My September 2012 trip to Shanghai, began in this bookstore in Iowa City, Iowa…
…where I bought an exhibit catalog containing this image:
“Sea of Japan in Winter” (1983)
It is a quilt by Shizuko Kuroha, which appears to made largely of indigo fabrics from Japan. This quilt inspired me to to make my own version of this pattern (Arabic Lattice block), which I would title “Portmanteau.”
“Portmanteau” (2011)
“Portmanteau” would travel to China in the early part of 2012 as part of an exhibit “The Sum of Many Parts,” and I followed thereafter in September. I attended the opening of the exhibit at Shanghai Museum of Textile and Costume, and was fortunate to meet Naomi McCallus (see photo below). She commented on my fabric choices for “Portmanteau” and suggested that I would probably like a somewhat hard-to-find fabric that is unique to China and no longer made, simply called “lao bu” (old fabric). It is hand-dyed (indigo), hand-woven fabric which was made on small in-home looms primarily for utilitarian purposes. Naomi is a friend of Laurel Menser, who’d come to Shanghai from the US Embassy in Beijing to serve as tour-guide extraordinaire for Louisiana Bendolph and me during the first few days of our stay.
at the opening of “The Sum of Many Parts,” Shanghai, China 2012
Erick Wolfmeyer, Hui Feng, Laurel Menser
So the next day, Laurel, my undaunted Chinese-speaking guide, and I, the wary tourist in a city the scale of which is beyond comparison, set out on our shared mission to locate the shop. With the address scribbled on a scrap of paper in-hand, several cell phone calls to Naomi for clarification of the directions, two taxi rides across the river and back from two lost taxi drivers, and a short walk later, we finally found the obscure shop that sold lao bu. The shop owner was very soft-spoken and kind. I had no concept of how much RMB to USD the fabric was going to cost, even with Laurel’s uber-patient, exacting exchange rate calculations. She finally advised: if you want it, buy it. It was great advice, and I did. I have no idea how much the fabric finally cost or exactly how much yardage I brought home. As I walked away with a large IKEA bag full of my lao bu, the shop keeper in the adjacent shop (pictured below on the right) would hardly let us advance without getting us to buy more at his shop. Thankfully, fearless, savvy Laurel fended him off and we were on our way back to the Portman Ritz-Carlton. We made a quick replenishment stop at the ATM, only to find my card didn’t work, and if I remember correctly, I ended up exchanging my last bit of US dollars into RMB at the “Bank of Laurel.” We then made our way to the European style grocery, which was fortunately only an escalator ride below the main floor of the hotel lobby.
Hui Feng, owner
Hui Feng Cloth Art Shop
34 Liuhekou Lu, Shanghai, China
The fabric smelled of mildew and so I decided to buy some detergent in the hotel store and wash the fabric in the tub of my room. I panicked when I saw how much indigo was bleeding from the fabric and fearing I would stain the tub, I quickly drained the water and started frantically wringing out the fabric. Only later did I learn that the indigo would not have stuck to or stained the porcelain tub, but nevertheless!
I was then left with the task of drying all this fabric in the midst of a very humid, rainy climate. The hotel room was air-conditioned, but not like we are used to in the US. It was more like someone breathing a modestly cool sigh through a puny vent in the ceiling. As I hung the fabric around the room, I was very careful not to let the fabric drip onto anything that might stain.
Cover: Courier, Shanghai Expatriate Association, September 2013, Vol 26, No 1
Article below: “Tubu: Revival of an Old Shanghai Fabric” by Naomi McCallus
used with permission from author – click on image to see larger version
Fast-forward to the winter of 2013. I finally figured out the quilt I wanted to make with my lao bu. I combined three blocks (#’s 16, 17 and 44) detailed in Susan Briscoe’s book “Japanese Quilt Blocks.”
The result is a quilt I am calling “Blue Horizon.” It is made with a combination of the lao bu fabric as well as new tea-dyed muslin and other woven neutrals. At present, I don’t have a photo of the entire completed top as it is slightly too large to fit on my 8’x8′ design board. The final photo (see below) is the quilt top folded on my ironing board, awaiting shipment to my hand-quilter.
