Looking Back

Every so often a journalist will flatter my partner, Blanche Greenstein, and myself by interviewing us as "influential" or "notable" in expanding people's interest in quilts over the last few decades.  Suddenly feeling like dinosaurs, we are reduced to stumped silence by questions like "What did you do to influence the quilt world, and why?"  The last thing that ever would have occurred to two young, passionate quilt aficionados such as us in the early 1970's was to embark on doing something important and/or significant.  

Our prime focus was to get out there and find the best quilts possible, those amazing and peculiarly American marvels that quilters in the 19th- and early 20th-Century quilters created.  Competition was lively, and getting to flea markets like Shupp's Grove in Pennsylvania before dawn was imperative. Working hurriedly with a flashlight through fresh loads of goodies being brought in by country dealers, was exhausting and, sometimes, exhilarating.  "The lure of the chase" as it has been called was foremost in our minds.  

The delight at occasionally discovering genuine masterpieces is hard to describe.  Those real treasures of the quilting world were on this planet before we arrived, and hopefully will be here long after our departure.  We simply followed our passion, and, with a little luck and a lot of help from friends and clients, we are still at it.  To read more about our partnership, please see our web portrait on Quilt Alliance: http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/treasures/main.php?id=5-16-C