I've been contemplating how to approach the stories contained in TOSSED SALAD QUILT. It's complicated.

In an earlier post I uploaded an image of me and Jeffrey Gutcheon quilting "Necker's Cube Quilt," likely at a conference in late 1977. TOSSED SALAD QUILT provides a backdrop to our joining forces around a quilt hoop. It's a large quilt, 102" high and 90" wide. I machine-pieced the top and then proceeded to hand-quilt it, a six-month undertaking (and a damned good job of quilting, if I do say so myself!) completed in 1976. In the detail view following, some of the basting is still visible. As I often did with these labor-intensive, slow-growth projects, I photographed details as I went along, sometimes to meet juried exhibition deadlines, sometimes in response to collector queries.

As was the case with other early quilts made in the 1970s, I worked out the general design of the piece on graph paper with colored pencil. I'd always been fascinated by triangle quilts, the simpler the better, and wanted to work something out with that basic geometric figure that would take it in a new direction. A salad with black olives did in fact suggest the color palette, and I already had the printed cottons on hand. I'd found the red and white print in the lower left of the detail image at a neighborhood yard sale with a group of other vintage 1930s fabrics, and had bought the lot. Incorporating it into this project added to the sense of extending the tradition embodied in the triangle shape.

I had the opportunity to exhibit TOSSED SALAD QUILT in a number of venues through the late 1970s. An earlier post includes a photo showing it hanging alongside NIGHT SKY 2 in a solo exhibition in Ohio. Sometime in the early '80s, it became one of a group of pieces that I sold to IBM, for a corporate site in Burlington, Vermont. The late Svetlana Rockwell, then an art consultant in the Boston area, had run across my work about that time, and after considering available pieces, took three for the IBM project she was overseeing. TOSSED SALAD QUILT, appropriately, was installed in the building's dining area.

Fast forward thirty-seven or thirty-eight years. Out of the blue, I receive an email from a stranger located in New England, inquiring as to whether I might be the maker of a couple of quilts that he'd recently purchased. After a brief email exchange, he provided more detail on his purchase. While looking for an antique roll-top desk at a flea market in Waterbury, Vermont, he happened to pass by a vendor selling moving blankets. Anticipating the need for protection for the desk he expected to purchase eventually, he decided to take a few with him. I'll let him continue the story:

"I ran across a vendor selling moving blankets. I would need these to protect the roll roll top desk I would eventually purchase so I bought 6 of them for future use. Sitting next to the pile of blankets was another pile of some unknown textiles. The item I first saw would be the quilt named POPPIES. I unfolded it and was amazed/impressed at how nice it looked. It is apparent even to the untrained eye the time/effort required to make it. 

"I will admit I know nothing about quilts and what is involved in making them. I had no idea who Michael James was and normally would not have purchased it had it not been for the following...[Here I've cut a couple of lines to protect the writer's privacy.]... We agreed on a price for POPPIES and the vendor talked me into buying the other quilt known as TOSSED SALAD. On my drive home the smell of the quilts in a closed car was apparent, reminded me of a clothes hamper full of sweaty gym socks. I was not looking forward to showing these to my wife. It was also clear why the vendor wanted them gone. They were purchased in July/August 2015.

"The guy selling them had very little information on the quilts but told me they were victims of Tropical Storm Irene which hit Vermont in August 2011. The entire town of Waterbury was flooded and damage still exists today. I am certain the quilts were not submerged in flood water but suspect they were stored folded in a very damp place for an extended duration of time. I cannot validate his story but it seems plausable. I have been back to the flea market several times since 2015 but could not locate the vendor who I bought them from. 

"Also, The entire IBM site in Essex Junction has been sold to a company called Global Foundries. This occurred in early 2015. It is possible these quilts became available during renovations at the site. If they weren't 40 years old and damp/musty I would think this was the most likely story. But you never know."

And he kindly provided some photos, front and back, to apprise me of its condition.

I can't assess the odor issue by way of digital images, but the visual and material condition of the quilt looks to be pretty good. There may be some fading and color shifting (hard to determine in photos made with someone's smart phone of unknown vintage), but overall its integrity appears to be intact.

The Poppies quilt that my correspondent refers to in his account of acquiring these works is not one of my favorite pieces, looking back on that period when I was still experimenting with many different structures and techniques. It was completed in 1979, measures 56" high x 65" wide, and was a log cabin improvisation. By the time I'd finished it, I'd convinced myself that the Log Cabin form did not lend itself to figurative imagery. I still pretty much believe that. Nice try, I say to myself. The folks at IBM liked it at the time, and I was happy to place it with them. Other than the report from Mr. X on the smell it's acquired, I don't know its current condition. This photo shows it when it was completed.

Dining hall of the IBM headquarters in Essex Junction, near Burlington, Vermont, in the mid-1980s, with Poppy hanging at left. It would turn up many years later in an outdoor flea market in Waterbury, Vermont, victim of evident neglect, to be rescued by a perceptive passerby. What is it that still holds women's work in such low regard?

This is not the first report I've had that someone has acquired some of my older work in a second hand store or flea market. The objects are burdened by being quilts. That's often where quilts end up when the families that passed them down or around no longer want them. It seems to be the way some corporate clients decide to dispose of artwork that's been hanging on their walls thanks to previous and long-departed administrators and managers, or "art committees," no longer even remembered. Why no one would do a little research to find out more about the work is really concerning. My name is on both of these pieces, just search online for "Michael James quilts." Heck, if you're gonna give it to a flea market dealer or a second-hand shop, I'll gladly take it off your hands.

But of course, male quilter notwithstanding, it's "women's work." As such it's still – in the 21st century no less – undervalued, not taken seriously, at least by a percentage of the population-at-large, and even by the art world. We shouldn't be surprised. The push socially and politically is to turn the clock back on women, after years of major advancements and achievements. Flea market quilts as symptoms of a much greater dis-ease.