And then, it all comes full circle…
So, the excuse for not getting back to the the Laobu/Tubu man, Hui Feng, is that I have not been in Shanghai!I finally had the opportunity to go today – I printed off your blog which featured the tubu and all of the beautiful pictures of your quilt.Hui Feng was there, and he was delighted to see what you had done with the fabric.He is somewhat of a quilter himself and marveled at all the little pieces that you put together in the design.I think he was truly pleased to see that you had made a quilt out of the fabric.
The picture attached is of me with Hui Feng holding your blog…..it has all come full circle! What an incredible journey this has been!It has been such a delight to be in the midst of it all.I continue to get new arrivals to Shanghai eager to find his shop and have found that my article has wound its way to many people who did not know about the fabric and are now devotees.
-Naomi McCallus, May 24, 2014, Shanghai, China
On April 17, 2016, Naomi wrote to update me:
“Erick – just FYI, Dong tai lu, which is the street market where Laurel took you to buy the fabric has suffered urbanization as so many old sections of Shanghai and Beijing have. He still sells the fabric, but you must call him and he will take you to his warehouse where all the fabric still remains…for now. So your quilt is even more meaningful in terms of Shanghai’s past.”
7:00PM – “A Piece of Me” iMovie with Q&A session/trunk show Galesburg Christian School, 746 Hawkinson Avenue, Galesburg, IL 61401. (Rescheduled from FEB 21, 2013).
“Bent but Not Broken: Quilting in the Great Recession” by Mary Kate Karr-Petras
The article features my quilt “Rapture” (2011), completed during the 2010 US economic downturn as well as during the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake.
Comfort for a cold winter’s day: the most wonderfully delicious and easy-to-make asparagus (my favorite vegetable) soup! I find all the ingredients at my local Aldis, or you may already have them on hand.
2:00PM – Please join me for a gallery talk in conjunction with The Sum of Many Parts exhibit. The presentation will feature my video, A Piece of Me, a Q&A session, and the quilt I’m currently making with the lao bu (handwoven, indigo-dyed fabric) brought back from my trip to Shanghai (September, 2012).
Here is a preview of my video A Piece of Me.
Along with five other quilts, it features Portmanteau,
my quilt from the exhibit, The Sum of Many Parts.
Iowa State Historical Museum
600 East Locust, Des Moines Iowa
Second Floor Gallery, Oct. 4, 2013 – Jan. 31, 2014
More information about the exhibit from the State Historical Society of Iowa website:
Making its North American debut at the State Historical Museum of Iowa, this traveling exhibition featuring works of 25 contemporary quilters from the United States – including two from Iowa. Des Moines is the only city in the United States to host the exhibition in its entirety. It was originally developed as a cross-cultural exchange to introduce the people of China to American culture through a shared love of textile arts, using quiltmaking as a metaphor for the rich diversity of American society.
This exhibition has been touring major cultural institutions in China since 2012, and it’s installation in Des Moines includes additional information about the state of Iowa’s unique and ongoing relationship with China, along with quilts from the State Historical Museum’s collection that represent Iowa’s contribution to quilting.
The Sum of Many Parts: 25 Quiltmakers from 21st-Century America is a program conceived and sponsored by the United States Embassy-Beijing. The exhibition and its tour throughout the People’s Republic of China was jointly developed and managed by Arts Midwest and South Arts, with additional assistance from the Great Lakes Quilt Center at Michigan State University.
Partial funding provided by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Additional support from Rhoda A. Pierce, Alabama State Council on the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, Illinois Office of Trade and Investment, Iowa Arts Council, Kentucky Arts Council, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, Mississippi Arts Commission, North Dakota Council on the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, and South Dakota Arts Council. The exhibition’s presentation in Iowa has been made possible by the Iowa Arts Council and State Historical Museum of Iowa.
This recipe is from Osa, the late mother of one of my high school girlfriends, Sonja. Her mother was a Norwegian native and made this whenever I would visit. It’s good anytime of the year with chicken or turkey, but an especially nice way to use Thanksgiving leftovers. The recipe is shown here in my own mother’s handwriting from a book of her favorite recipes she gave me one year for Christmas. When my own mother is gone (and I hope that is many years away!) one of the things I will miss the most is her cooking.
