fabric on it. In this image, there's actually black fabric and the paper cutout is behind it. You can see the curled edges there. Yeah. And what I'm doing is beginning to think to myself, Okay, so what is the context? What environment is this person in? And of course, the person was Lilith, who is the central character of the book Dawn. And part of the book takes place in an artificial environment on a spaceship and there are aliens involved. And then part of the book takes place back on Earth. And in both of those environments on the ship and on Earth, the Earth is just recovering. It's it's a rebirth of the Earth. And so greens were very important green fabrics, you know, and But I knew that the framing of it had to be dark, a sort of grayish, kind of metallic, almost looking color story around the very far edges because that's what I imagine, you know, the aliens ship would be made from some kind of version of that. Although you got to read the book. It's more complicated than that. And then moving through an emerging of blues and grays into the lighter green. That was my general idea of the context. And often when I make the figure, it's sometimes too small, sometimes too large. I will play with the size of that figure template until I feel like I've got about the right size. I'm getting a sense of the proportions and I can then decide what fabric will I use for the figure. In this case, I used a black solid fabric. Some of the other fabrics are shown here that I was playing with including, there's a Korhogo fabric with the figures of the animals that you see on the left, the far left underneath the African Ankara prints florals, the batiks that I used are in the photo in the right. I knew that because this was about regeneration, about rebirth emergence, I needed some lighter colors, including I finally decided I needed some fabrics that represented Dawn. And so then I found that orange pink fabric that you see there, and you'll see how I used it. So I just pile up fabrics on my cutting table. I'm pulling more fabrics than I will use. I'll make decisions, I'll switch stuff out as I make my decisions. I'm sketching now on the wall. And here you see my Lilith figure, and I realize that I wanted to decorate that figure in some way with some elements that mud cloth print, that's not actual Bogolan. I used a cotton fabric for that. Then I'm just putting the other fabrics on the wall, playing with colors and values to say, are these the right choices or do I need to dig through my stash? I gave myself the challenge that I was going to try to use only my stash and not buy new fabric. I didn't. So Here you see on the left a more developed stage of the sketch. There were many stages in between. But at this point, I had done several things. First of all, I had created the Dawn behind Lilith, since that is the title. And around the edges of the dawn, I used a much more vibrant multicolor, almost rainbow fabric, but I didn't want rainbows to be evoked, but I wanted that sense of just color and life things coming to life. At this stage, I was playing with using the other floral fabric, which is really more abstract leaves, which you see below the Lilith figure. The other thing I was doing was I was cutting out figures from the other African print and the two figures that you see in the close up here on top of Lilith. Are figures that I cut from the fabric, and then I cut additional arms or limbs and some other elements from the fabric and fuse them altogether because I wanted to create what I thought her alien companions might look like. Yeah. Then because the earth is rebirthing, I put some animals around the outside. This is a more developed stage of the sketch. At this point, the Lilith figure itself. I still wanted to keep it at this point, I thought fairly simple that fish does play a role, a key role in one scene in the book. I won't spoil it for you. There were things that were popping up in Octavia Butler's imagery, her description of colors and sounds and feels, and who was there and what was there and what Lilith was dealing with that made their way very quickly into the design of the piece because I kept listening to the book as I was literally almost to the end of making this piece. Actually, I finished the book before I finished the piece, but, It was a great way to work, and I've not done that before, but I plan to do it because I want to make two more at least two more quilts in this series. Just another thing that happened is I was working and this is another step forward. You see the leaves that feel like flowers, but they're really leaves. Now they're in the center of the figure. I felt that the Lilith figure was a little too stark and excuse me, that's not who she was. The other thing that happened was two phrases occurred to me. These are not quotes from the book. They are Carrol's phrases describing the core theme and the paradox, the mystery in the center of this book. Sorry, and I played with the language just a little bit, but these phrases came to me pretty quickly. I printed them on fabric, and you'll see how they ended up in the final quilt. A little bit more of a close up, I decided that it really had to have a title Lilith Dawn. And in this detail shot, you can see that I've arranged more of those leaves on her. It feels almost like she's wearing an African print ensemble or outfit. And, you can see a few of the Animal figures from that other fabric. And you can see the dawn outside edge a little better in this close up. And here is the final quilt. I took the two quotes and died the fabric with T, actually, and arranged them on the bottom of the quilt into third of the quilt but above the bottom borders. And I felt really pleased with myself. Because I wanted a bit of text so that someone looking at this who may not have read the book might become even more curious when they read these two phrases. Oh, well, who are the O and Coli? And what? What? Were they here to save us or save themselves? What's happening? And go pick up this book. More book sales for Octavia Butler's estate. And this is the final piece. I was really so happy with how this turned out. Especially since when I started it, I didn't know where I was going. But by reading the book, The quilt emerged really fast for me, really fast. Although when I work, I make some decisions and then I stop and sometimes it'll be up on the wall. I may cover it up and work on something else for a few days. I like to let ideas simmer. There were fabrics that were in some of the earlier slides that are not in this quilt and fabrics that I used in different places in this quilt, such as those leaf fabrics that are on Lilith's body. And a little bit on the edges of those quotes. I added some of those elements. Again, tie the whole piece together visually, tie it together visually.

