Shortly after moving into my [former] studio at Prentiss & Burlington Streets in Iowa City, I started tuning into the pirate radio station broadcasting from the space across the hall. It featured everything from raw urban rap, to stories read by a gentle-voiced young woman. Without enough DJ’s for 24/7 programming, the station often resorted to long stretches of prerecorded sets and large doses of dead air.
I rarely saw any of the other artists, musicians (including Iris Dement – how did I miss her?), or DJ’s that worked in the building. When I did, we exchanged little more than a terse, under-the-breath “hull-oh.” Eventually, I passed a young woman in the hall who offered me a flier advertising her radio show. It revealed she was the storytelling DJ I’d heard. She was authentically funky, far beyond the usual Iowa City fare, softened by her intoxicating smile.
The daily walk from my parking spot to the studio led me under a concrete railroad bridge-cum-unsanctioned gallery of local guerilla art. Much of it was posted with stencils and spray paint, some with wheat paste. There was one particularly engaging image of an upright man, limbs akimbo, titled: “Le Somnambule,” the sleepwalker. I began to notice similar images in increasingly out of the way places (alleys, dumpsters, transformers, etc) throughout Iowa City. I imagined the work was likely conceived by one person and executed under the cover of darkness. The stencils were mostly single images with one-word French descriptors, a kind of visually sophisticated vocabulary flashcard.
When my beloved sleepwalker was suddenly obliterated overnight, by little more than the cappuccino-colored paint that already covered the concrete underpass, I was crushed. I realized the urgency of an earnest search for the source of this ephemeral work.
I inquired around town among friends I suspected might know and be willing to reveal the identity (under promise of strict confidentiality) of this elusive artist. After she was revealed to me, I invited her to meet me at my studio, only to discover that she was the same young storytelling DJ I’d previously met in the hall. I was instantly enamored. She told me more about the stencil work including her public service goal of teaching Iowa City French one word at a time, and how in return, she was sentenced with public service after being arrested for criminal mischief for posting her stencils publicly.
Eventually, our acquaintance translated into an internationally distributed line of fabric for her wide ranging and truly original artistic expressions. I am honored to have supported her in this way. She generously gave me permission to incorporate her publicly posted stencils into a future quilt project, which I hope to do, once I learn to screen print.
This summer began a trend of people using the Home Ec Workshop, co-owned by two friends of mine, as a means to contact me. One of these contacts turned into an important quilt sale. Another, netted a mysterious package that arrived only after being returned to the sender, who initially mailed the package to my first address in Iowa (eight addresses and ten years ago). I was thrilled to open it and find an original stencil made just for me. It was cut out of a peanut butter Captain Crunch cereal box. It features a tuxedo-wearing man sewing a quilt which gracefully cascades off a sewing machine to his feet where the piece is titled “Le Couturier.” The artist included a note written on stationary that she hand-painted, now housed in a special pocket on the back of the framed stencil.
Watering, Phillips Ranch California, 1983, Joe Deal
Remembering a dear teacher and mentor a year after his passing. Joe’s work is on par with the greatest landscape photographers that come to mind. I was thrilled to be able to view an online exhibition of some of his work at the Robert Mann Gallery website. Along with David Hockney, I would site Joe Deal as one of my biggest artistic influences. Deal became dean of the Washington University School of Fine Arts my junior year. He was the crowning jewel and saving grace of my Wash U experience. He once described a large-print photographic portrait series I did my senior year (1989/90) as being like “maps of faces.” Being that Deal was one of the pioneers in the New Topographic movement, I guess such an assessment comes as no surprise, but high praise, indeed.
This is one of my favorite songs of all times…it captures so much of what I feel about my life’s journey up to this point. Everyday, I am a little less incomplete.
Why you should know him: Erick Wolfmeyer, 44, is a professional quilter living in Iowa City. The Quincy, Ill., native moved to Iowa City to expand his quilting practice after living out West and has been here ever since. Wolfmeyer has made more than 70 quilts in his career, each of which takes about six months to create, he said. Wolfmeyer will be hosting a quilt design class at Home Ec. Workshop at noon July 23 and 24.
I got started in quilting when: I was living in California and my then-boyfriend and I went on vacation to see friends in Sisters, Ore. They have a huge outdoor quilt show there. We were there a week after it happened, but it was still in the atmosphere. Our friends just had a baby and I always liked quilts, so I bought my first pattern and (made a baby quilt). After I finished that, I just went crazy.
I sell my quilts: In Kalona at the annual Quilt Show & Sale and at a store in south Amana. But I’m happy to say that I’m doing more direct selling to people.
When I was little, I wanted to be _______ when I grew up: I initially wanted to be an architect. I always say I am a frustrated architect; I have this urge to put things together.
My favorite quilt I’ve ever made is: That’s like asking if I have a favorite child.
I’m inspired by: Almost everything. I’ll take drives and look at old buildings and the rust patterns. Architecture, literature, music, current events lately. I feel like a vessel.
Something I never want to do again is: Touch a snake. There’s no need to, but I was forced to as a kid (and hated it).
Something I’ve always wanted to do is: Go to Europe.
If I weren’t quilting, I’d be: Having a fabulous social life. Quilting is a very solitary thing.
Words I live by: You don’t have to suffer to make art, but making art is worth suffering for.
Erick Wolfmeyer thrives within limitations. Unlike most quilters, he has a modest stash of fabric and uses what he has before buying more. He lives in a small dwelling, just 565 square feet. He’s chosen work that pays his basic bills and little more. He has no television, no pets, no Internet connection at home. For him, quilts are a metaphor for this life.
“I’m piecing it all together, with what I have to work with,” he says.
Yet there is abundance in Erick’s life, too. His quilts are intensively pieced (Turning Point, which ultimately became two quilts, has 4,608 pieces) and his color choices are strong and vibrant. His creations stand in rich visual contrast to the simple weathered barn boards and picket fences against which he chooses to photograph them. And once finished, he doesn’t hold them close; all his quilts are either given as gifts or sold immediately. “They come from inside of me and when I’m done with one, I’m on to the next,” says Erick. “For me, it’s about the process.”
Erick’s quilts walk a line between traditional and modern. Unlike many art quilters, he uses no embellishments—no paint, no sequins, no buttons, no embroidery. Instead, he relies on piecing and quilting to telegraph his message. His quilts could function on a bed just as easily as they can be hung on a wall. But each is inspired by events in both Erick’s life and the wider world, and created with an artist’s eye toward design and color.
His formal training came when he earned a degree in photography from Washington University. But the toxic chemicals associated with developing and processing film made him increasingly uncomfortable. In 1990, he stitched a baby quilt as a gift for friends and was intrigued. Fabric seemed the perfect medium for him to explore. “A quilt is portable and very forgiving, and I love the feel of fabric,” he says. He notes too that there is something meditative and soothing in the rote processes of sewing and cutting fabric.
Perhaps most important for Erick is that quilting connects him with the women in his life. The loss of some of those female relationships plays large in his life and in his art. Given up for adoption when he was seven months old, Erick mourns the lost connections with his biological family. “For most of us, something in life didn’t work out as we’d planned,” he says. “Women lose kids, kids lose their moms. I’m working it out through my quilts.”
Erick’s inspirations range from the mundane to the majestic. When U.S. President Barak Obama was elected, Erick stitched a log cabin quilt with houses in the center of the blocks that faced both right and left. “Though they had different views, they were all part of a single community,” he says of the quilt’s metaphorical message. Packaging on a beer carton inspired Smokehouse Rose and old-fashioned movie tickets sparked the pattern of Chromotopia. He created Rapture in response to the countless news stories surrounding the recent Haitian earthquake and recession. “These quilts are my way of showing up in the world,” Erick says simply.
While traditional quilts inspire Erick (he employs Amish quilters to hand quilt his quilt tops), a keen understanding of color theory sets his work apart from antique quilts. “I love color and texture and I use a lot of visual trickery,” he says. “I’ll take two greens that would clash in clothing and put them side-by-side in a quilt and they vibrate. That tension gives quilts shimmer and life.”
Bringing life to quilts is the focus of Erick’s days. In his tidy home he has fabric for multiple quilts cut and stacked in orderly groups, awaiting stitching. He keeps an ever-growing list of ideas for future quilts and admits that he probably won’t live long enough to complete them all. But that doesn’t stop him from trying. “Quilting is what’s gotten me through and what gives me hope,” he says.
For more information about Erick and his quilts, along with additional photos, visit https://ewolfmeyerquilts.com/about.shtml.
I am thrilled to announce that Bruce Carter has invited me to be a guest on his hour-long radio program, Art Talk. Art Talk is broadcast Sundays at 1:00PM on WVIK 90.3FM – Augustana Public Radio, Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. (The program follows another one of my Sunday musts – “On Being” with Krista Tippet).
My interview with Bruce will air Sunday, August 7th at 1:00PM and will thereafter be available for listening at the WVIK website for about a year. Meeting Bruce and taping the interview was so much fun! Thank you Bruce and Dave for making it all happen! Congratulations on 20 years of Art Talk, Bruce! Very impressive!
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