Patchwork of perceptions: Fayetteville quilter's works warm the imagination
Posted on Friday, December 24, 2004
In Jeanie Wyant's house, quilts blanket more walls than beds.
Wyant's quilts are her art, and they encompass many dimensions. Multiple glances easily produce a kaleidoscope of perspectives. But looking just once won't do -- a hurried glimpse might leave the impression her works are just a bunch of blankets.
"If you're not aware that there is a huge amount of activity [in quilting], people do think [only] of bed quilts,"she said. "I'm just sort of an advocate to see how it feels having fiber on the wall."
Wyant, whose works are also on the walls at Arsaga's Espresso Café in Fayetteville through November, has been making quilts for more than 20 years. If they aren't hanging in galleries, they're hanging in her home or someone else's.
She's yet to have slept under any of them -- she's fashioned only a few bed-sized projects, and her father is the sole person she knows to have covered up with one.
"He told me it made for a good night's sleep, which is sort of neat,"Wyant said.
Her quilts contain an array of shapes, colors and patterns. Some seem overtly geometric; others are a whimsical combination of hand-cut curves. She hand-quilted all but three in the Arsaga's display because she enjoys the way they wrinkle as a result, she said.
Wyant started quilting in 1983 after taking a class at Patchwork Emporium in Rogers. Once she learned, she was hooked.
"[After] I made that first quilt, [I thought,] I'd never done anything creative. I hadn't taken art classes,"she said. "I just sort of realized this was a lot of fun."
But it wasn't until she took another course that she realized her true potential. At an improvisational quilting class in Gatlinburg, Tenn., a teacher suggested Wyant dye her own fabrics. At first she didn't see the point, but she did it anyway for an assignment requiring the technique. Hand-dyeing is a popular trend in quilting, Wyant said, because it makes the finished product even more unique.
She discovered quickly, however, that she preferred not to follow the herd.
"At the end we did our own thing, and I pulled out my prints É That's what was really me,"she said. "That for me was sort of a validation. I know who I am. I've found that I like to find a fabric that has different values of one color. It just complicates beautifully."
In many of her works, Wyant uses materials she's created herself by piecing together a variety of other fabrics.
"By doing that, you can really make a quilt that's totally designed by you,"she said. "A lot of my friends hand-dye their fabrics É but I can create sort of a fabric that didn't exist by cutting up other people's fabrics."
What makes Wyant's works the most distinct, she said, is the gamut of interpretations she discovers after people view them.
"I think from far away you ought to see something,"she said. "But then, you get up close, and you can sort of get lost with your nose in the quilt, too. I like that idea."
She hopes more people will realize how multifaceted quilts can be, and that the consideration of quilts as art will become even more widespread.
"A lot of people's connection with quilts is, 'Oh, my grandmother used to make quilts,'"she said. "But it's got a huge range of age É If you're not doing it, you don't know about it. People go, 'Oh, quilting, that's a dying art,' and I just think, 'Oh, if you only knew.'"
Wyant gleans ideas from various sources. Modern artists are a prominent one, and two of her works at Arsaga's are tributes to Kasmir Malevich and Josef Albers. She also gathers inspiration from everyday objects.
"When you're first getting used to [quilting], you see [ideas] everywhere, especially in tiled floors,"she said, laughing.
* * *
QUILTS BY JEANIE WYANT
Where: Arsaga's Espresso Café, 1852 N. Crossover Road, Fayetteville
When: through November
* For details, call 527-0690.
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