Patchwork Quilt c. 1936

This Patchwork Quilt was made by Charlotte Winter, who lived between 1855 and 1995. Can you imagine her sitting and stitching these tiny pieces of fabric together, building up a pattern bit by bit? The whole thing shimmers with these pale greens and pinks, like a faded memory, and these concentric stars connected by strings of latticework make me think about infinite connection. You can feel the hours of labor, and I wonder what Charlotte was thinking about as she worked, maybe family, maybe love, maybe loss? It reminds me that making is a kind of thinking, with your hands, with the materials right there in front of you. And the way she’s built up the pattern, it’s like she’s improvising, making it up as she goes along. Quilts, like paintings, feel like intimate documents of the people who made them.