How do you document a lifetime of memories and lived experiences?
This was a question Dr. Gaither was intrigued by over a decade ago when she decided to embark on one of her most ambitious projects - The Decades Series. Started more than a dozen years ago, the original plan was to create a series of quilts that would document her life through a set of quilts that would grow in number, size and colorfulness for each decade of her life. An excellent plan to keep her working in perpetuity, right?
The series begins with the decade of her birth - the 1940s. The two quilts are primarily in shades of white and ivory, the smallest quilts of the series and share images and items relating to her early childhood. As the series progresses the quilts grow larger and more vibrant reflecting the vivid memories she holds for each decade. The first quilts in the series to truly be called “finished” were from the 1960s with each quilt documenting her life during that decade through personal items such as her clothing from Woodstock or pop culture references to musicians and celebrities and a nod to her college years and the political turmoil of the 1960s. If you have seen any of her work from The Decades Series it will be one of the quilts from the 1960s.
In recent years the work on this series has slowed for a number of reasons. New projects to work on, health issues, the sheer volume of the task. Ever the one to set exceedingly high goals for her work with deadlines that sometimes require large teams to join for days and weeks at a time to ensure a quilt is finished before the exhibition deadline, The Decades Series has proven to be an formidable goal.
Dr. Gaither now faces a new challenge to this series. She recently began looking at the Decades Series quilts and realized that many of the quilts are far from complete. When asked, she commented that the quilts she once considered complete are not looking that way to her anymore and wants to revisit several as she continues working in completing the many she put in hold for the last several years.
Her original plan was to add an additional quilt to the series to represent her growing number of years and starting with two quilts for the 1940s she is now at a point where the number of quilts per decade is equal to the number of years in a decade. She is contemplating scaling back on the volume and creating more of a table of contents for the more recent decades.
The images here are the Decades Series quilts in their infancy, only a few months old. She loaded her car with approximately 40 quilts (yes, 40) to work on while spending several months one fall on Martha’s Vineyard. Most if the quilts have the beginnings of details being added. If you look closely you might even recognize a few of the 1960s pieces.
So, how do you/will you/would you document your life story? What would you include? What stories do you want to pass on?
More to come on the quilts as they look now in the weeks to follow.
JoanieG, you are ever amazing!