talented women comprise the theme to thisepisode of heartland highways! the famous quilters of geeãs bend, alabama, visitedmattoon, illinois, this year and the crew was able to sit down and learn more abouttheir story of turning necessity in to world-renown art. then weãll meet another talented quilterfrom urbana illinois. deborah fell uses creative designs and hand died fabrics for her artquilts. finally, pat macklin from shelbyville, illinois, makes unique and functional pieceslike cheese trays, home dãˆcor and more out of liquor bottles using a process called slumping.thatãs next on heartland highways. [music] thanks for joining us this week for heartlandhighways . in this first story youãll meet
three very gifted and talented ladies froma small town in alabama. in october of 2012, the mattoon arts council hosted the quiltersof geeãs bend. during their time in coles county, they spoke at several events, helpedmiddle school students with quilting projects and hosted quilting classes. we were fortunateenough to get sit down with the ladies during their busy schedule to learn more about theirheritage and how their quilts have gone from utilitarian items to works of art, soughtafter by collectors around the world. and i love to quilt because when youãre quilting,it take your problems away. quilting is something i love. always loveit because my mother was doing it and i always wanted to be like my mother.what i love about it is creating a, you know,
a design that not somebody elseãs design;itãs all mine. (narrator) for more than 150 years the women of gee's bend alabama havebeen making quilts. and for the better part of that history, those quilts were made purelyout of necessity, for warmth, for bedding, to keep out the cold and even to mop the floor.well, some of these old quilts that you see, the reason they have a lot of different piecesin it, it was because it was the piece that came off the shirt or skirt or pant that didnãtget worn out while they was working in the fields. and, you see, back then we didnãthave as much as we have now and i remember when i was young, iãm the seventh child oftwelve children. only eight of us live, six girls i mean five girls and three boys andwe didnãt have no beds to lay on so we had
to make quilts to lay on the floor becausethe floor wasnãt insolated as they are now. and then we had to make quilts to lay on andcover up under them. (narrator) because of the geographic isolationof gee's bend, there was very little outside influence on quilt style or design. techniqueswere passed down from generation to generation. for many years, quilts were made and usedand sometimes discarded after they outlived their usefulness. the women didn't regardtheir work as art, that is until art historian william arnett made a visit to gee's bend.the elder people was already quilting, but they didnãt know like i didnãt know quiltswas art. when matt and billl came to geeãs bend, they, we showed them the quilts andthey said it was art. and thatãs the way
the quilts begin to move around.when i discovered i was doing art thatãs when the arnett came to geeãs bend and theywent beneath our bed, beneath our sofa, and they got those quilts and i said to them doyou all want that. he said this is art. and i said well you can have it. so they didnãtwant to get the, you know,] they wanted to pay us something for the quilt. so they gaveus, they gave me good money for the quilt that i got hanging in the museum now.(narrator) the arnettãs discovery led to books, museum exhibitions and internationalacclaim for the quilts and the ladies who made them. and with that came collectors,willing to pay top dollar for these pieces of artwork. it would change their lives, allowingthem to travel around the country. for some,
quilting became their primary source of income,but mary ann, china and lucy will tell you that all of this attention can never changeone very important aspect of their lives. and all for us is to continue on spreadingthe good news about the lord, because this is not about us. itãs all about jesus. wedonãt like to put ourselves above nobody because god made all of us and he love allof us the same. so i like to say, iãm thankful, iãm grateful.(narrator) in the fall of 2012, the ladies of gee's bend made a trip to mattoon illinois.the idea for bringing them to illinois was that of mattoon middle school teacher jamiewillis. an art teacher and textile artist herself, jamie was familiar with the gee'sbend story. while on a trip to auburn university,
jamie and her husband decided to find gee'sbend and meet the ladies in person. she said do you think if i could talk someof these women to come into mattoon for do some quilts workshops that the artãs counciland myself could make that happen. and i said, with or without the artãs council we canmake it happen, i know enough people. so, you know, hung up, she went in about fivehours she calls me back on her way out of town telling me get rollinã. theyãre coming.(narrator) with the support of the mattoon arts council, local businesses, schools andorganizations, the women of gee's bend spent several days in the area, talking to groups,assisting middle school students with quilting project and teaching quilting classes at lakeland college. but more than anything else,
