almost a year since I graduated, and here's what i've got

being an adult is about keeping an open mind to the opportunities you get. never settle, but always be willing to take something you think is ordinary at the beginning—chances are, it'll turn into something magical.

to be honest, i never really thought about taking a job at a crafting publisher. i wanted to work on kids' books or Literary Fiction (yeah, i know, i sound like a tool, but i'm gonna be honest here). but i enjoyed working in publishing so much after my internship that i decided to apply to all presses around. i even begrudgingly applied to some on the east coast, despite having NO desire to move there (i hate bipolar weather, but mostly just the heat, and am not a huge fan of everything being flat)(also, NY publishing is totally overrated. west coast is where it's at).

ANYWAY, i was offered a job where i currently work and i took it. don't get me wrong, the entire time i was applying and interviewing and interviewing again i was totally excited. but still, it was more for the publishing prospect than the content of the books i'd be publishing.

it wasn't like i hated fiber arts or anything, but after potentially permanently disabling a sewing machine in my formative years, i wasn't exactly what you'd call a sewist (NOT sewer, thank you very much).

i'm still not, really, but my new job has opened my eyes to SO MUCH of a world i never really knew. i may have thought it was cool to DIY clothing and tried to make a skirt (unsuccessfully) once. i may have dabbled in hand stitching pillows and stuffed toys and weird scrappy things.

now, though, i can say i've made 3 quilt blocks. i've learned the ins and outs of how-to language. i've used a sewing machine that cost several thousand dollars (and it shows—oh my goodness it's a pleasant experience!). i've cashed in some street cred with my company name and gotten a discount at a craft store. i've assisted at a dog photo shoot where the dog was outfitted with several DIY projects from our books. i might be a hand model. my bedroom was almost used in a photo shoot for a book about sexy quilts (not actual name—don't want to accidentally disclose anything sensitive on the world wide web!).

and i've worked on some really, really interesting books—from my baby-clothes-and-toys books to my quilts inspired by art movements to the topographical quilts displaying maps (and using memory to recount maps). there are civil war quilts that tell histories, gallery quilts made by anonymous pioneers, architectural quilts that represent the homes of the U.S.

what's more, my job has made me remember one of my favorite essays ever, written by alice walker. i read this essay and loved it and wrote about it (like in three papers for one class, it was kind of embarrassing) back before i knew much about quilts or had worked with them (obviously, because that was in college).

i went back and re-read it and here's a fantastic excerpt that just makes me say YES

But when, you will ask, did [overworked Black mothers] have time to know or care about feeding the creative spirit?

The answer is so simple that many of us have spent years discovering it. We have constantly looked high, when we should have looked high-and-low. 

For example: in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., there hangs a quilt unlike any other in the world. In fanciful, inspired, and yet simple and identifiable figures, it portrays the story of the Crucifixion. It is considered rare, beyond price. Though it follows no known pattern of quiltmaking, and though it is made of bits and pieces of worthless rags, it is obviously the work of a person of powerful imagination and deep spiritual feeling. Below this quilt I saw a note that says it was made by "an anonymous Black woman in Alabama, a hundred years ago." 

If we could locate this "anonymous" Black woman, she would turn out to be one of our grandmothers - an artist who left her mark in the only materials she could afford, and in the only medium her position in society allowed her to use.

BAM.

yeah. take that, Literary Fiction.

i still love you, but it's hard for black words on a white page to compete with beautifully-designed art books. it's hard for the pretentious educated white male tradition of Literature to compete with the improvised tradition of those who couldn't read or write, didn't have the time for art-for-art's-sake—so they made beautiful, functional, creative, scrappy quilts out of what they had. it's a kind of subversion, a trick, a way of getting around cultural norms and socioeconomic barriers.

and i love it.

you do what you can with what you have. if you were born into a tradition of education and privilege, you have the luxury of creating in any way you want. if you weren't, then you have to be even more creative.