Artist's Statements About Individual Works

Tillie’s Anonymous Gift • 1985

Colored pencil on Twinrocker handmade paper • 6 x 10

Original quilt by Mathilda Zander Bakeberg (artist’s paternal grandmother). The creation of utilitarian objects has traditionally been the only artistic avenue open to most women, and for too long both the gifted artists and their unique gifts have gone unrecognized (hence, the double-entendre of the title). The pattern is from a quilt that my paternal grandmother made for me (she made one quilt for each of her 15 grandchildren); the designs are drawn from quilt pieces which were themselves cut from clothing that I remember both my grandmother and my grandfather wearing. The deckle edge of the handmade paper symbolizes the devaluation and resultant disintegration of so much of women’s art — functional art that was, by definition and design, doomed to disintegrate. It also represents the mere fragment that is left of the quilt that I loved so much that I used it all to pieces.