the ladies were just interested in meetingpeople, talking about quilts and telling their story.theyãre amazed that coming to a small community like mattoon, in the middle of illinois, thatthere were so many people showing up for all these events this week that sincerely wantedto hear what they had to say and wanted to interact with them and they just feel blessedabout everything and theyãre very, very vocal about that.(narrator) of course along with the ladies came several of their world renowned quilts.mary ann's us postal service quilt is made from the shirts of a friend who was a postalclerk. china's quilt, called railroad crossing started out as a wall hanging and turned intoa queen size bed quilt. the colors were inspired
by a niece who loved red, white and blue.lucy's quilt probably takes the price for the heaviest. it's called a pine burr. thefirst one took over two years to make and since then, she's made a total of five. thequilts designs are not from a pattern, but evolve from mind and creativity of the quiltmaker. generally they start working in the middle, adding pieces, changing pieces untilit's what they want. well my pattern come from my head. you know,sometime i could be walking along the road or riding on the highway, i could look inthe woods and i see a tree and sometime on that tree you can get a pattern just looking,you know, at that tree. sometimes i start out with a pattern, say for instance i wantedto start out making a (word?), ok and i start
working on my quilt it gonna change. you know,i get different ideas that coming in my head and i change from a nine pattern to somethingelse. (narrator) and it's that free flow design that has collectors seeing these quilts morelike art rather than a craft. theyãve kind of created their own style.so when mr. arnett basically discovered them through a photograph and went looking forthese women in geeãs bend he found these quilts and found that they very much looklike unique pieces of modern art. (narrator) for the ladies of gee's bend theirtime in mattoon was enjoyable. they met lots of people and commented on how nice everyonewas. for those who had the opportunity to spend time around them, it was an experiencethey will never forget.
theyãre simple women but they, theyãre verydeep also, at the same time. you know, theyãve had very simple lives, but very, but veryrich lives and itãs itãs, you canãt, words canãt describe how wonderful this has been.as you saw, they donãt need to be coaxed to sing. that comes when the feeling hitsthem, if youãve been around to watch them, they will start humming very quietly and everybodyknows itãs time and you never know whoãs going to start or what the songãs going tobe, but it always gets you right into your soul. itãs very very moving and itãs joyful.i feel like iãm just filled just by hanging out with them this week.[singing] itãs a small world because when attendedone of the quilting classes i ran into deborah
fell, an art quilter from urbana, who i dida story on several seasons back. she told me she was still making art using quilts asher medium. hereãs a look back at deborahãs story.my husband was finishing up school here, and everything was really wonderful. i alwayswished i had a quilt, but i did not have a lot of family history, so that was that. wehad a sudden move to new hampshire, to on golden pond, and this is the quilting centerof the universe, 12 stitches to an inch by hand. and it was the first time in my lifei did not work full time. and my son was two, so i took at advantage of that time. i took13 quilting classes that year and i made 21 quilts by hand, large quilts by hand. andbecause this way i could now give a quilt
to my children. and i did not have to waitfor someone to give one to me, because that was not going to happen. and i really loveddoing that. but i think even then what i was doing, the little quilting ladies did notthink it was very normal like. they would say i had the wrong colors or it was not thetraditional way to approach it or something, and i thought it seemed just fine.(narrator) deborah spent a number of years making those traditional quilts with her ownunique touch. but the sudden death of a close family member spawned a new and unexpectedpath for her. and i was absolutely devastated and i justsort of became immobilized and did not quite know what to do. and instead of, i do notknow, you know, sinking totally into oblivion
or whatever, that night i stayed up all nightand i made this quilt top. and it did not look like any other quilt tops by morning.and iãd never heard of an art quilt. and, within a year, i was studying at the nationallevel. and within 10 years, i was showing at the international level, so...(narrator) art quilts are very young when compared to the long history of traditionalquilts. the movement started in ohio in 1979 and today is recognized as its own powerfulart medium that is displayed in art galleries alongside more traditional art forms. fordeborah, her work is a reflection of her own life's events, with each quilt telling a story.right after 9/11, not unlike everybody else, i mean my heart was very broken. and how doyou get through those times? i made art. at
the same time that 9/11 happened was the sametime that we started building our house. and just like the quilt behind me, what endedup happening with my art is it started to reflect what was happening in my real life.i saw the world trade center coming down, and this house was going up every day. andso my work came out in squares and rectangles and almost building blocks. simplified, simplifiedstructures. and again, oftentimes my work reflects kind of getting through situations.the piece above the fireplace was a quilt. it is called "in the arms of an angel." andi made that piece when a very, very beloved teacher, kindergarten teacher died at oneof our local grade schools. she died in her classroom, and it was just very difficult.it fractured the community. she was my son's
former teacher. my little girl was in thirdgrade at the time. it was just very, very difficult. and again, the only way i couldget from one place to the next was to do art. (narrator) deborah's creative energies areput to work in her studio, located in the lower level of her home. a significant partof her work takes place well before the fabric goes to the sewing machine. like a painterwith a blank canvas, deborah hand dyes and paints all her fabric in either cotton orsilk. it is not necessarily a part of our quilting,but i think it is sort of like the next logical step in the evolution of really owning everythingon that canvas, per se. and for me, it gives me a great deal of joy. and part of that isbecause it is very unpredictable and i do
not have any control over it, and i reallyfeel good about that. the thing that i like about all the thingsi have learned, whether it is the surface design, whether it is the dying of the fabricand the different kinds of dying, whether it is the peaking, or painting with wax, whetherit using textile paints, i think the thing that i like the most is that i have this smorgasbordof things, choices. and when i get an idea for a piece, i can choose off of my smorgasbordof what is going to work best for this piece. and sometimes there is very intricate quilting,which i do all on the machine now. part of that reason comes from some physical limitationsand part of it is what this piece calls for. and sometimes it is a very detailed piecingtogether. and sometimes they are whole cloth
quilts, which is very, very in keeping withthe tradition of a lot of the work that the pioneers did. and i really., i think i havegravitated more toward working with whole cloth quilts and starting out with a blankcanvas and dying and painting work, so that the design is more in the dying and painting,and then the quilting simply kind of brings it all together.one of my favorite parts of the process is i like the spontaneity. when i start painting,i do not plan anything out ahead of time. i just do it. and i think it is that partthat i like the most and then seeing what happens when all of a sudden you take it outof the dye bath and there it is. and it is like this new friend you meet or this greatsurprise that you had not expected. or sometimes,
oh, my, let's put it back in there, you know.(narrator) while she may have pieces that did not turn out or ended up as drop cloths,deborah has had many others that met her approval and gained national recognition.one piece right now, it is sponsored by the u.s. state department's arts in embassiesprogram, and it has been a really big honor. it is actually a women's rights piece thatwas traveling for three years around the country in an exhibit called "the roots of racism."and i have had pieces, again, at the united nations building, openings in chicago at thecivil rights museum. and those things are wonderful. but my favorite places, i think,where i have some of my art are in places that just connect with everyday, regular,normal people.
(narrator) deborah says that the years ofstudy and practice now make the design process easy, although she admits to getting stuckjust like any other artist. she has also learned to not be afraid of the mistakes and thatthey can be a valuable tool. now, the sky is really sort of the limit.and i think i like that, because there just are not a whole lot of rules i have to adhereto. i can kind of create my own as i do this and celebrate the mistakes.i feel lucky. well, you know, i do not know how we all findour passions in our lives. i do not know how we do that. and maybe it starts out by someof those classes we took in high school or things that happened to us along the way.i do not know. but i feel lucky that i can
pursue this and that my family celebratesit and that the community celebrates it as well. so itãs.., i think it is really importantto find out what those passions are in your life. it sounds very trite, and oprah hassaid this for years, find your passion and do it, but there is so much truth to that.i am doing it. keeping with the theme of talented women,i met up with pat macklin from shelbyville, illinois. pat is a glass slumper. a glasswhat-er you might ask? well, pat heats glass just a certain way to create a slumped lookingeffect. her hobby has now caught on and her work is in demand. take a look.>>kate: so you've probably heard of glass blowing and stained lgass art before, butpat macklin and her husband, john, do another
kind of glass work that's maybe less familiar.it's called glass slumping. >>pat: slumping you clean the bottle reallywell and sometimes you'll have to wash it out and dry it. and we have some bottles thatare upside down in little cases and those have all been washed. and after that we knowthat they're clean and dry, we put them in the kiln at 1400 degrees and they are thereall day. now, they don't cook all day, but they're there all day. then we take them outthe next day and most of the time they come out fine, every once in a while we'll havea problem and we'll just redo them. you know we have enough here that we have plenty toredo. the hardest part on something like this is taking the labels off. some of the labelslike to come off real easy, some of them are
really tough. so, that gives me somethingto do while i'm watching tv in the evening and i'll take some bottles with me to thehouse and i'll take the labels off so i keep a box of labels down here and every once ina while i decide this is what we're going to do so then i'll do this and then i'll putthe label on and decorate it and i'll hang it. it's just flat like this and we put alabel on this and we decorate it and then you can hang it on the wall.>>kate: along with the slumped wall-hanging pieces, pat and john also make bottle lights,lamps and molded pieces that can be used as dishes and cheese trays. pat started glassslumping after an injury left her with some free time.>>pat: a year-and-a-half ago i fell on the
ice and broke my shoulder and while my shoulderwas healing my foot broke, so apparently i cracked it at the same time and anyway i waslayed up for 7 months. i've never not worked for 7 months and i had to find something todo so i got on the internet and i found this. we went a bought a kiln before we even knewwhat we were doing. but it was fun, you know, we really enjoyed it and it's something welike. my husband and i did wood crafts for years. we did a lot of different things. bigprojects and small. then i got into candles two years ago and i made candles for 2 or3 years and i really enjoyed that. but i got bored with candles so this is what came next.>>kate: pat and john do a lot of their work together under the close supervision of theshop cats, of course, but there are a few
strict workshop rules.>>pat: this is my workspace right here and that's his. and that's the way we get alongjust great. [laughter] we can work fine in one building but we don't work great side-by-sideyou know. just one of those things. he does a lot of the work. he does all of the lampsand he does all of the bottle lights. and right now the bottle lights are really becomingpopular. when we first started, you know, we'd sell one every once in a while, but nowthey're really getting, i, more people know about them.>>kate: but it wasn't always that way. pat says it was a slow start until one of thelocal taverns that they collect the bottles they use from caught on and spread the word.>>pat: at first one of the bars that we got
our bottles in, our empty bottles, we startedtaking things over and showing these girls what we were doing that worked there. wellwe sold a lot of stuff at the one bar and we just kept making it for the bar and wemade some stuff for us, but we really didn't do anything with it. and then after we gota lot of things done, we finally rented space in a place. and then we rented space in anotherplace, [laughter] and right now we have them in shelbyville, in findlay, and in um, let'ssee southern illinois. edwardsville. yes. so, it keeps us busy and we have a lot oforders for people that need a special order. right now i have one from a girl from chicago.she and her sisters were down here and they were at a winery and they were drinking andthey had a really nice day and so they saved
the bottles. so i'm slumping the bottles forthem. one of the sisters. and she's going to give the other sisters these bottles forchristmas to remember the day they had. so that's pretty cool.>>kate: pat also offers personalized labels for the bottles. despite the simple look ofthem, she says the process is more intricate that you might think.>>pat: it's not as simple as it looks because you really have, this is why i have the timerhere, because i tend to forget things and i can take this time and i know when to turnthe um, my kiln. and how long to leave it. and you have to check it periodically besidesdoing this so. oh yeah, i have forgot several times and it's been in there hours and hours.[laughter]one time there was just a little pool of melted
glass and it was yeah. that's one of the firstones. i wish we still had a box of all of our ones that we messed up and i could showyou. i just recently gave it to someone that was making a bar and they needed old glassand i haven't seen that yet but they say it's really neat so i'm really glad that i cando something with that. but i saved it for a long time because i thought, "there's nosense throwing this away. surely somebody can use this." i even thought about crackingit up and putting it around flowers and things. but i like this idea better.>>kate: and that pretty much sums pat up. her artist brain is always at work with thenext creative idea. and speaking of what's next, pat says john is already working onlogs carved with the customer's last name.
they're made to put out in the garden or inthe front yard. what's after this project is hard to say, but one thing's for sure.there will always be something creative happening in the macklin workshop.i think besides seeing all of patãs work, my favorite part of filming that story wasplaying with the cute baby kittens that pat had in her workshop! thanks for watching thisweek on heartland highways. that wraps up this episode. we hope youãll tune in formore great adventures next time. until then, more information is available on our websiteat weiu.net under the television tab. see you soon!now you can watch heartland highways online anytime. check us out on youtube.com/weiutv.once youãre there just look for the heartland
highways playlist which will take you to alist of full episodes from seasons 7 through 11. and if you subscribe to our channel, youãllautomatically be notified of when new programs are available to view, so sign up today.[music]