Gayle Pritchard ’79

Joie De Vivre II

In many ways, Gayle (Vickery) Pritchard’s journey from student, to craftswoman, to artist, to educator and mentor, reflects a similar journey taken by thousands of American women.

JOIE DE VIVRE II In the first of the “Joy of Life” series (shown on this magazine's cover), Pritchard had just begun experimenting with a new form of art. The vase, symbolizing the artist, is small and off-center. In Joie de Vivre II, the vase has become the central feature. “It's an exuberant self portrait,” says Pritchard. “It says, ‘Here I am!’”

Like many women in the early 1970s, Pritchard taught herself to quilt. There was once a time when the skill was passed down from mother to daughter. But like a forgotten story, the craft almost died out in America.

“The Depression represented making do, piecing it out, making every little scrap count,” says Pritchard, who has become a national authority on the history of the art quilt. “Except for the Amish, after the war most people didn’t want anything to do with quilts. Also, working women didn’t want to be pushed back into their old roles.”

But following the nation’s bicentennial in 1976, there was an explosion of interest in traditional quilting. If grandmothers no longer knew the skill, American women would learn it themselves. The names of historic quilt patterns became as familiar as well-worn recipes.Women gathered at coffee clubs and fabric stores to piece together images of yesteryear—log cabins, stars, daisies, and eagles.

Learning the craft by copying the masters was a great way to start. But for Pritchard and many like her, it was only a beginning. “ I quickly got bored with copying patterns,” she remembers. Yesterday’s images were fine for yesterday. Relevancy began to edge out nostalgia.

Pritchard had been intrigued by an art class at The College of Wooster, taught in 1975 by Karen Gunderman. “She showed us how to do photo transfer. Like any kid, I’d done that with the comics and Silly Putty.When I started working with fabric and learned that you could transfer and build up layers of images, I thought, ‘Oh, this is really cool!’”

A German and psychology major and art and French minor, Pritchard spent her senior year in Europe, visiting museums and exploring artistic styles. The skills of independent exploration that she learned at Wooster served her well. She went on to take a three-year independent study at the Cleveland Institute of Art and moved from being an accomplished artist (her work has been commissioned by Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is included in the permanent Smithsonian museum collection) to becoming an author and mentor as well. Her book, Uncommon Threads: Ohio’s Art Quilt Revolution, was recently published by the Ohio University Press; more than 600 students have taken her classes. She teaches and creates from her home in Bay Village, Ohio.

From her “Hero” series, this quilt honors Pritchard’s father, who died in 1992. It shows some of her favorite techniques–layering, photo transfer, painting on fabric to deepen the colors, and using a mix of materials.

Stifling the censors’ voices

Pritchard’s students learn more than just technique. “The hardest part about working with adults is getting them to shut up their censor voices, those internal confidence-destroyers that say, ‘You’re not good enough. You can’t do this. You have no talent.’ If we can ignore our censor voices, we can hear the still, small voice that comes from the creative place within us all.”

Pritchard admits a close acquaintance with her own censor voice, which is symbolized by the blue-headed, scraggly-toothed demons under the floorboards of Joie de Vivre I (shown on this magazine’s cover). The piece is part of a series that she created about her personal artistic blossoming, with the vase of flowers representing herself. “I felt like I was coming to life, like I had finally found my way. I had taught myself to make quilts by the tried and trusted way, and then I moved on to feeling as if I had found total freedom.

“This piece is about claiming your power and taking over.”

http://www.gaylepritchardart.com/