new prayers: may i, may you

October 27, 2022 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

This quilt is about motherhood, growth, change, acceptance, pain, love, compassion, and hope. It was inspired by finding this tiny preemie outfit in storage, and the work of artist Russell Barratt who uses whole clothes and dots in his work.

My son recently went through a very hard couple of years. I tried to support but also give him space to live his life, and I did both very imperfectly. It was really difficult not to be consumed by worry, and not to feel like everything was somehow my fault. I made this quilt, using clothes that were worn by my boy 19 years apart, not for him but for myself, to work through what I was feeling during this sad and stressful time.

The prayers of my upbringing are foreign to me now. I let them go a long time ago. Instead, I borrow the words from the Buddhist tradition metta, or lovingkindness meditation. I meditate on these phrases and wish them for myself as a young mother, for my present-day self, and for my son at all of his ages and stages. I do my best to hold all versions of us in tenderness and compassion. As I write this now, my son is doing much better. Here’s to even better days ahead.

I made the applique dots by printing photos onto pink vellum, cutting them into circles, adding some handwriting, layering them onto fabric, scanning them and sending them to Spoonflower to print onto fabric. The applique and quilting were all done by (my) hand. Mitch Hopper took photos.

There are many versions of Metta but this longer version is the one I use most frequently:

(first you say it for yourself)

May I be filled with lovingkindness.

May I be safe from inner and outer dangers.

May I be well in body and mind.

May I be happy and at ease.

(then you say it for someone else, an individual, a group, or the world)

May you be filled with lovingkindness.

May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.

May you be well in body and mind.

May you be happy and at ease.

Radical Acceptance Quilt, Dove Bar Edition

April 09, 2022 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

This quilt started life one day several years ago, when I got a haircut, came home, and spent the rest of the afternoon constructing a suit of armor out of Dove bar boxes I had been saving for the purpose, giving myself paper cuts under my armpits, suffering for my art. I took these self portraits on my phone and then used them to make repeat pattern designs which I had printed onto fabric. When the quilt was in progress, I used parts of it for a drawing class assignment where I layered paper of varying transparencies over the patchwork (read more about that here). But I always knew it would eventually become a full quilt. And now it finally has. I’m making peace with myself, with my suboptimal coping mechanisms, with my body’s size and shape. And this busy quilt has been one step in that process.

The patchwork text says, “The last box” and “for real this time”, a sort of joke in our house after how many times I have said it about these treats that I tend to binge one after another when I’m sad or stressed. The text around the border says, “If you never kick this habit I love you No matter what I love you I love you you’re okay”. I wanted to use sort of circular phrases so it would make sense no matter where the viewer’s eyes started.

Radical Acceptance Quilt, Dove Bar Edition. 2021. 55”x75”. Photos by Mitch Hopper.

Radical Acceptance Quilt, Dove Bar Edition. 2021. Measures 55”x75”

Radical Acceptance Quilt, Dove Bar Edition, detail

Radical Acceptance Quilt, Dove Bar Edition, back

Radical Acceptance Quilt, Dove Bar Edition, label

Sun Coming in the Windows

April 01, 2022 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

I made this at the end of 2019 as the final project for a photography class I was taking in undergrad. I quilted it in time for the deadline but was never totally happy with the finish. Finally last year I ripped out and redid the quilting. Now I’m happier and it’s officially done.

I can’t remember if we had a prompt or any parameters for the final, but this is what I did: took pictures on my phone of some of my favorite objects, textures, and shapes in my house, had them printed onto fabric and then made them into simple patchwork. I named it Sun Coming in the Windows and it’s an ode to feeling safe at home. 30”x29”

Back in Therapy (Increased Surface Area)

March 31, 2022 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

This piece was created in the summer of 2021. The patchwork came together quickly and intuitively, kind of a like a sketch. I didn’t originally intend to leave the threads exposed; I planned to bury them, but as I kept pushing them out of the way, stroking them all in the same direction, I decided they looked so interesting that I would leave them out (but tack them down with quilting). I don’t know if I invented this thread technique (probably not) but it was new to me and exciting. For this piece I was thinking about the different types of energies I experienced during Covid, surges and waves in all directions, some that buried me and others that lifted me up. I was thinking about the weight of it all eventually getting on top of me and making me realize I needed some help which led me to seek therapy after a long hiatus. Being a student of anatomy right now, these thread rays (as my friend Jenni Grover brilliantly named them) also reminded me of microvilli, structures that increase the surface area of a cell. This resonated too, as I certainly felt like my surface area increased this year and as a result I was more vulnerable to stress and irritation. I often felt stretched, flat out, on edge, like my nerves had nerves (not anatomically possible but you get the idea). It’s called Back to Therapy. Measures 21”x28”.

This piece was part of the virtual exhibit Maternochronics, put together by the talented Emily Zarse and focusing on maternal exhaustion. It also hung in the show Moments Like This, juried by Jessica Bingham, at Women Made Gallery.

Two Mini Quilts

May 24, 2019 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

This quilt was made for a swap between my guild and the Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild. My partner didn’t give me any requests, just told me to make whatever my heart desired. So I used scraps from a previous project (my Good Bones mini quilts from my drawing final) and the design was loosely inspired by the Arne Quilt by Rossie Crafts. I did my own quilting on this one and was pretty happy with the outcome.

And another mini for a swap. This time it was a swap within my own guild. Again, my partner left it pretty wide open in terms of what she likes, so I tried to make something that reflects what I see in her: bright, vibrant, energetic. I had fun improving my way through this mini. My partner liked it and it turned out to be a parting gift, as she soon after moved from Chicago to Milwaukee.