Liv
Hearing you talk about the stories behind that helps me understand it so much more. I had seen all the things that you're pointing out, but actually hearing you talk about your decision making process. It's really cool.

Carole
Yeah, there's a great deal of symbology in this work. More so than some of my other spirit portraits. So for me, this piece was a bit of a breakthrough for me. It was a bit of a break. Why am I minimizing my language? It was a breakthrough. It is a breakthrough. It caused me to dive deeper into an imagined world.

Liv
That is cool. And I would also love to hear more about spirit portraits. And I guess I'm just wondering for this quilt. Do you see this as like a story quilt? How do you understand this quilt?

Carole
Yeah. I hadn't thought of it in terms of using that term. So it is a story quilt. Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi and Barbara Pietila are both folks who make story quilts. And there's more of the story told in their work. But it could be about an event, and I'm thinking about a couple of Carolyn's works, which are about important historical events in particularly African American history. When you look at some of her work, there are real individuals. It's about real people and real historical events. Barbara Pietila, and her last name is spelled, P is in Peter I E TILA, A couple of her works are in the Reginald Lewis Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, in their collection. And you can find out a little bit about her online. Unfortunately, she passed on before the real Internet revolution happened where more artists are documented. But she made quilts that were about in some cases life in Baltimore. And she also made a fabulous quilt. I think this one might be in the Lewis Museum. Which was about people in her family, her family history. And it was kind of a doll house, and each room had different scenes in it, which was just an amazing piece of work. Her quilts always had sometimes very humorous elements to them and sometimes very deep emotional, painful elements to them. And a couple of my spirit quilts that are about family members come closer to having that emotional background. And there are some spirit portraits I have not made yet. I want to make one or two about my mother, one about one of my grandmothers, and various other—photograph of my sister I took many years ago. So there are spirit portraits I haven't made. And now I feel more ready to make those story quits, those spirit portraits. I'm ready to dive a little deeper or a lot deeper into my own history.

Liv
What is a spirit portrait? How do you understand that?

Carole
It is a non-representational. I'm about to use the same word twice. Non representational image of a real or fictional person that captures elements of their context. It could be a moment in their life, a moment in their career, or an aspect of their career. It is very much about that individual. And all of the design elements in that quilt, in that portrait are meant to give us insights into that individual. When I think of other artists who do something similar, I think about Kahinde Wiley, his portraits, which juxtapose two very different cultural genres, and it's the paradox between them that makes the work so powerful. I think about that work. And I'm sure there are others if I thought about it for a while. So I'm more influenced by fine art painting portrait, whether it's Rembrandt or Caravaggio or whoever, you know, contemporary portraits—But in my own style.

Liv
Do you have a fine arts background?

