This blog entry began as a conversation over dinner about people and the way that they hoard material goods. We could not help but think of my (late) mother. She was obsessive-compulsive about what was “hers,” and worried about someone else having anything that belonged to her. She even took a permanent marker to mark her initials on her wooden hangers, the bottoms of plastic pails, and the handles of tools.
Anything that went into her house or barn stayed there. We recalled how she had purchased a tent. Eventually, it made its way out to the barn and when the task fell to my husband and I to liquidate everything on the property and to sell the farm, guess what? The tent was full of black mold and mildew and went to the landfill. Of course, we had to pay someone to haul it off, with about six large truckloads full of old magazines, egg cartons, used meat trays, broken toys, etc.
When mother had a sudden heart attack and landed in the hospital, never to return home, I found the quilt I had so lovingly-made for her, as well as two matching pillow shams, in a pile of dust bunnies on the floor of a bedroom. She always slept on the couch, and silly me, she had no need of a quilt. Funny how wooden hangers and such were more important to her than a handmade quilt from her daughter. And, so it goes. I don’t think there is a single quilt I have given to a family member that has not been totally wrecked, either through ignorance or indifference, perhaps one reason that I am offering the e-book, Straight Talk About Quilt Care II.
It is difficult to come across people who are so short-sighted that they do not want something that they perceive to be theirs to be used in any way. In so saying, I am thinking about a specific museum who has limited public access to a quilt of historic proportion because somehow, it might affect them adversely, or financially, in the future.
Now, mind you, many quilts are donated to museums by families who think that the quilt in their possession will be enjoyed, studied by scholars, and exhibited for the public. This quilt had been on display in recent months. I was told that the museum disallowed information about the quilt to a fellow researcher. This is not in the interest of good public relations, and if you think that professionals do not share information with each other, guess again.
I will not name the institution. I will just say that I just received a request for a donation (that I will not be honoring). They have lost credibility with me (and had) ever since a little situation in the 1990s, when a lie was perpetrated, just for the sake of duping the public into giving money. If I did not have that information on good authority, I would not believe it, nor be sharing this report of scurrilous, reprehensible and evil misbehavior. Shame!
Museums should be trustworthy. They cut their own throats when their representatives act poorly. I just hope that somebody, somehow, comes to their senses.
When museums alienate the quilters of today, they do so at a price of losing support. Quilters on a professional level are a tight-knit group and we support each other. No, alienating one of us is “not good.” Think about it. You know who you are.
Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications
