Search

I was cutting pieces this morning for a new top, just simple squares, nothing fancy, and I caught myself holding the cloth a certain way, the way she did. She'd take a scrap and turn it over slow, feel the weight of it between her fingers before she'd say yes or no to it. I don't remember learning that. It's just in my hands now. I think about her a lot lately. She'd be 106 this year if the Lord hadn't called her home. She never saw a single one of my quilts hung in a gallery. But I tell you what, she'd probably look at one of those white walls and a price tag next to it and just shake her head, then go back to piecing together a dress from feed sacks for one of the neighbor kids. That woman could make something beautiful out of nothing. That's where I got it. Anyway. Just something I was thinking about while I sewed today. What's a thing you caught yourself doing that you got from somebody way back?

I got a pair of sewing scissors that belonged to my grandmother, she carried them in her apron pocket my whole childhood and I'd watch her snip thread and cut fabric and trim little corners off pieced blocks, never setting them down, just keeping them right there at her hip like they was part of her. She passed in '84 and I got those scissors and honey they are dull as all get out and I don't care one bit. I could get them sharpened, I know I could. But it feels wrong somehow, like I'd be erasing the wear she put in them. Every little nick and gap in the blade is from her hand. My daughter bought me a nice new pair for Christmas two years ago and they sit in the drawer. I use them when I have to. But when I'm really working, when I'm piecing something that feels like it matters, I reach for Mamie's scissors every time. They pull at the fabric more than they cut it sometimes. And that's alright with me. Anybody else got a tool they keep using past when they should? Or am I just being sentimental?

You know, I was looking at my hands the other day, all these little nicks and needle pricks from years of sewing. They remind me so much of my grandmother's hands, the ones that taught me how to cut fabric just so, how to guide a needle through a stubborn seam. I'm working on a prayer quilt for my cousin's new baby, and I'm just letting the fabric tell the story. No fancy patterns, just letting the colors and shapes fall where they may, like the Lord intended. It feels good to let go and let the spirit move through my hands. Sometimes the most beautiful things come when you stop trying so hard and just trust. MM-hmm. It's a good feeling.

Three years. Three years this thing sat under my workbench wrapped in old sheets, half-cut, wrong, not working. It's a portrait of my yiayia's hands, she was a seamstress, those hands knew things, and I could not get the light right in the smalti. The gold kept coming out flat, like a coin, not like afternoon sun on old skin. Took it back out two months ago and finally saw what was wrong. Wrong andamento, wrong direction of the cuts. I'd been setting the tesserae like fabric folds instead of like hands. Had to pull half of it out and start again. Sent photos to the client this afternoon. She cried. So did I, a bit, alone in the studio with the cats looking at me like I'd lost it. Anyway. Sometimes the work needs to wait until you're ready for it. That's the thing nobody tells you.

I pulled down a box from my closet shelf today I hadn't opened in maybe ten years. Inside was a feedsack my grandmother cut down and hemmed in 1952, the fabric so faded you can barely tell it was once yellow. She kept it all these years and I kept it after her. I just sat there on the floor holding it. That sack fed chickens and made dresses for three girls and now it's going in a quilt. I don't know what I'm going to put with it yet but I know it's the center. Some things just tell you when their time comes. Every piece of that old cloth has her hands on it somewhere. I can feel her in it like she just walked out of the room. I tell you what, that woman sewed love into everything she touched. It's a gift to still get to sew with her.

Y'all ever catch yourself doing something in the studio that don't feel like much, but if you stop and think about it, it's practically prayer? I got this old tin cookie box my mama kept buttons in, and now I keep my smallest scraps in it. Every time I sit down to start something new, I dump em out on the table and just… sort em. Reds together, blues together, the browns and oranges that nobody quite knows what to do with, they get their own little pile. I ain't even decided what I'm making yet. But my hands need to do that first. Like saying hello before you launch into a conversation. My granddaughter watches me do it and says "Mama Gloria, you just playing with fabric." And she ain't wrong. But that's how the good ones start. You gotta let your hands wander before they know where they're going. Anybody else got a little ritual like that, something that don't look like work but you can't start without it?

I got lucky. A fabricator I was working for told a dealer about me. She came to the studio, looked at what I was doing with stone, said "bring me six pieces." No pitch, no portfolio review, no drama. Just a nod and a handshake. That was twenty-something years ago. I don't think that route exists much anymore. How did you land your first real gallery? Not the one that took your work on consignment and forgot about it. The one that actually sold your stuff and called you back.

I sat with that all evening after I got home. That quilt took me three weeks, hand-pieced, hand-quilted, every scrap of fabric out of my grandmother's scrap bag and some from my own mama's housedresses I'd been saving. $350 is already low if you figure materials and time. But she patted my hand like I was a sweet old lady doing a little hobby. I didn't say anything to her. I smiled and thanked her and wrapped it up nice. But I been thinking, folks see the quilts and they see me and they think "bless her heart" instead of seeing the work. I been doing this since I was seven years old. That's 56 years. You don't get to call that cute. I raised my prices $50 after that. Felt wrong in my chest but I did it anyway. Anybody else have to fight the urge to apologize for what you're worth?

Back when I was still doing fabrication for other artists, I used to buy a lot of limestone from this old guy out in Indiana. Third generation quarry family. Tough customer. You showed up late, he'd make you wait. You talked too much, he'd just walk away mid-sentence. One day I'm complaining about a commission that fell through. Client loved the maquette, then ghosted. I'd put three weeks into it. He's loading stone onto my truck and he doesn't even look up. Says "Did you ask for money before you started?" No. Of course not. I was young and wanted the work. He says "Then you didn't have a client. You had a hope." That stuck with me. For years I operated like making the thing was the hard part and selling it would just happen if the work was good enough. That's not how it works. The stone dealer knew that. The gallerists I've dealt with know it too, they just don't say it out loud because the silence benefits them. I'm not saying be a salesman. I'm saying the transaction is part of the arrangement, not an afterthought. If you can't talk about money with someone before you make them anything, you don't have a deal yet.

I made a wedding ring quilt for a young woman at my church back in 2012. She didn't have much, her mama had passed and she wanted something of hers to carry into the marriage. I charged her $75 to cover the fabric and not a penny more. And I was glad to do it. Problem is, now I've made about seven of them since then for folks at church and I still can't bring myself to charge what it's worth. A queen-size wedding ring quilt takes me three, four weeks of evenings. Piecing those curves, all that handwork in the ditch. I know what the materials cost now, I know what my time adds up to. But these are church people, family, people I sat next to at potluck. I charged a woman from Atlanta $1,200 for a piece last spring and she didn't blink. And I'm sitting here hemming and hawing over whether to ask $200 from Sister RuthAnn for a baby quilt. My granddaughter told me I'm letting the church folks take advantage and I told her hush now, it's not that simple. But she might have a point I ain't ready to sit with.

I've got a 1-inch gouge I bought secondhand in 1998 for eight bucks. The handle is worn down to the tang from years of tapping and mallet work. I've resharpened it so many times the blade is two-thirds what it was. And it still cuts cleaner than any of the Japanese steel I've tried since. Everyone wants to sell you a better tool. But a tool you've worn in with your own hands for two decades knows something a new one doesn't. You can feel it through the handle before the edge even touches the stone. Probably sounds like superstition to anyone under 30. But I know old fabricators who say the same thing about their hammers, their trowels, their welding clamps. The tool gets old with you.

I did the math on a commission last week. Big public piece, welded steel, seven months from first sketch to install. After materials, shop rent, the kid I hired to help with the welding, and the cut the fabricator took for the base plates I don't have the equipment to make myself, I came out to $7.50 an hour. I remember when I started out I'd have been thrilled with that. Thrilled. Now I look at it and think what the hell am I doing. The worst part is the client was happy. Paid on time, no complaints. So the price felt fair to them. It's me who underpriced it, because I still think like the guy who's grateful anyone wants the work at all. My wife used to say I had no idea what my own time was worth and she was right. Three years since she passed and I still hear her saying it. Anyone else do the math on a finished job and feel like a damn fool?