Carole
No. My education is a Bachelor's in Liberal Arts, English, and, you know, literature, a little bit of languages, mainly French. And I have a Master's in Business Administration, an MBA. My awareness and knowledge of art is purely through self study, visiting museums and reading about how artists did what they did, why they did what they did? Not so much you know, because I want to replicate what they did, but I really want to understand the processes, what were they trying to convey? What were they trying to break away from? In their own time and space. Because every, you know, breakthrough artist, male and female, of all types in all contexts, many of them may have started studying the masters or whatever the thing was that was current whether they were in school or just studying on their own. But it's the breakthrough moments that I'm interested in, when they threw that down for a moment and said, Well, I wonder what would happen if. I'm always asking myself, Well, I wonder what would happen if what if I how about if I sometimes I come up with answers like this and sometimes I come up with answers that are not that interesting. There are no mistakes. It's all about learning. But now with the internet, any most of us who have access, at least, can learn and study almost anything. And then particularly with the arts, go make something. Another textile artist who takes a different approach to portraiture, of course, is Bisa Butler, and her portraits are very representational. Often based on photographs or her own drawings. She's a classically trained fine arts painter, actually. And you can tell that in the way she approaches her work. And she uses all fabric. There's no paint or drawing or anything other than fabric and thread in her work. And they're very representational using unexpected colors and textures or designs of fabric. She's just amazing. Amazing, amazing at that.

Liv
And when I think of her, I also think of April Shipp, another piece that was in there. Using a similar type of portraiture and a similar color combo.

Carole (1:05:00)
Another artist who has influenced me is Renee Stout. And When I ran across her work and then bought the books she published about her work. What intrigued me was the idea of meaning, layers of meaning hidden and seen messages, seen and unseen messages. Layers of complexity in the quilts. And I made some pieces a while back where I explored that a little bit more. And in this work, I think most of the message is seen, even if you have not read the book, but you know a little bit about it. Or that it's about science fiction, so the Oankali are probably aliens. But if you've read the book, then I think the meanings are even more vivid, or if you can recall bits and pieces of the book or that trilogy.

Liv
I really also will you mind—can we stop screen sharing for a while because I just want to make sure that your image pops up while we're talking. But I wanted to go back a little bit to also talk about like your process, because I love that you mentioned that you listened to the audiobook. While you were quilting because that is also something that I think about for my own methodology. Usually, when I am quilting, I'm either watching TV or listening to radio music or something. More recently, I got into listening to audiobooks. So I started putting them on on purpose as I’m quilting. One of the last ones I actually listened to that I really loved, one was Toni Morrison's song of Solomon, and the other one was Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. It was very interesting being in Octavia Butler's world, hearing the story as I was quilting in the ways that I believe when I'm quilting, everything that I'm making sense of in the world is kind of going into the piece, whether I know it or not. Yeah. Choices, the mood, like how I'm actually feeling, my actual feeling of things, thoughts will go into the piece. For you in creating this and listening to Octavia Butler's Dawn while you're creating, can you talk to us more about that? About how it felt for you, you know, did it impact your decision making process or your artistry, what was that like?

Carole (1:08:00)
It was a direct absolutely direct influence in the decisions I was making as I was designing each iteration or making each iteration of the design. Absolutely. For instance, I was working, you know, I work on different parts of the design at different times and make those decisions, but nothing's permanently in place until the whole is ready for me. And I recall because it happens a little later in the book where the fish scene comes up. And I thought, Oh, yeah, I've got to put a fish on her, and I had a fish in that Korhogo fabric. So I cut it out and put it on her. Because I was going to put it around the edges, and I thought, No, it's central in the plot. You know, I know that. People who read the book will know it if they notice. It was a direct impact. And this is the first time that listening to something that I used and a literary influence that directly. Okay. It won't be the last time, though, because it was so wonderful. At least I want to finish the trilogy. Yeah. Other than that, when I'm working in the studio, I don't watch TV. Visual stimulation is too distracting for me. I will listen to audiobooks, but they're murder mysteries. They have nothing to do with whatever I'm working on. I'm just listening to be slightly entertained unless I'm deep into a design resolving a design challenge or something's not working, and I gotta step back and then I have to have quiet. I can't have music, no books, nothing. It's got to be quiet. U When I'm listening to music, it's usually because I'm a boomer. Yeah, boomer. It's rock and roll. It's blues. You know, I go back. I like that kind of music, you know, great vocals. Interesting lyrics. I do try to include some more contemporary music, and I add a piece here and there. And I had a funny conversation with a younger friend, and I was saying something about having bought a particular album. And she said she said, Wait a minute. What do you mean you bought the album? You meant you went out and bought a CD or something? I said, No, no, no, I downloaded the music. I bought the music. And she said, You mean on Apple Music? I don't own it. I said, No, you're renting that music. You stop paying, you won't have that music on your phone. No, I actually went on iTunes and bought it. You can still do that. She was totally confused. She I just got the biggest laugh out of that because for her, it was like, Oh, you just stream it. What is this buying? Yeah, I still buy music. And it depends on what mood I'm in. Every once in a while, I'll listen to a podcast. Usually something contemporary art focused or interviews with artists maybe or something like that. Sometimes it's just silence. I just need quiet.

