Women Are? Men Are? 2003, 42” h x 98”w; digitally-developed & digitally-printed cotton; reactive dyes; machine-pieced & machine-quilted. Collection, International Quilt Museum. Photo by L. Gawel.

This quilt is a reflection on the dual masculine/feminine principles at work in each of us. I see these principles expressed as aspects of Nature. While many cultures have seen the forest and the earth as ‘mother’, I see the forest as ‘father’ and have pictured it as solid, grounded, enveloping and protective. These qualities could, of course, be as easily and appropriately applied to females as to males. I’ve thought of the ocean/water as the feminine principle, fluid but likewise enveloping, though again, the sea as a symbol of wisdom and as a life source could as easily describe the male principle. The geisha epitomizes the historical Japanese ideal of feminine beauty (not to suggest that this characterizes women in general, but that it stands for one form of the feminine ideal). I feel that both of these figures radiate a kind of empowerment, and what I see in these panels is just that: human beings empowered by these dual principles working within them.

[Trigger warning: here’s where I get political...]

I was thinking along these lines at dawn on a recent frigid morning, as I walked the pooches while listening to a political podcast ** analyzing the many whys and wherefores of the Harris–Walz ticket’s 2024 presidential campaign loss. Roughly half of the country’s voters feels that a self-admitted sexual predator, convicted felon, and proven liar is fit to serve as the US president for a second term (or at least fit enough to get their votes). Stephanie Cutter, one of the Harris-Walz campaign’s leaders, responding to a question about the president-elect’s ability to engage certain groups of hard-to-reach voters, said “It’s important to him that he portray this very masculine, strong figure...constantly picking a fight, showing that he’s going to take something on...we have to pay attention to why people find that appealing.” Indeed.

That aspirational manliness was also manifest in the president-elect’s recent choices for his cabinet nominations. These included three alleged sexual offenders: Matt Gaetz (a possible sex trafficker who, fortunately, withdrew his nomination under pressure), television personality and serial adulterer Pete Hegseth, and the disreputable Kennedy family maverick and former drug addict, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. What a lineup of morally upstanding “men’s men.” I don’t think my father, may he rest in peace, would be impressed.

Nope, what my father got was a son who liked books (a lot), who liked school (a lot), who from a young age loved artful pictures of all kinds and easily lost himself in them, who liked to draw and paint and who tried to make artful pictures himself, and who didn’t care a hoot for team sports of any kind (and still doesn’t). That was the one point on which my father’s disappointment might very well have settled, given his own enthusiasms for basketball, baseball, and football, in that order as the seasons cycled. Two of my male siblings, though, did share his fondness for sports, so he wasn’t left entirely bereft.

MICHAEL JAMES STUDIO QUILTS @ 50﻿

Marking 50 Years in the Domain of the Non-traditional Quilt

MICHAEL JAMES STUDIO QUILTS @ 50