The quiltblock pictured here, one of six completed blocks of a never-finished quilt, graced Edith Wyle’s studio wall for the better part of two decades. The beloved Japanese fabrics, no doubt gathered on many treks through one of her favorite countries, nestle together in an unresolved chorus of triangles and squares. Pieced together by hand, the smaller shapes suffuse into one complete, central quadrate. Around its perimeter, however, liminal shapes branch outwards, like unfinished connective tissue in search of resolution. Perhaps, in search of context.
I know this woman, Edith. She is my grandmother. The scent of her, the sounds of her, the deep knowing of what would delight her, never leave me. Charismatic, present, and a great conversationalist, Edith was a true people-person. She was insatiably curious, a pioneer. She gathered conversations, knowledge and objects until she literally became a museum.*
Just looking at this familiar quilt block, I know in my body that each patterned triangle represents a memory, a friend, something learned, and something found. Each form is a proud stamp in her passport. Some representation of ‘self,’ recognized far from home. I can imagine that cutting the fabric into neat shapes, and arranging them into a composition gave her great joy. The combination of memories finding new meaning in an artful mosaic would have nourished her.
Motifs float within their three-sided chambers, stripes and plaids honor the plumb lines of true north and due west—a kind of harmony amidst the chaos. Indigos at different degrees of fade ground the block, and dialogue with the earthy ochres, siennas and mustards which were the hallmarks of Edith’s personal palette.
Long before ipad softwares and other technological marvels could expedite the design processes of today’s quilt artists, there was just the tactile, quilter’s thinking wall. A pinnable surface where shapes and colors could be easily moved, grouped and regrouped. New ideas explored without consequence. Throughout my adolescence and early adulthood the six completed blocks sat pinned on Edith’s thinking wall, dialoguing with the sun. Some days they were considered. Other days, forgotten; a silent companion in her peripheral vision. Regardless of the role they played on any given day, they evidenced her travels, her propensity to explore, gather, compose, and synthesize culture in object form.
When Edith passed away in 1999, my mother gathered the six blocks from the wall, vowing in her grief to finally resolve the 20 year unfinished project. Sometimes there is nothing more painful to look at than an unfinished project when its maker is no longer here. Plans unrealized, synthesis still in cocoon. Three short years later, the blocks remained in a bag and my mother was gone too. The blocks came to me.
I admit to my own loud urges to finish the quilt. I’ve pictured it completed in a hundred different ways. But in time, the gifts of its unfinished state have begun to emerge. I share much in common with my beloved grandmother. I am also a gatherer and museum founder. I am also one to celebrate culture in objects. She has somehow passed to me, a legacy of curatorial gathering, and the work is never done. Perhaps each of us relates more deeply to complex, pieced quilt blocks, as opposed to resolved, finished quilts.
It was not just Edith’s unfinished quilt that I received. It was a state of possibility, a conversation still taking place. There is a kind of infinity in her as-yet-charted negative space. As long as her quilt remains in this condition, we remain together in a living dialogue of the possible.
Edith Robinson Wyle was born on April 21, 1918. She founded The Egg and The Eye (later named The Craft and Folk Art Museum), in Los Angeles, in 1965, at the age of 47. In honor of the 107th anniversary of her birth we are celebrating a beloved object of hers in our collection. Letting it speak for her, and speak for itself. Prompting us to consider how we too are similar gatherers who will continue to shape and reshape ourselves until we pass our shapes to someone else.
Edith’s collection can be viewed here.