Liv
I feel that. And when you were talking earlier about when I'm trying to resolve a design challenge, you usually have quiet? And I feel the same. If I have music, it's too distracting, I don't know what to do, so I have to turn everything off and just—I usually just stare at it for a while and my body knows what to do, and I'm like, Okay. We'll do this soon.

Carole
I like walking away from it. I and I take a lot of photographs. A lot more. I don't know how many I took for this particular piece because I was so intensely making, I sometimes forgot to take photos. But I take photos so that, you know, as I'm walking around the grocery store and a thought occurs to me, I can stop and look at the photo on my phone and maybe an idea comes to me. Sometimes I'll send myself an email to say, Remember this. You have this piece of fabric somewhere. Go look for it. Yeah, I often need time. Sometimes I get into a fever and I just make a piece. But that's usually a small piece from start to finish in a couple of days. But I usually need time. That's why when people say, Well, can you give us something in two weeks? No. I'm not doing that to myself. No. That's why I might be able to work that fast, but why would I want to? Unless they threw a whole lot of money at me and then we'll have all the meals delivered and we'll go from there.

Liv
So I'm seeing time to make sure I'm respectful of your time today. So are there any other things that you want to chat through? I did have the questions.

Carole
I actually have a question for you. What has doing creating the Afrofuturism event, I will call it because it had multiple aspects. What has that meant to you?

Liv
That's a good question. Well, thank you for posing some for me. What has this meant for me? It has meant a lot. I don't think that I thought it was going to be this big when we just started it out. I thought we were just going to plan an exhibition and then, people would see it and go away. For me, it was kind of like a portal. You know how when you go through a house, like when you open the door, it's like you see everything inside. For me, it was like opening the door into like a whole universe behind it. You a galaxy of things because one, I had never curated a quilt show before, like with work beyond myself. So this is my first curated show. And I also started to see that like, here's more connections to Afrofuturism and quilting out there than I really knew. Like I was aware of like Sanford Biggers’s work and people like Bisa Butler and other incredible artists that kind of give the Afro future feel with the colors and the design. But I think having the show actually made me look around and I just keep seeing more and more everywhere. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's kind of afrofuturism and quilts. That is to, that is too. So it kind of opened my eyes and made me aware that there were larger conversations happening. And it also just help me really see that quilt Making can truly be a magical tool that really does allow for us to experience these worlds. Because the quilts in the short just just beautiful, just gorgeous, amazing. And I think that I've never seen stuff like that in quote Making before. So it really just just wonderful to sit and behold. When I have conversations with people in the gallery and we're talking about what this means. It really helps me put it in the perspective of honoring also our Black, especially like African American elders who may have been enslaved, folk, who have gone through violent histories in our US contexts, to be able to sit with and witness and think about their history and also put it in that afrofuture context of what else is possible, because of them and because of us, I think that that really came out. Especially when I talked about Elka’s. I don't know if you saw Elka’s “Dashkimono.” [Carole: Yes. Yes. Yes.] That one always gets everybody talking and talking deeply. And I think that that one does a really good job of bringing our kind of black again, kind of more in the African American context or a context of Black enslavement and pulling it to even the context of lynching and work for liberation and abolition since then. That specific use, I think does a really great job of that in conversation with the other ones. Just sitting with all of that again, just makes me realize so much more is possible. I want to stay in quilt scholarship and quilt making. I'm like, if I could just do this, This is what I want to do. I thought about what possibilities are open to me because my background is in education, so I thought I would be more in the education space, colleges of education, things like that. But the more I am around, again, Black quiltmakers and quilts. I'm even looking at this one behind me. The more I know that this is where I'm meant to be.