I got to sorting my scrap basket this morning. Lord, it was a mess. I mean a honest-to-goodness tangle of strips and triangles and odd-shaped pieces I told myself I'd use someday. And I got to noticing how I sort 'em, by color family first, then by what they came from. That little blue floral, that's from a dress my niece wore to Easter Sunday back in ought-eight. That mustard yellow, that's a man's shirt from the thrift that I unpicked for the good seams. I don't just sort fabric, I sort memories. And I thought, well that's me all over. Can't throw nothing away if it carried a story. My grandmother was the same way, she had a button tin that was more family history than any photo album. I told my daughter this morning, I said, I don't know if I'm a quilter who saves things or a saver who quilts. She just laughed and handed me her old jeans with a tear in the knee. "Here, Mama," she said. "Add me to the pile." I reckon that's what I'll do this afternoon. Turn her jeans into something she'll give her own girl one day. Y'all got a scrap basket that's really a memory basket too? Or am I just the old woman who can't let go? 🙂

A gallery reached out last year about a piece I had in a group show. Wanted to know my price for a commission in that range. I said $400. They said great, we'll list it at $1800. That's when it hit me. I wasn't pricing my work, I was pricing my materials and time like I was still doing fabrication for other people. I'd welded it myself, designed it, sandblasted it, patinated it, figured out the base so it wouldn't tip in wind. Three weeks start to finish. $400. I told my daughter about it and she just stared at me. She said dad you're not a contractor. She was right. I raised my studio rate after that but I still catch myself lowballing. There's a voice in my head that says who's going to pay that for something you made. Thirty years in and it's still there.

Mine was a fluke. Cold. I was doing fabrication for another sculptor and the gallery owner asked who did the welds on a piece he liked. That was it. No portfolio, no slideshow, no pitch. Thirty years later I still think about how different it would've gone if I'd walked in off the street with my own work. How'd you get your first one? Walked in, referral, someone saw your stuff somewhere? Curious if anyone actually got a yes from a cold approach.

After twenty-some years of pretending I preferred the "proper" surface, I bought a roll of cotton duck last week and I'm embarrassed how much better I feel. The tooth is different, the absorbency, the way the first thin wash sinks in instead of skating. I was fighting my own surface for years because someone told me linen was what serious painters use. I stretched it myself, three coats of rabbit skin glue, two of oil primer sanded between each. The same preparation I've always done. But the fabric underneath changes everything. I don't know who needed to hear this but if you hate your surface, change it. The materials police are not coming for you.

Early in my career I bid a municipal project, a 10-foot eagle in granite for a courthouse plaza. I was so hungry for the job I priced it at $14,000. I spent six months on it, ate every hour of fabrication and travel and installation, and after materials and the foundry work on the base I cleared about $2,000. That's not counting the months I spent waiting for the city to pay me. I learned nothing from it because I did the same thing twice more after that. You don't learn from losing money. You learn from getting so tired of being broke that you finally stop. I still see that eagle sometimes when I drive through that town. It's a good piece. I just gave it away.

I've been using them sixty-two years. She already had them worn smooth when she put them in my hand at eight years old, told me "these yours now, you take care." And I did. I sharpened them myself every year, oiled the screw, never dropped them once. Today I'm cutting a scrap for a border piece and they just, wouldn't. Snagged and pulled, made that awful crunch sound through the fabric. Laid them down real gentle and just looked at them a minute. I got a new pair at the craft store this afternoon. Nice enough scissors. They don't feel like mine. Told my daughter on the phone and she said "Mama, they were scissors." I said they were her great-grandmother's hands reaching through mine, is what they were. She got quiet. Anyway. I'll keep the old pair on the shelf. They earned their rest.

I'm not good at pricing what my time is worth and I know it. Married couple wanted a limestone piece for their garden. Simple shape, clean lines, nothing fussy. I quoted $6,000 thinking that was plenty. 80 hours later I'm doing the math. Block of limestone was $1,100. Delivery of the block was $300 because it had to come on a flatbed. The chisels I wore down and replaced, maybe $150. Then the base I fabricated to mount it, another $200 in steel. That's $1,750 in costs. Leaves me $4,250. Divided by 80 hours, that's $53 an hour before taxes. Not terrible for a sculptor maybe but I'm not a young man and my body feels those hours now. The thing is they were happy. They paid without blinking. So I left money on the table and they'd have given me more. That's on me. I don't know how to fix this. I've been doing this long enough I should know what I'm worth. But I still anchor low and feel guilty asking for more.

Back when I was still doing a lot of fabrication work for other artists, a friend asked me to weld a gate for his backyard. Nice guy, helped me move a block of granite once. I quoted him basically materials plus a couple hundred for my time. He was happy, I felt good about it. Five years later he wanted a matching gate for the front. Expected the same price. Then his brother heard about it. Then a neighbor. Then I'm the guy who does cheap custom ironwork for an entire neighborhood and every one of them thinks I'm gouging when I finally say no. That was the last time I did a friends-and-family price on anything. Cost me more in aggravation than I ever saved in goodwill.