Creativity Essay Quilt/Theatre Magic by Marilyn Pilkey (This article first appeared in ArtQuilt Magazine) |
As a high school theatre teacher/play director by day and quilter by night, I've begun to notice similarities between the two creative processes. Both begin with a germ of an idea. For the theatre director, this may involve a problem, a dream/vision, or a familiar script. A quilt starts with a germ idea, also: perhaps a theme, an emotional state, a unique experience, or even simply the 'material' itself which begs to be executed in a unique format. If the dramatic production involves a script, there will be a written framework to follow, similar to a traditional pieced block pattern for the quiltmaker. But one director's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream may bear little or no resemblance to another's. One director may set the play in ancient Athens, another may surround Elizabethan costumes with courtly settings, and another may set the play on some futuristic lunar colony. Since stage movement is rarely included in a script, directorial styles will dictate radically divergent patterns of movement, pacing and emotional tone on stage. One may resemble a Dali-esque dreamscape while another may feel like a non-stop action sequence in a Harrison Ford movie. The director sets the tone, based on her own background, training and inner vision. The scripted words are the same, but the visuals are radically different! Quiltmakers have known this for decades. What are the chances of any two quilters on the planet producing identical quilts, even given three or four identical 'challenge' fabrics, and perhaps even a 'scripted' pattem to follow? One in five mil- lion? This marvelous diversity of inner vision and execution is what makes annual pattern competitions exciting. After choosing the script, my next step as a play director is to audition various players for parts, then cast the play. This is a complex process, since various cast members must look their parts not only individually, but in relation to one another. How much like quiltmaking this step is! We 'audition' fabrics for various roles in the scripted pattern; each fabric must look just right, not only on its own, but in relation to all the fabrics around it. A favorite shade of blue may kill the fuchsia nearby and demand its own instant replacement with deep gold instead. Just as a few 'hopeless' hopefuls show up auditioning for the lead (they will carry spears in the crowd scene), so we find a place even for our 'uglies'. Amazingly, the orange-and-green stripe gives just the right 'zing' when cut on the diagonal and used as a binding. There's a place for everyone, and for all types of fabrics in this joyous mix we call art. As we begin to rehearse the play, inevitably, changes occur. One cast member gets mono and has to drop out. He was 6'5"; his 5'9" understudy doesn't took right with the 5'11 " girlfriend. Another cast member's grades drop, and she is no longer academically eligible to perform. Hopefully, her understudy is her size. But if not, and if costumes are already rented or made, some additional shuffling might become necessary. Inevitably, solutions present themselves in the middle of the night. How many quilters make it all the way from design to quilting without finding that they need to switch things around somewhere en route? We run out of one fabric, and it's nowhere to be found anymore (perhaps it was from the 70s, or from Mother's ancient stash of scraps). We must improvise, shuffle, do the Texas two-step and introduce a new player. That's part of the creative challenge! This element of risk often pumps up our aesthetic adrenaline the way nothing else can. In quiltmaking, as on stage, our best ideas often present themselves in our dreams. We are always confident the week before opening that there's no hope for the play to ever come together. As director, I spend an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom being sick. The makers of TUMSTM and Immodium A-DTM love my stressful lifestyle because I support them single-handedly for four weeks out of every year. My feet swell, my clothes don't fit right, and I lose my voice, the director's single most necessary body part. Of course, all quilters.have this same panic attack, usually about two steps away from finishing the project. The whole top is finished and laid out for pin-basting when one's Significant Other strolls through the room tossing off a comment like, "It would have had more power if the dark center were set off against a light background, not the medium green." Our hearts stop, throats constrict and guts begin to wrench. The show is next weekend! At this point, we have three choices: we can do some fast applique, we can dye-paint the offending areas, hoping the thickened dye won't bleed onto the nearby white; or we can trust our original instincts and go with it as is. If we've made the last choice, we grit our teeth, count to ten, then sweetly thank our sweetie for the advice and go right on pin-basting the back in place for quilting. Sure enough, when show time comes, many rave reviews tell us our instincts were not wrong: we have created a show-stopper after all. Every play has its crew of dedicated 'techies'- those behind-the-scenes 'invisible' kids who are insane enough to spend ten or fourteen-hour days at school on a legal holiday. They tape down wiring, test special effects, safety-mark the audience step levels, and finally make the magic that turns a flourescent-lit theatre classroom into a dim mystical shrine on performance night. Quilt guilds, too, have their angels: those hard-working officers and show committee members who faithfully give up third Thursdays for an entire year to plan and execute a smooth-running production. Some otherwise 'invisible' guild members don't make quilts themselves but love them enough to drive around windy freeway exits posting show signs, bringing in bagels to the vendors at 6 a.m. and sweeping up after everyone else collapses at the end of the day. Every bit as important as the visible actors/quilt artists, these valuable technicians make 'quilt theatre magic' in the gallery. They deserve our humblest, sincerest thanks for the job they do so well and so willingly. Looking back, the inevitable questions rear their ugly heads. Was it worth it? Did the play turn out the way I envisioned it? Why or why not? Usually, I feel disappointed in some areas, but realize in other, quite unexpected ways, it was better than I could have conceived. The quilt, too, assumes its own life and style. In the construction process, it often dictates the next move, requiring that we, the 'artistic directors', adjust our style to suit the emerging piece. It turns out differently than we anticipated (better in some ways, worse in others). Never have I heard a quiltmaker pronounce her latest creation 'perfect'. Instead, she sees every flaw only too closely. Hence the need to push on to the next quilt! For about two days, I think "I'm through directing adolescent actors. It's too sketchy, too full of surprises, makes me too vulnerable." But then those creative wheels start working. I wake up one hushed morning. It's 3:30. I'm thinking, "How would Jeremy look as Macbeth?" Or maybe, "Hey! There are fish in my circles pattern! Why didn't I notice that before?" Too late. I'm in for the duration. Marilyn Pilkey writes, quilts, teaches and directs from Canyon Country, CA This article appeared in Art/Quilt Magazine, Issue #12, page 50 |