Carole
Well, doctor Gladys Marie Fry would be thrilled to hear you say that. Cuesta Benberry, she would be thrilled to hear you say that because we need new scholarship. To document what has been happening in the past 30 years and to pay attention to what's emerging. Who knows? 30 years from now, what it will look like? I don't know. I hope to be able to see it and appreciate it. And I hope that the work that I and my colleagues, my friends, and you that we're all doing reaches a lot of people. You know gets them thinking about what's possible.

Liv
Yes. And I think it will. And I think another thing kind of extending from that conversation I've learned is like, quilt making has always been tied to care work for me. Because just like you mentioned you wanted to make quilts for your nieces and nephews, I started making quilts as presents to people because I didn't have a lot of money, but I knew I could make a quilt, and that would be a gift I could give someone that was valuable and also artful. And I think that was also how quilt making was taught to me by my grandmother. She makes quilts as gifts to people and gives them away all the time as a way of care. And I think that Extending that from this is a space of our care and how we care for one another and using that also to how do we care for one another in the future is because I think that we all need lessons and care to take with us going forward, especially in the world that we're living in now. Again, I think we've mostly talked about being in the US context, but this US, very capitalist context, it makes people very individualized and very like me centered, and I think that learning from our elders in this way in the traditions of black quilt making traditions, the ethics of care, the how of it, not just like let's look at the aesthetics and just copy the aesthetics, but like the full quilt making tradition in that sense, and taking that into our future. I think that is key. I think that is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to think how can I live a sustainable future, a liberated future? And how can I do that in a way that like honors those who came before me and doesn't just like enact more violence in the world. And I think that like literally like this is just a beautiful way to do that and learn from it. Yeah.

Carole
Oh, I love what the way you just said that. It just gave me chills cause quilt making is fundamentally about caring for someone who's going to go use that quilt. Even though some of us make quilts as art, its roots stay in that context. They were made to keep people and healthy when the winds blew. And it was an expression, you know, of love of love that we would take especially when quiltmakers were using the leftovers, the scraps of fabric, the feed sacks, the discards to make something useful, and as you said, as artful as they could make it. So you must feel so proud of what you birthed. I really am.

Liv
Thank you again for joining in on it. But I think back when we had talked that we still the first month or two that I was organizing the show and everything. Again, it came together so beautifully and I really love that I've gotten to learn so much more about each of you all as quiltmakers. Yeah. Everybody in the show is cool people. Cool people. I'm hoping that we can organize more things. So cross your fingers that I can apply for more things for funding opportunities because I would just love to just continue to have gatherings, continue to have conversations and pull others in. So I guess this can transition to us closing up, but I really want more people to get involved in quiltmaking, and some people talk to me about quilt making is dying, that people are aging out and it's not being passed on to new generations. But I just want more people to get involved and by everything that is happening. That is a goal of even this interview and a lot of that we're doing. So can you offer with just some ways that we can connect with you, your work?

Carole
Sure. Website. My website is my name, Carole with an e carolelylesshaw.com. And if you start there, you can find out what I'm doing. I also want Instagram, same thing, my name. I teach and lecture and I give free webinars sometimes just to invite people into conversation. Because like you, I want to continue to see people embrace all the possibilities that are available to us because quilt making is not dying. There are lots of younger people, New quilters, coming popping up, emerging, making their first quilt every day. I say that because I'm in a couple of Facebook groups, which is focused on the beginner quilter. And every day, there's a new post. This is my first quilt. I just found quilting. How do I learn, you know? No, it's not dying. It looks different and people find it and find each other differently. But it's not dying at all. It's alive and well. But keep doing what you're doing, my dear.

Liv
Happy to hear that. And thank you again for this interview, and I will stop a here.

Carole
All right. Thank you. Bye bye.