It’s been a long time since I’ve needed any safety pins, and even longer since I’ve had hair! I was rifling through a storage drawer looking for safety pins (prepping two baby quilts for quilting), when I re-discovered a stash of hair clips. They are such a great alternative to pins when finishing (hand-sewing) binding. I had forgotten about them! I don’t know how many times I’ve been stuck by pins in the binding process. Even with the hair clips, I somehow always manage to run the sharp end of my sewing needle under my left thumbnail a few times, and the blunt end usually punctures the middle finger of my right hand at some point. Ouch!
I made this quilt for my niece Jeny. She and her husband, Seth, are expecting their first baby Spring 2014. Here she is opening the quilt at her baby shower in Kansas City, their home.
Des Moines hosts national premiere of quilt show from China
By Michael Morain
If you haven’t seen hordes of needle-wielding visitors around town, you will soon. They’re heading this way for the American Quilter’s Society’s largest QuiltWeek ever, which opens Wednesday at the Iowa Events Center with displays, demonstrations, gadget sales and more than $44,000 in cash prizes.
So yeah, it’s an invasion. But they’re pieceworkers. They come in peace.
On the same day the expo opens, in fact, the State Historical Museum of Iowa opens an exhibition of American quilts the U.S. Embassy in Beijing recently trotted around to five cities in China. Call it textile diplomacy.
The project celebrates “the common threads between our two countries,” Arts Midwest President and CEO David Fraher said. His Twin Cities nonprofit partnered with the U.S. State Department and a network of state arts councils to make the show happen.
Des Moines is the first stop on the show’s U.S. tour and the only city where all 25 quilts will be displayed together. The honor results from Iowa’s close ties to China through trade agreements, cultural exchanges and the friendship between Gov. Terry Branstad and Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Iowa Arts Council Administrator Matthew Harris.
Besides, two of the 25 quilts came from Iowa.
Caroline Trumpold, 81, of Middle Amana made a whole-cloth quilt — with a single piece of fabric on each side — like the pair she and her husband received from each of their families at their wedding. She stitched a beautiful feathery design into a panel of pumpkin-colored poly-cotton (on one side) and tiny gold flowers (on the other) over the course of three weeks in December 2011. “I didn’t have a whole lot of time,” she said. “I wanted it done by January.”
The other Iowa quilt came from Erick Wolfmeyer, 46, who works as a school bus dispatcher in Iowa City. He colored a 1930s pattern called Arabic Lattice with the browns and blues you’d find in men’s suits and dress shirts.
“All it is is tile work. That’s really what it is,” he said. “I think of it as painting with fabric.” Wolfmeyer has a fine arts degree but didn’t start quilting until he made a baby blanket for one of his friends. For the quilt he sent to China, he designed the pattern but hired out the actual stitching to an Amish cooperative in Indiana.
He went to Shanghai last year to help open the show. He visited Chinese schools and museums, talking to quilters and non-quilters alike.
“They understood that quilting was a traditioanl art form, but they always asked ‘Why are there no animals or people or plants or flowers?’ That’s what they think of as ‘traditional,’ ” Wolfmeyer said. When the questions went the other direction, when he asked the Chinese what they knew about America, “the students always said ‘jazz’ and ‘Mickey Mouse.’ ”
Wolfmeyer will get his quilt back at the end of January, when he swaps in a different one for the rest of the show’s national tour.
Trumpold’s quilt is in it for the long haul, but she’s OK with that. She has others to keep her warm. Besides, she said, “It doesn’t fit my decor.”
Caroline Trumpold of Middle Amana stitched an elaborate feathery pattern onto her whole-cloth quilt, ‘The Peacock.’ / State Historical Museum of Iowa/Special to the Reg
Erick Wolfmeyer mixed light and dark into the quilt he calls ‘Portmanteau,’ borrowing the linguistic term for two words that combine into a second (smoke + fog = smog). / State Historical Museum of Iowa/Special to the Reg
With Caroline Trumpold (IA), Patricia Lei Murray (HI) and son of the late Marguerite Cox
With Caroline Trumpold of Middle Amana, Iowa
Patricia celebrates the exhibit opening as well as her birthday
with Gayle Jorgens and Stan Wai, designers of the award-winning exhibit catalog
This will be the only complete exhibition of “The Sum of Many Parts” in the US. I am thrilled that it will be in my current home state of Iowa at the State Historical Museum. Look for further announcements on programming (gallery talks, panel discussions) dates.
“Sea of Japan in Winter” (1983)
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